Tips for getting your family to slow down, share time

By Peggy O'Crowley
Newhouse News Service

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Is your family's schedule spinning out of control? Here are some tips from the pros on getting it together:

• Write it down. Get a calendar large enough to note everyone's soccer practices, football games, dance lessons, field trips, religion classes, birthday parties or back-to-school nights. Add information like when it's your turn to bring a snack to the game, or if your child needs a bagged lunch for a field trip.

• Have everyone in the family consult the calendar daily to prepare for the next day. Do they need to bring their instruments for after-school lessons? Are the shin guards and cleats ready for practice that afternoon? Have you touched base with a fellow car pooler? A little preparation makes for a less hectic day.

• To keep track of schoolwork, create a folder for each child that includes assignments, spelling words, reports and school-related paperwork like permission slips, and lunch forms and money. For long-term assignments like science projects or history reports, note on a calendar when they are due and then schedule three separate chunks of time for your child to work on the project — such as research and reading, writing a first draft and completing the final version.

• While it's a good idea to schedule a regular time to do homework, figure out when your child's energy and focus are at their best. Some kids do well right after school, while others need some down time or physical activity before they tackle the books.

• If your lives are spent rushing from one activity to the other, it might be time to cut back. Ask yourself: Is your child often tired, irritable, cranky or feeling overwhelmed? Do you spend more time nagging your children about getting to the game, or practicing an instrument, than you do in actual conversation? Do you and your spouse spend weekends shuttling kids to games, lessons and other activities with no time for yourselves?

• Make sure the kids have some down time to play with dolls or build with Legos. Make time to just hang out as a family — play Wiffle Ball in the back yard, work on a jigsaw puzzle, do chores together and try to share meals as often as you can.

Resources

• The National Parenting Teaching Association has lots of advice for parents on how to keep tabs on their children's homework and schedules on its Web site at www.pta.org. Look for the section on parental involvement.

• Professional organizer and author Julie Morgenstern just published a book with her teenage daughter Jessi Morgenstern-Colon, "Organizing From the Inside Out For Teens" (Henry Holt, $15). The book helps teens organize their space and schedules, with techniques such as a "time map."

• If you think it's time to scale back your schedule, two books might help. Just out last month, "Putting Family First: Successful Strategies for Reclaiming Family Life," by William Doherty and Barbara Z. Carlson, argues that structured activities for children are causing a serious decline in the quality of family life. The book offers suggestions of how to cut back on sports, lessons and the like and create family rituals that help strengthen bonds.

Doherty and Carlson also founded Putting Families First, a grass-roots organization at www.familylife1st.org.

"The Over-Scheduled Child: Avoiding the Hyper-Parenting Trap" (St. Martin's Griffin, $13.95), by child psychiatrist Alvin Rosenfeld and writer Nicole Wise, discusses how childhood has become a performance for parents, not a preparation for life. The authors give common-sense advice to help hyper families learn to slow down and enjoy each other. The Web site: www.hyper-parenting.com.

Rosenfeld has launched a new initiative, Family Night a Month, to encourage families to spend at least one night per month together. The Web site: Nationalfamilynight.org.

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