A mother’s schedule is a carefully chiseled sculpture. The more children she has, the more detail and precision it requires.
I only have two kids but for the past six years, I have made it my life’s work to supplement my children’s formal education with extracurricular activities. I’m a stay-at-home-mom so for now, this type of planning really is my life’s work. Unfortunately, most classes I sign them up for run in seven to 12-week sessions, which means that three or four times a year, I have to re-sculpt our schedules.
Since you’re reading this post on World Moms Blog, I imagine you may be an empathetic sculptor. We live in an era overwhelmed by activities and many of us fall victim to over-programming.
Since become a mom, I’ve worked really hard to maintain a balance between too much and nothing at all. During the long summer stretch, we’ve vacillated between trying a little of everything: farm camp here, sports camp there, swim lessons at the pond, time with grandparents, family road trips; and summers living wherever the moment took us. If you’re at all like me and cherish routine, I don’t recommend the latter.
When it comes to my kids, who are 6 and 3, my aim is to pepper their lives with a variety of activities rather than dowsing them with the entire spice cabinet all at once.
What I find works best for us is selecting one active class and one cultural class per “season.” If one of my kids shows a leaning toward a particular activity over another–like our daughter, who enjoys both swimming and gymnastics—then sometimes, if timing and finances align, I’ll include an extra class.
When program guides start arriving in my in-box, when the season for summer camp sign up begins, it’s time for me to break out my tools: a blank, week-at-a-glance sheet, a highlighter, a calculator and a bottle of wine.
We live in a part of the US where academia flourishes like wheat. Boston is the educational Mecca of America, home to more than 300 colleges and universities. Understandably, this fertile land has yielded a crop of well-educated parents. And well-educated parents have a demand to educate their offspring well, signing them up early for things like Suzuki lessons, pee-wee ballet, language classes and art. (Perhaps the only place more intensely driven in these categories is Manhattan.)
The proliferation of Toddler, preschool and after-school, extra-curricular offerings in our area is mind numbing. So mind numbing, in fact, that every time I have to sign my kids up for new options, it paralyzes me.
Sometimes I joke that I would make a better Communist than a Capitalist because the fewer choices you present me with, the better able I am to choose; offer me a world of options and I’m at a loss. I get caught up in the minutia: “If I sign my daughter up for a music class on the same day she has music at school, will it be overkill?”, “If I drive to the other side of town for a 4:30 Thursday class, will I get stuck in traffic and get dinner on the table too late as a result?”, “If I sign my son up for a morning activity on Tuesdays, will he no longer be able to have playdates with his friend, Charlie?”
I’ve learned not to involve my husband in the decision making process because it makes him crazy. In my husband’s profession, he has much bigger decisions to make involving entire company budgets and the actual workers affected by them. Somehow, the microcosm of my wee world seems like Whoville in comparison.
The best way to keep my husband involved with the goings-on of our progeny is to offer him the option of helping me select the type of classes to sign them up for. Once I have it narrowed down, and only if I’m really at an impasse about why one class might make more sense over another, THEN do I ask for his opinion. Otherwise, he’s happiest left out of the process.
Why am I mentioning all of this? Why should anyone care? Because it’s that time of year again, time to rethink the schedules of my wee-folk while also leaving plenty of time for them/us to be unscheduled and carefree. It’s also nearing the deadline to register for summer camps in my area (the ones that didn’t fill up in January that is), which means it’s time for me to go into systems-overload.
I can barely plot my vegetable garden, let alone plan out our summer yet these are the times and places we live in. You either jump aboard while the ship’s still in the dry dock or you put on your water wings and start paddling like crazy, hoping there still will be space aboard the vessel when you reach it.
Does this happen to you? Do you find yourself derailed by little things now that you’re a mom? How do you plan your child(ren)’s schedule?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Kyla P’an. Kyla also writes about personal musings in her blog, Growing Muses. Kyla is a writer, an editor, mother-of-two and a sculptor.
The photograph used in this post is attributed to adactio. It has a Creative Commons attribution license.
Wow! Am I glad my son is just 2 and I still have least a couple of years to go without this kind of planning. Just planning a little trip to my hometown and deciding the things I need to take makes me crabby. I admire that you can actually think straight and keep your temper after all that.
well, if it’s any consolation, I have a very good friend who is much more of a homebody than I and she is perfectly content only signing her kids up for school with maybe an odd class here and there. I don’t think I’m the norm but then again, I fear perhaps there are some moms out in the world (and down the street) who perhaps sign their kids up for WAY more. I’m not sure who pays the bigger price, the child being over programmed or the parent that has to carpool him/her everywhere.
Scheduling makes my head explode. Same exact mind freeze as packing the little ones for a trip. I’m always glad I made the effort, though–each kid gets one activity on top of preschool, and that’s enough for us at ages 2 and 4.
yeah, I think I upped the activity level right around Buzzy’s age; though, come to think of it, we have always done swim lessons in addition to other activities, it somehow seemed more a life-skill than an extra-curricular. There’s something you could do with them and without crutches!
Kyla – I too sometimes get paralyzed at making decisions when presented with too many choices – so I hear you on that one!
