Simplicity Parenting and Schedules

The third area for simplifying, using Simplicity Parenting as a guideline, would be our schedules. It is so easy to get over-scheduled as a family, with all the opportunities out there.

For instance, we were looking at Halloween weekend, and we have a Saturday night party at church organized by the middle school group, and I have to take the family to that one because that's my job. But then there is a YMCA Halloween party Friday night, and a party at the Children's Museum Saturday afternoon. The kids would enjoy both, no doubt - but did we really need three holiday parties in one weekend? That's not mentioning the trick-or-treating on Sunday night, of course. We had a family meeting to vote between the YMCA and the Children's Museum parties, and then later decided to even skip them both.

It's not unusual for us to be very busy on weekends, and for there to be a fun community event that we have to decide whether or not to squeeze in. Sometimes you just can't say YES to everything.

But the thing that ends up choking up most kids' schedules are all the classes and extracurriculars out there. There are so many opportunities, and so many things on my Goals List for the kids to learn. Swimming, horse riding, martial arts, sports, foreign languages, arts, music, dance, etc, etc - trying to squeeze it all in so the kids don't miss anything.

Here is where they use the metaphor of Crop Rotation in Simplicity Parenting, to explain that you don't have to grow every crop in the field all the time, and that every field needs to lie fallow for a season every few years. In our lives, we follow this pattern when our kids only do team sports in the Spring, when we take short-term courses rather than sticking with things for a whole year, and when I keep reminding the kids and myself that there is next year - it's never too late to start learning something new.

Officially, we have a limit of two activities per kid. This Fall that has looked like this:

The girl has swim lessons two mornings a week, and ballet one afternoon a week.

The boy had a science workshop once a week for 4 weeks, and a dance class that ran 6 weeks.

Now that he is done with science and dance for the fall, I've found a spanish language class that he will take on the afternoon freed by dance being over. He also wants to learn some pottery in order to make Christmas gifts for people, so I am going to ask my cousin to give him some private lessons.

Keeping the schedule is a balancing act. Saying Yes to enough, and No to enough to create a pace to life that allows you to enjoy what you are doing instead of just rushing from activity to activity and feeling burned out by it all is an art form. But the effort is absolutely worth it.