How do I help my children balance school, extracurricular activities and family time?
In today’s hectic world, it’s hard to find a spare minute to spend time as a family. What with mountains of homework and scores of extracurricular activities, your kids are just as busy as you are. It’s important to work together as a family to make time to do the things you want to do as well as those you have to.
One option is to pick a set time each week to be family time. Bring out the board games or go see a movie together. Whatever you choose, the whole family should join in the fun. If your schedules vary too much to stick to one specific day each week, schedule special family events ahead of time so no one plans on doing something else that day.
A great way to spend time with your family is by sharing dinner together. It’s very rare in this day and age that families eat dinner together every night. Make it a point to have dinner as a family a few nights a week. This will give you a chance to catch up on everything that has been going on throughout the week. It’s a good time to share stories or talk about a problem someone might have. Don’t let your kids get away with one-word answers, either. When you ask how school is, expect a real reply or keep asking other questions until you get one.
It might help if you share something that happened during your day to get the ball rolling.
School should take first priority, but getting involved in activities is important for your children to become well-rounded individuals as well. You want to make sure that they don’t become overwhelmed, however. Kids tend to want to try everything, which is a great way to learn about new skills and interests but can sometimes be a strain on a hectic schedule. Try limiting your child’s extracurricular or sport activities to only a few per season. This way they still get to do things they enjoy but have more time for other things like family, chores and school work.
It can be really difficult sometimes for kids to get all of their homework done, especially if they are involved in a lot of activities.
To help them be productive when it comes to homework, you should agree on a time and place that homework is done everyday. This routine will help your child get more work done in the time that he or she has. The homework spot should be somewhere with minimum distractions and with everything that your child needs to complete his or her homework. They should also be studying something every night. You may want to have them bring something to study to you every night so that you can go over it together or maybe even make a fun game out of it, like Jeopardy for example. This way they hardly even know they are studying. If they don’t have anything to study, get them to pick out a book they want to read and set a goal for how far they should get in the book that day.
Keeping to this set schedule helps them get into a routine and accomplish more.
True, it is challenging, but it’s not impossible to balance family, school, work, activities and household obligations. It may help your child (or even you) to make a daily or weekly schedule of things to be done, this way you always stay on track and have time left over to do the things you want to do.
Learn more at
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Belt-Parenting-Solomon-Brenner/dp/0974630802/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-7396940-6424000?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173459223&sr=8-1
