Let’s face it…life for kids is busy. Between school, homework and extracurricular activities, they have so much to manage. Helping your children plan out and structure their time can help them feel organized, reduce their stress level and ensure they have balance in their lives. Below are some tips on how to create a well-rounded weekly schedule for your children.
Extracurricular Activities
It’s crucial that kids find passions in life and begin to develop a sense of self through the activities they do. Giving your children a choice of weekly activities (art, music, dance, sports, martial arts, yoga, etc.) allows them to feel a sense of control and confidence. It’s helpful to provide guidelines, however, to ensure that the choices include physical activity for exercise, are age and ability appropriate and work with your family’s overall schedule. Many programs offer free trial classes, which is a fabulous way to let your children try a variety of activities before committing to specific choices for a whole season or semester. To avoid over-scheduling, start with a single activity per day no more than 3-5 days per week. As kids get older, they might be able to manage a longer daily commitment. It depends on the individual. High interest activities tend to have very specific time constraints, so other components of your children’s after-school plan can be scheduled around their choices.
Consistent Homework Time
While there is an ongoing debate about the ideal amount of homework, many schools follow the research-based rule of thumb that students should receive 10 minutes of homework per class per night. That means, for instance, that a fifth grader should expect to spend 50 minutes on average per night doing homework. Teachers don’t always accurately estimate the length of time that activities take and each individual student has their own work pace, so the amount of time your child needs to block off for nightly homework should be individualized based on their actual circumstances. Scheduling a consistent daily time block for your children’s homework completion helps them get into a routine and emphasizes the importance of completing their assignments.
Family Dinners
Carving time out of each day to spend as a family is important. Putting family rituals into place while your kids are young will also help once they hit adolescence. Having family dinners at least four nights per week is a wonderful way to enjoy time together. It opens up space for dialogue, develops relationship-building skills and provides the opportunity for your kids to share details about their experiences and reality. One fun idea might be to let each child choose one dish for the family’s weekly meal plan and to have them help you prepare it so you have extra bonding time.
Daily Duties
Despite your fast-paced life, your kids can benefit and start to learn a sense of responsibility from doing age-appropriate chores. Having a set daily or weekly time for your children to accomplish a short 15-minute checklist of tasks is really helpful. A few ideas of age-appropriate duties for a 10-year-old, for instance, are (un)loading the dishwasher, folding and putting away their laundry and keeping their bedroom tidy. As kids get older, they gain interest in earning money for their work. As they approach their tween years, you can help them explore opportunities for a weekend neighborhood job, such as doing yard work, babysitting or dog walking. It is important, however, that they do not overcommit to a job so they can continue to manage the other aspects of their weekly schedule.
Social Time
It’s important that kids have time to be social and have fun. Life should not feel like it’s all work and children learn, develop and grow trough their social experiences. Outdoor and screen-free play are amazing. It is also acceptable for kids to set aside one hour each day for gaming or talking with friends online. There are really great parental control tools, like Bark, to help you manage and protect your kids on their electronics.
Down Time
Winding down with an hour of screen-free time at the end of each night can help ensure your kids’ minds and bodies prepare for sleep. After a nice warm bath or shower, some great activities you can suggest to your kids are reading, journaling, doodling, guided meditation and restorative yoga. Encouraging your children to create their own ritual will help them buy into this practice.
Reasonable Bedtime
Getting a good night’s sleep on a regular basis is important for kids’ overall wellbeing. Research indicates that children with appropriate sleep habits have improved attention, behavior, learning, memory, emotional regulation, quality of life, and mental and physical health. Depending on their specific age and unique needs, school-age children should get between 8 and 12 hours of sleep per night. Sticking to a consistent sleep schedule will benefit your kids greatly.
Sample After-School Schedule
Here is a sample after-school schedule that is appropriate for a 5th grader. Individualized times would vary depending on the specific age of your children. It’s very helpful to post a weekly version with your children’s specific activities per day on a whiteboard or wall calendar so they can start to develop their time management skills.
3:45pm Activity
5:00pm Homework
6:00pm Family Dinner
6:45pm Daily Duties
7:00pm Social Time
8:00 Down Time
9:00pm Bedtime
Written by Krista G.