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Time Management for School Children: 5 Tactics for Busy Parents

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How Can Parents with School Children Improve their Time Management

Parents often complain that they don’t have time for anything else apart from work and kids. Indeed, raising kids and working in this individualised world is demanding.

If you want to run a lucrative career and give your children proper upbringing, efficient time management is a big must. By this we don’t mean only your own time organisation, but the one of your child(ren), as well. We’ve done some research on this topic, to help our readers and their children organise their time. The result are these five handpicked tactics.

Time Management for School Children

1. Put a family calendar to practice

It’s extremely important to generate the feeling of togetherness with your children. When they realize that you all form one inseparable unit, they’ll be more than happy to follow your guidance through their duties.

One of the most efficient ways to give your children that sense of belonging to your family is to start using a family calendar. It can be an ordinary calendar where you’re going to write down the weekly and monthly duties for every family member.

What’s more, you can also download one of numerous ready-made family calendar templates, like the ones available on Pinterest. Include all your common family events, as well as your children’s school duties and your personal errands in that calendar. That way, the kids will know that they’re equal members to your household, plus, they’ll see how you organise your time.

2. Create a fixed daily schedule

Recent psychological research has shown that children need structure more than affection. Of course, in an ideal world, both these features are important for proper child’s development. However, due to the up-tempo lifestyle most of us lead nowadays, sometimes we don’t have enough time for too much affection. This is where structure is extremely important. What you can do here is offer your children a firm daily schedule.

For starters, set a strict bedtime routine. It will depend on your own work schedule, but it’s essential to put your kids to bed at the right time. The experts from the WebMD website claim that school children aged 7-12 need between 11 and 12 hours of sleep per night.

So, it sounds logical to put your children to bed between 8 and 9 pm.

Still, individual preferences might differ, so don’t force your kid to go to bed at that time if you see that they prefer going to bed a bit earlier or later. What you should bear in mind, however, is that once you find the right bedtime, you should always stick to it, no matter what.

In addition to the right bed time, make sure that they have a proper routine when getting up. Ideally, this routine should be the same regardless of the shift they’re attending that week or month at school.

By establishing this firm daily schedule, you’ll enable your kid to organise all other duties they might have around those fixed ones.

3. Help your child stay organised

Children need to carry a lot of things to school. While in some states and countries children keep all their books and other thing in their school lockers, some kids need to carry their things home and to school.

Because of that, you should help your kid organise their school things.

First and foremost, they need a proper dresser or a chest of drawers. Each drawer or element should be marked with a certain post-it note, so that your child knows what they should keep in which of them. This is what a parent should do – simply show your kid how to form a structure. After that, your child will just follow the pattern you’ve established.

Another benefit of properly organised school things is that your kid will be more efficient with studying.

Also, ask your kid at the end of the day if they’ve prepared everything for the next school day. However, don’t do that instead of them, but let them do their share of work on their own.

4. Help them with learning

This subject usually divides parents in two opposing trenches. One group thinks that children should learn on their own from day one, which will prepare them well for real life. The other group advocates studying with kids.

There’s no simple resolution of this issue.

What we can recommend is to keep a close eye on your kid and adjust to children’s current needs.

Some kids accept the models they’re offered in their education and manage to fit into those patterns. If you’re raising such a kid, it’s highly likely that you won’t need to spend too much time doing homework with them. While these kids seem more self-reliant, they’re often just more adaptable to their surroundings.

As opposed to them, some kids show more individualistic characteristics. Because of that, they often refuse to fit into the existing school models. If you notice that your kid needs a different approach, don’t try to squeeze them into the shapes don’t like. If possible, spend some time with them and help them apply their learning style to their school duties.

On the other hand, if you don’t have enough time for that, you can your kid’s school teachers for advice or turn to a private tutor to help your child study. Sometimes they’ll just need a small nudge to boost their self-confidence and continue to study on their own.

5. Loosen the ties at the weekend

While it’s important to stick to strict time management rules during the work/school week, you can loosen the ties a bit at the weekend. Again, you’re the one who is setting the rules and role models for your child. Since parents use weekends to have some rest and relax, children should be allowed to do the same during that part of the week.

In line with that, let your children stay awake a bit longer at the weekend. Still, don’t overdo with that, because they still need the aforementioned structure.

Moreover, allow them to sleep longer on Saturdays and Sundays, especially if you also indulge in that weekend benefit. This little treat will make them proud, since they’ll do the same thing as their parents.

Also, the weekend is the perfect time for you to spend more time with your children. Therefore, include your kid in some interesting things you do, such as shopping or cooking, or spend your weekend doing some family-bonding activities.

Giving your children some simple responsibilities will help them build their self-confidence. But let them choose what they’d like to do with you and when they’d rather spend some time playing or doing something they don’t do during work days.

Children need to learn that time is an important concept in this world. Parents play an important role in setting an example to their children when it comes to time management.

However, don’t fall into the trap of doing things instead of your children. In this time-management play, your role should be that of a supervisor and a director, rather than a performer. By doing so, you’ll help your children become efficient and well-organised individuals.

Anne Harris is an HR specialist working for londongoverness.com. She recruits nannies, governesses and other childcare professionals, ensuring top-notch services for parents worldwide. In her free time she likes reading about education, and children’s welfare, as well as visiting sports events.


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