Is your child always late to school? Don't take unpunctuality lightly. Deal with it firmly, and break this habit at the outset.

Many parents don't actively try hard enough to make their child more punctual. At the most, they simply keep reminding their child of the time, telling them to hurry up or they will be late, and so on. This goes on for day after day, year after year… Here's how you can help him break this habit.

Make sure he wakes up earlier

Children that are constantly late have a particular psychology. Instead of getting up earlier the next day, they will still wake up at the same time but will try and get ready faster. This never happens, and they are late yet again - causing them to miss their bus, or reach school late. Before you know it, they will be late for college, late for work, late for meetings, will miss deadlines, and will essentially be late in almost everything in life. This is not how you want your child to be, and if you find that your child is often late for an activity, nip this in the bud. He must wake up earlier than he does everyday. Is it a problem for him to wake up early? Let him try going to bed earlier than he normally does.

Pass on the responsibility

Do you wake your child up every morning? If you do, your child is not taking responsibility for his actions. He is passing on the responsibility to you, so if you don't wake him up on time, he will be late and will blame you. You may even need to keep waking him up while he fights with you every morning. You warn him to get up or you will not wake him up again. He ignores you, and you go back five minutes later and try again.

Stop taking responsibility, and pass it on to him. Get him an alarm clock, and tell him that if he is not up on time, you will not wake him up. Even if he has reaches school really late the first few times, it is worth it since you are working on changing a bad habit that may otherwise last his entire life.

If you still cannot bear to see him reach school so late, enroll him in extra classes, and take no responsibility for ensuring that he reaches on time other than arranging timely transportation.

Plan his timings with him

Help him get more punctual not by pushing him to hurry up, but by planning a strategy with him. Sit him down and speak to him about his unpunctuality. "Why do you think you are always late?" Ask him how he feels about reaching late everyday, and about getting so stressed every time he comes across a traffic signal. Tell him that a lot of people are very unpunctual, and this is a large contributor to why they are not as successful as they could have been.

Explain the significance

Explain to your child that he should not take this lightly, and that he should work towards being more punctual. Ask him what he thinks he needs to do in order to reach on time, and work with him to plan a solution. Tell him what you think he does wrong, and make sure that you tell him he doesn't need to get ready faster, but he needs to wake up earlier.