Most routine charts are built for a perfect Tuesday. Real weeks have late dinners, one parent travelling and a child who has decided socks are an outrage. A routine that survives is shorter than you think.
A twelve-step chart is a test the child fails nightly. Every missed step teaches that the chart is decoration. Four or five steps, always in the same order, teaches the opposite: this is what happens, and it happens every time.
Order matters more than content. A child who knows bath always comes before teeth is not negotiating bath — they are just doing the next thing.
Five steps, same order, no words required.
The two points every morning fails at.
Five feelings, not forty. Why naming settles a child.