This year is officially our most challenging year for school schedules. For the past five years, we’ve homeschooled all of our six kids but this year our three oldest are back in public school, at three different schools, and Wil is going to preschool (we are still homeschooling Ali). There are a few different reasons why we decided to have our three oldest jump back into public school but stay tuned for those reasons in a later post (it’s going to be a long one). For this post, I wanted to share how the lighting in our house has helped our kids to adjust to new school schedules and routines after getting used to long summer days. This post is in partnership with Philips Hue but I have been a long time believer that the lighting in your house can affect your family’s mood and focus in many different ways.
Shaking Off Summer
Even though school starts in late August, it’s not usually until the middle of September before our kids start learning that most of their nightly requests will be answered with “You can’t, you have school tomorrow”. The hardest part about shaking off summer schedules with our kids is getting them to start thinking differently. One thing that has helped our family is adjusting the lighting in our house. I never understood why my mom was so religious about using lamps at night. If we turned on the main lights in our house my mom would be right behind us turning them off. It wasn’t until I was older that I noticed how the warm glow of those lamps at night helped to slow my racing mind and relax me before bed. I grew so accustomed to that lighting at night that I started doing the same thing with my own family, but the only difference now is that we are able to automate our lights for bed time routines. Through the Philips Hue app, we’ve programmed our lights at 8 pm to slowly begin dimming from the bluer hues to the warmer relaxing colors. By 9pm, our main house lights are off and only two or three lamps are lighting the rest of our upstairs. This slight adjustment in light creates a noticeable difference in our kids. They start winding down and it gets their minds thinking about bedtime. Between 9:15 and 9:30 our kids are usually done with their homework (notice I said usually) and we all start gravitating to the family room. The WiFi automatically turns off at this time and all of the electronic devices are parked at a designated spot in the kitchen. This is my favorite time of the day because we are 100% focused on each other. It allows me to get a nice download from my kids about their day and they usually are the first ones to ask about heading down to their rooms for bed.
Waking Up and Staying Focused
The second challenge of adjusting back to school routines are the mornings. Last week was officially the first day of Fall, which means that the days are getting shorter and the mornings aren’t as bright and inviting like they are in the summer. I love Fall but I really struggle getting up in the mornings without that beautiful old sun peeking through my blinds every morning. I notice myself hitting the snooze button so much more as the colder months roll in and the only thing that really gets me up is our dog Annie. This month is my first time using an automated lighting routine to wake me up. In the Philips Hue app I created a schedule for my bedroom lights to slowly come on starting at 5:30am (I know it’s early, but we have a lot of kids to get ready). When the alarm goes off my eyes are already acclimated to the light in the room and it is so much easier to roll out of bed (as long as Nikki hasn’t opened a window in the middle of the night and it is freezing in our room). The main lights in our house are also programmed to slowly turn on in the mornings with a cooler tone (Philips Hue Energize light scene) to help our older kids who wake up early to feel refreshed and more alert as they eat breakfast. I used to think that the warmer tones were good in the mornings but after reading a couple different studies, I learned that the cooler tones can help you feel more energized during the day.
Summarize
I hope you like these lighting tips. They have honestly helped soften the blow of back to school routines for me and my family. Please comment below if you have any other ideas that might be helpful for getting your kids back into the school routine after summer.
- Start turning on warmer color lights at least an hour before bed to help relax you and your kids.
- Refrain from using a lot of lights before bed especially lights that have a brighter blue hue.
- Use a Philips Hue smart lighting kit to help control the lighting in the mornings and at night – and really 24/7/365. It will help you stay consistent as you use lighting to help your kids relax or feel energized. This kit also has a lot more options that I didn’t even discuss so please check out this link to learn more.
- Consider turning off the WiFi an hour before bed.
- Try to gather your family all together before bed as you relax and unwind. It may be a struggle at first, but your kids will end up looking forward to it (even though they may not say so).
