Ways to Develop More Structure for Your Family Outside of School
Outside of school, on weekends, holidays, or during summer break, it can be difficult to decide how to fill up the extra time in our children’s days. Adding structure to our days can help to establish clearer expectations, promote more independence, and reduce behavior difficulties.
Developing Routines
If your child’s day is currently less-structured, work on building routines slowly. Identify key times of the day where certain activities should occur and figure out in what order they should happen. You know best what makes the most sense for you and your family. Putting up a list of these tasks, with pictures if possible, can help build its familiarity with our kids and lower the amount of reminders needed over time. Consistency is key! Doing the same thing every time. Consistency in our expectations and in our responses.
The Morning Routine, The Before Lunch Routine, The Weekly Clean Up Routine, The After Dinner Routine, The Before Bedtime Routine… decide with your family what would be the most helpful and have fun creating these routines together by sharing ideas and thoughts as a unit.
Involve the Kids in Schedule-Building
What activities do they want to do? Go swimming? Play with slime? Go to the park? Walk the dog? Are there ways to help them feel a part of the planning process? For example, making a weekly schedule with an open AM block and PM block where the family can collaboratively decide what events they want to participate in together and/or individually can help to establish more predictability around free time periods.
Part of these routines and schedules can include screen time limitations. What are the family rules? Maybe screens are an after-dinner or rainy-day only activity. Include these expectations in the schedule.
Leave Room for Flexibility
We can plan all we want, but we all know that life happens! Be transparent with your children. When you decide that there will be a moment where you’ll be moving away from rules or routine, like staying up past usual bedtime or skipping food shopping and ordering out, for example, it’s helpful to fill them in on why, and explain that it won’t be a continuous occurrence. Explaining why and being transparent allows for more effective deviation to and from the routine, and demonstrates positive modeling to our children on how to manage uncertainty.
Breaks from school can pose as tremendous opportunities for us to connect with our children, create memories, and build important life skills along the way. Establishing structure and routine takes time, so start when you can! How can you begin to set expectations for summer now?