Thursday, April 14, 2011

Schedules: Get Your Family Involved!


Know what’s harder than putting a schedule together and making it work?

Putting it together and making it work when it involves people other than yourself.

Everyone is different. They have different priorities, different strengths and weaknesses. Different routines. And they don’t all fit into the nice-sized gift box that is our own vision of a schedule. Son is more active in the morning and can accomplish his chores as soon as he wakes up, while Daughter has to be dragged out of bed, kicking and screaming. Hubby’s mornings are rushed, but he gets off at a decent time and has some spare time between work and dinner.

I hope that you kept that in mind as you built your personal-slash-family schedule. Now that you’ve got the schedule planned out, it’s time to get the family involved!

Call a family meeting. Relate the schedule as you see it…don’t forget to include the why and wherefore. Sometimes people are more cooperative when they understand where you’re coming from.

Listen. Really listen. The kind of listening that workshops talk about. That means open your mind to the possibility that the schedule is not yet perfect (trust me, it’s probably not). My hubby and I had to discuss in depth how much time I would to devote to my writing, and when it was best to work in that time. We came up with an excellent schedule that actually afforded me more time than I had anticipated!

Work out the kinks they point out. If Son thinks his grades would improve if he dropped one of his three extra-curricular activities because he’d have more time to study. Go with it. If hubby says it’s too much of a stretch to make it home for dinner at 5:30, but he could definitely make it more consistently at 6. Go for it. It doesn’t hurt to try.

One big fact to realize is that, just like a schedule isn’t right for every family, it may not be for every person in the family either. Some people freeze under such structure, others thrive in knowing exactly what comes next. As long as the routine is understood and everyone is knows what is expected of them (i.e. Son takes out the trash at night before he can watch TV) then you are on the right track.

When your family is on board, it makes everything easier. You don’t have to fight them tooth and nail at every point in the day. In fact, isn’t that the point of a schedule? To make sure you get the necessary things done and out of the way so you can enjoy more time with the ones you love?

God bless and have a great weekend!

2 comments:

  1. Yup - I agree with everything you said. Even with just my DH and DD - 3 people gets a little crazy! Scheduling compatibly is so important :)

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  2. So true!! After struggling with bedtimes for our girls, we finally moved our dinnertime to 4:30pm - a small switch, but one that has made such a difference in our daily schedule!

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