Routines for a New School Year: What We Are Trying
It feels like all I’ve been doing is writing about routines for a new school year! I had this post about our routines last year. And then this post about our routines for distance learning. And now I’m writing about routines for going back to school part-time.
Starting today, the boys are heading back to school from 7:45am-11am, Tuesday through Friday. They will work on their distance learning homework at school. If they finish it at school, they don’t have any homework. If they don’t finish it, they have to come home and do homework. They still have a full set of distance learning assignments on Mondays.
I will keep helping them with some of their work on Mondays the way I am now. I’m also working from home on Tuesdays and Fridays. I think we will keep giving them screen time on a daily basis. It really motivates them and gives Matt more down time. Maybe that will be from 1-3pm every day? And then they can all go on an adventure from 3-4:30pm to get out of the house and into nature or just play at home? Then they could work their Prodigy math while Matt cooks dinner?
Pain Points in Our Current Routines
Right now, our boys aren’t doing nearly enough chores. We haven’t been keeping up with our plan for chores as the boys get older.We are all sitting down together for dinner, but it has a rather amorphous ending. If one of them refuses to eat what we are serving, then they are up and playing before Matt and I finish. So sometimes they clear their plates, rinse them, and put it in the dishwasher. Other times they don’t.
The playing gets so loud and rowdy that Matt and I end up escaping to another room. Then the dishes just sit there until the following morning.
Typing all of this out makes me realize I want to have a more defined dinner period and clean-up period. But I want to make it quick so the boys get to playing and Matt and I get to resting!
I want to sit down with everyone in a Family Meeting and hear their ideas as well!
2 Comments
Mamaschlick
I had similar thoughts/issues. Three things have worked so far. One is not probably a wacky strategy, but here goes:
1) after asking for help repeatedly in the past, we started doing this: hub and I would stop clearing and say “ok we aren’t cleaning up either. This is how our kitchen will look for your breakfast” or some such statement. Sometimes I say to hub-“well I’d rather write in my journal so I’m gonna do that”(instead of clean up) and then he follows with something he would like to do. NEVER in a mean tone. A playful tone but it gets our kid to think about it. Luckily, our kid is very justice oriented and plus watching his parents “slack off” kinda startles him into action. This might sound mean but I promise it is not and we are all smiling while saying these things but also conveying a “think about it tone.” Kind of the “what if everyone did that” tactic. And they key is we say it to each other so he will overhear but not directly to him. It works in that he realizes it isn’t fair for him to play while we work. It lasts a week and sometimes after that we repeat.
2) ok if you don’t like that nutty approach, one simple thing that has worked well is giving him the rule that after dinner you are either a) cleaning up or b) flossing, brushing, getting pjs on or otherwise getting ready for bed. Maybe this doesn’t help with chores, but honestly him getting ready then helps us get free time earlier. And no matter what, he has to clear his plate. If he says he will get ready for bed but starts getting distracted we gently say “oops-are you getting ready for bed or clearing the table?” Somehow giving him these two options forces him to choose. He doesn’t always choose one over the other.
3) we talk about something really interesting or funny while cleaning up, sing a song we know he likes or play a game while we clean up. This leads him to join in and help-i’ll hand him things to put away or ask him to do tasks. They say try to make chores fun…
Lastly, we have always been able to motivate him with reminding him what practical consequences might follow, like-we might get roaches if food is left out or ask if he would like to start his new day with a room that is this messy. (For a long time he didn’t care and this was not effective but now he admitted he really does care about his room looking clean and that it affects his mood)
I only have one kid not two, or maybe these strategies won’t work for your family, but good luck and I hope they do! (:
Sara Cotner
Thank you for taking time to type out all of these ideas and suggestions, Mamaschlick! It’s always helpful to hear how others are dealing with the difficulty of parenting!