The return to school season is in session. You may be trying to rediscover your routine. Coming back from a lazy, hazy summer day can be tough not only for your child, but for the entire family as well. Your schedule will be busier, but that doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice quality time with your family. For a gentle and easy grade, you can find the balance for everyone.
It is very important to balance in our lives. When we are pulled in 1000 different directions at a time, we are not as effective as necessary. Do you feel like you can’t literally think straight because there’s so much going on in a week? This is when we are in a gross, unforgettable, and negligent way of caring for ourselves.
When we have a balance in our lives, we are much more calm, happy, and more energetic. This applies to our children too. When we don’t have balance, they don’t have balance. An overly busy life affects the whole family.
Prioritizing Commitment: Identify what’s most important
Start by prioritizing your commitments. Make a list of all the things you do in this grade. Extracurricular activities, recitals, plays, sports games (both home and away), band events, and more.
Next, add commitments such as work meetings, overtime, work trips, and social events.
Next, go down the list and prioritize what matters most. Instead of having your child do any extracurricular activities under the sun, let them choose one or two that match their particular interests. Does your daughter like soccer and stem activities? Limit her to playing on a soccer team and joining a STEM club. Does your son love soccer and writing? All you need to do is allow him to go out to soccer and join a group of young writers.
Watch your own activities and events approach. After you get home from the previous night’s work trip, do you really want to attend your step-sister’s spoiled chef party? no? Then it gently fades away.
Conclusion: Even if you don’t want to, prioritize what’s most important to you, not what you feel needs to do.
Creating a Family Schedule: Tools for Organizations
It is important to create a family schedule. In this way, everyone knows what everyone else is doing and what is happening. Dad knows that mom will meet late at work and he has to cook dinner. Ella knows that grandma is picking up her after a swim. Because mom is practicing soccer with her brother, and her dad is still working. Brian knows that his dad is running a few minutes late as he is a few minutes late at work.
Here are some ways to create a family schedule:
-Have morning and evening routines. This way, everyone knows what they need to do, whether it’s setting up breakfast, making coffee, or walking their dog in the morning. Alternatively, remove the dishwasher, feed the dog, and wash away pots and pans in the evening.
– Plan your meal first. Sit down and write the menu for two weeks at a time. This helps you to go shopping for grocery and helps you become more organized.
– Create a chore system. Write chore charts on an eraseable whiteboard and store in the fridge. Make sure everyone has a job to help keep your home clean.
Tools to keep you organized:
Here are some digital tools you can use to organize:
-Cozi
-ourhome (to assign chores to children)
– Google Family Calendar (for those with young children)
-FamilyWall (You can view the activities and interactions of each family)
-Fabfarm (family with busy social calendar)
-Calroo (Academic focused families)
– Family tools (use it to assign chores, homework tracking, listings, calendars)
-Weparent (Ideal for joint situations and busy parents)
Each of these apps has unique features, so choose the right one.
Encourage open communication: discuss needs and expectations
It is important to keep communication open for busy families. It’s easy to get very involved in what we’re doing because we ignore other families. It’s not intentional. Sometimes it just happens. Therefore, the lines of communication should always remain open.
One way to promote this is to express your needs and expectations right away. Sit with your child a few weeks before school starts and explain to them what your needs and expectations are for this grade. Please let us know if you need to take more responsibility. If you had problems with them lying about things last year, let them know you need to be honest about what’s going on this year. Go a step further and explain to them why you need them to do this. It’s not just mommy or dad, but it’s about how it helps you and how it helps.
Don’t forget to keep up with your homework, commit to extracurricular activities, be kind people, volunteering at the church, hearing the voices of authoritative people, improve your grades and sorting out the results along with those expectations. Children need to bring consequences for their actions. It’s difficult for parents to do that these days, but you raise resilient, conscientious and caring children for it.
Also, emphasize that the lines of communication are always open.
Quality over quantity: Make the most of your family time
It is important for a family to spend quality time. More than the amount. Sometimes those little moments of quality time with our loved ones mean everything.
So, when life is busy, how do we spend quality time with our loved ones? Here are some tips:
– Change electronics. This way there is no distraction. Also make sure your child does the same with all electronic devices.
– Involve your child while planning how to spend quality time. They love to work so that everyone can do what they need to do.
– We talk to each other. Spend one-on-one time with your family. You can do this in a few different ways. One can make sure you spend 10 minutes with your kids every night before going to bed. The second is splitting up a month over the weekend, spending one-on-one time with the kids. For example, one weekend mom spends time with Lacey on Saturday, while dad spends time with Joel on Sunday. The following weekend, Mom will spend time with Charlotte on Saturday, while Dad will spend time with Zack on Sunday.
– We’ll eat together. Who doesn’t love food? Family dinners are a great way to enjoy food and fellowship. It has also been shown that family dinners have a major impact on children.
– Do small things. You can also find quality time with little things, such as going out for ice cream together, watching your favorite TV shows and movies together, or teaching them how to do something.
Setting boundaries: Navigate homework and extracurricular activities
Make sure you set boundaries with homework and extracurricular activities. Let your child know that if they can’t keep up with their homework and get good grades, they won’t be able to participate in extracurricular activities.
Each person must do something suitable for their children (or children) and their families.
Flexibility and adaptability: Adjust your plans as needed
Our lives are busy and we should not be afraid to change our plans. Flexibility and adaptability are important. If you’re overwhelmed by how busy your life is, don’t be afraid to refuse party invitations or night out with friends. Don’t be afraid to limit the parties or events your kids will go to. Overall, be open-minded, always flexible and ready to adapt as needed. For example, for a long practice, place a bag of snacks and water bottles in your car. If you’re too tired to cook, order pizza. You don’t always set your plans with stones.
Quality time with family is important, but balancing school and family time can be difficult. By planning, setting boundaries and getting everyone on the same page, you will still be in the best grade.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Johner Images
Carrie Laurance is a freelance author and author. She has featured her works on Crosswalk, Everie Ave, Huffington Post and Penny’s Hoarding. She is also the author of three children’s books, three clean romance books, one romance novel, three poetry books, one non-fiction book. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys cooking and baking, reading, and her husband, sweet pussy, cupcakes. For more information about Carrie and her writing, please visit www.carrielowrance.com.
