Most parents these days are blown away by the demands on their child’s time. When you were a kid, you went to school and you came home. Maybe you played a sport or suffered through piano lessons once a week, but for the most part afternoons were whiled away with friends until dinner time, and then it was on to homework, a bath, and bed. Today it seems like kids are going from sunup until midnight, with a schedule jam-packed with schooling, extracurricular activities galore (sometimes two or more a day), stacks of homework that rivaled your college curriculum, and very little time left over for friends, sleep, or anything else. Play-dates, something you never even heard of as a kid, now have to be scheduled far in advance so they fit into the mix. So when it comes to managing your child’s schedule you may find yourself at something of a loss; after all, it’s not like you signed up to be a personal assistant when you decided to start a family. If you’re struggling to get your child’s crazy timeline under control, here are a few tips to make the calendar manageable.
The best place to start is by paring it down. Your child may be keen to pursue all sorts of interests, but if he’s not hitting the hay until long after sundown and the lack of sleep is starting to affect everyone, then it’s definitely time to take the upper hand and limit his activities. You don’t have to stifle your child’s creativity or drive to do this, either. Simply allow him to choose one or two interests at a time [Read more…]
