Elvira L. (SEI) about Getting Up in the Morning

One memory from my childhood (around age seven to nine) that stands out is how I used to wake up in the mornings. My mom always woke me up gently: she would first come into the room and turn on a soft light from the desk lamp, sit down on my bed, kiss me, and say something quietly. Sometimes she would come in more than once until I was fully awake.

My dad, on the other hand, would burst in noisily, flip on the brightest light from the ceiling lamp, and shout something like, “Wake up! How long are you going to sleep?!” Sometimes he would even pull the blanket off me. It was extremely unpleasant. To this day, I still hate the Russian national anthem, which my dad used to blast on the radio at six in the morning to wake me up.

A SEI child should be woken up gradually, under no circumstances irritating their senses with bright lights, loud sounds, or similar things.