10 Tips to a Smooth Sailing Evening
August 25, 2007 by Julie Bonner
Filed under Home & Living
I hope my 10 Tips to a Smooth Sailing Morning helped you out a little. I know that for me personally, when my day starts off organized, the rest of the day just seems to go better.
Also, when my evening goes well, I can go to bed with a smile on my face.
Here are 10 Tips to a Smooth Sailing Evening (for those of you with kids):
1. Figure out which time your child does homework best. Some do best to get it done right after school, while others need time to decompress a little.
2. Turn off the tv at dinner. Use that time to talk about everyone’s day. You could go around the table and have everyone mention their high and low of the day.
3. Have a bedtime routine and stick to it as much as possible. It’s good for your kids to know what to expect each night.
4. On days that you have activities, use the time in the car to talk or do homework. Make travel time work for you, not against you.
5. If you have several kids who all need showers, split them up. Have half shower in the evening and half in the morning.
6. Leave enough time at bedtime so that you can tuck your kids in. I sometimes get in the habit of rushing my kids off to bed and forgetting to spend a few last minutes with them. Singing them a song, saying a bedtime prayer or going over the next day with them can be some special bonding time.
7. Make your school children responsible for gathering up all their items for the next day and putting it in the same spot every evening. Our spot is in the armoire we just put in our living room.
8. Schedule one chore to do each evening so you don’t have to do all the cleaning on Saturday. Mondays you could dust, Tuesdays you could vacuum, etc. Who wants to spend their Saturdays cleaning?
9. If you feel like you are constantly shuttling your kids from one activity to another, see if another mom would be willing to carpool. That way you could both get a break and so could the other kids who are dragged all over the place.
10. Schedule time for you. I hear ya…you’re saying rrrriiiigggghhhht. Just start with 5 minutes in your bed with a magazine or good book. Giving yourself some time to decompress in the evenings is crucial. The parents are the foundation of the home. Our kids rely on us to be well.
Greetings ! These are great tips, surprisingly we do most of these which is big relief because every time we announce a “plan” or ritual the kids listen but I suspect they have learned we (my wife and I) do not adhere to it for too long… which brings me to another idea: once you try something new I wonder if there is value in announcing that “we are going to try this for 2 weeks and then discuss it” or whatever? Another thing we have done that does work is to be upfront and just tell them that we need to go to bed on time because the end of the day is the only time we have to “catch up with each other” and do our own things.
Thoughts?
I have to admit that around our house we can be bad at sticking to a plan too. We have tried sticker charts and keeping track of allowance on a board, etc… and we always forget. Now that our kids are getting older, THEY remind us about allowance and the WE remind them about their chores.
As far as getting in time on bed, our kids fight that too. We are very honest with our kids and don’t really sugar coat most things. We tell them that in order for their parents to stay sane, mom and dad need time alone together. Bottom line. And they need their rest. We also tell them that we want to leave things for them to look forward to when their older, hence, staying up as late as they want. Why ruin the excitement for them now?