And about the worrying about the little details (overkill, and driving across town, coordinating getting through traffic and making dinner on time, taking time away from playdates) – I feel like you just described me!!
Good luck getting through this next schedule sculpting session 🙂
Thanks, Eva, and here’s to all future sculpting sessions too!
I’ve signed my son up for swimming lessons in the past and this year I am thinking about children’s yoga. I try to keep things simple as we live in the outskirts of the city, in a more rural area, so I try to be at home as much as possible. I do plan a schedule, though, or else I would not able to juggle the kids with my work (which I do from home). Also, I try to keep a daily/weekly rhythm to what we do.
that’s a good approach to life in general and certainly must have been handy while you were finishing up your degree.
Thank you Kyla for giving me a window into my future when my kids get a little older. Right now I’m happy that they attend a very vibrant daycare full-time and have so many activities throughout the week that they come home exhausted but happy. I haven’t felt the need to add classes or activities outside of their school time although I do foresee doing so in the next year but hope we can make those activities family activities that we do together like swimming, long walks, camping. In Laos, maybe my daughter and I can take a traditional dance class together!
You’re welcome, or I’m sorry. You know, you bring up a good point, Dee. A lot of kids in day care are getting exposure to many of the things that SAHMs are signing their kids up for as extra-curricular activities, in many case, the former are getting even more exposure than the latter and for that, I am envious. A Laotian dance class would be so awesome! I hope you find one (and write to tell us about it too)
I agree with you 100 percent. We live in a world of over scheduled lives for both kids and parents. I try my best to not have my kids do too much. It drives me crazy and stresses everyone out. I pick one or two activities tops. I keep summer mellow with a little bit of camps and the rest just being together. They grow up so fast that I don’t want to rush life and I also think it is important to teach them balance and how to be bored. We all need down time! Great post!
And especially challenging for those of us who are highly-active human-doers (present company included!). I think my kids, especially my son, would be perfectly happy being bored once in a while but I don’t give them a lot of opportunities. I’ll remember that it was you who suggested needing down time next time I read one of your world-travel pieces. See ya on the road!
I couldnt agree with you more Kyla! I just went through this exact process, and I have the luck of living in Manhattan – the choices are REDICULOUS here. I also had to add a new twist to the scheduling. Starting this week, my son’s school day was extended by an hour. So, I had to take a new timetable into consideration, as well as the unknown of how tired he will be afterwards. We decided on T-ball as this term’s sport, and got lucky since it doesn’t start for a month, giving him time to get used to his new school schedule. One thing that is important to remember…for all of the classes in the world, sometimes the best thing for these developing brains is pure boredom. It allows them time to really use their imaginations, and that is a class on its own (and free). 🙂
I feel your pain Maman Aya. I’m often thankful that I’m not an urban mom. I imagine your options (for dining, classes and schooling) are regularly overwhelming. Good luck and keep us all posted!
San Francisco, CA, is similar but maybe a little less intense (but I sure some one would argue that it is more intense 🙂 ). My two girls are very into ballet so they each take their own class which gives me a little cherished 1-on-1 time with the other. Big Girls class is 90 minutes so Little Girl and I often go the pool. Speaking of swimming, everyone in town takes swim classes except us but will again soon. We recently learned that we will start speech therapy for Big Girl which we refer to as “Speech Class” – put the word “class” after it and it is much more appealing. This is on top of pre-school 3 days a week. Recently with the addition of speech therapy twice a week, I actually worried that we are going to run out of time to sit around the house and simply play.
Thanks for your comments Angie. It’s funny but you reminded me of the laser focus I applied to choosing the right preschool. For many of the reasons we all strive for in this post and the comments (namely, letting our kids learn through play), I went with a play-based preschool…think we can count it toward that cherished, unstructured play time? ;o)
I just looked into a mirror – and there you were! One in the same and I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED your post. My daughters are 6 and have always been doing something. I work both in and out of the home, but our planning, thinking and over-thinking are much the same. If I worked only at home, I think it would actually be harder – hats off to you!
Since they were a year old – swim lessons started and continued to present day. May is the end of the rainbow for us. For the amount of money we have spent, I could have built two pools! (laughing)
Since they were about 2, we dabbled in everything from ice skating to gymnastics. Once they got old enough to understand, my only real requirement was – once you start something, you must finish it. I wanted them to learn the importance of finishing something they start and believe in themselves.
We rotate now between 2-3 activities at any one time – but they truly love the things they are doing. As stressful as it is, I am thankful I am able to give them the opportunity to try things – even if it makes my life harder!
Thanks for sharing – I so can relate!!
Thanks for sharing. I can really feel for you. We are in the mid-west, it is not as intense as yours, but very similar. I have to update my calendar constantly. My husband has totally given up on keeping track our son’s schedule. There are times, we have to pack lunch and dinner in the morning, and he eats his dinner in the car in between activities and I will eat my dinner while watching his sports practice… Since we only have one child, I’d rather keep him busy in activities. If he doesn’t have any thing after school, he gets bored easily.
Love your post. Can’t wait to see more …
— LearningMom @bnchen.wordpress.com