My husband and I both work full time.  So when we can’t be with our kids, we want to make sure they are getting the most out of their day.  We also want to make sure that they know what to expect from each day, before or during the day.  In order to make sure they were getting plenty of reading time, spelling time, math time and play time, along with the lessons that we have them in, we had to put some guidelines in place.  We have a nanny, so we ask her to follow our schedule.  If I were a stay at home mom, I would still have the same guidelines but I would allow myself to be more flexible than I do our nanny.

Once we established that we HAD to set guidelines we decided upon a few things…

• We have the girls’ schedule printed and hanging on the wall in the kitchen.  This provides them with reminders of what they have each day and my youngest thrives on a strict schedule.  She will remind the nanny of what she is supposed to be doing or what comes next.
• We made the schedule look fun and cheerful rather than making it a gloomy to do list.
• We schedule the girls in lessons that happen (mostly) before we get home from work.  We can usually stop by and pick them up from their lessons on our way home from the office.
• If we want to do something as a family, we will allow the girls to miss there lessons (unless it is a couple of weeks before a performance or a meet).
• We accept that just because the schedule is printed, we can still vary from it occasionally.

Those are the things we do for our kids and their schedules.

If I were a stay at home mom, I would create an extra schedule for me that would include daily chores that I would get done.  By creating the charts, I find that I am held more accountable, by no one but myself.

Also, as a couple we have found that we do better getting our tasks done and find time to play if we go through our schedules for the week every Sunday night.

Guidelines and Schedules help us.  How do you fit in all that you can?

***(PS – My sister created my chart for me and we printed it off at Costco.  She took pictures from one of our books and used them to customize our chart.  You can do the same thing with your favorite children’s books and create your own chart.  BUT you can’t sell them because you (nor we) have the rights to do so.)