A lot of parents struggle with finding the time to balance their child’s education and school needs with their own busy schedule. Most parents already have to deal with demanding work schedules, and they have to find some way to juggle everything else in; a social life, family time, extracurricular activities, and they have to still find time for their child’s daycare, school activities, and homework.
It is easy to see how many parents feel overwhelmed and end up exhausted at the end of every day. This could lead to a burn out, or you could find yourself unable to attend to some of your obligations. Sometimes, it’s even your child’s education that suffers due to your exhaustion.
Thankfully, there are ways you can balance your own busy schedule with your child’s education, and still create time for other things.
- Plan and organize your days
If you have a busy life, it is important that you create a reliable schedule. You can’t face every day without a plan, because you are more likely to forget one or two things, or spend more time on a particular task and leave out the others. Organize your day with a good planner, and mark important days on your calendar. Schedule your events and tasks in their order of importance, and highlight the ones that are absolutely non-negotiable. Make sure you create space for your personal needs, and time for other activities.
- Work on small tasks over time
It is difficult to create one-on-one time with your child if you’re working with a busy schedule. Teachers who handle younger students use a technique known as “chunking”. This is where information and activities are organized into smaller bits for children to assimilate over time. You can use this method on your own self at home. For example, if you need to help your preschooler with learning letters and counting, organize the lessons into smaller bits. On the first day, help them with the first five letters of the alphabet using writing worksheets, and help them perfect counting 1 – 10.
Repeating these small tasks for short periods at a time over an extended period will help your kids learn better.
- Create and follow routines
Create a scale of preference based on what is important to you, and stick to your routines. For example, if your family cannot have breakfast and dinner together every day of the week, select the days that works for everybody where the entire family can sit together for dinner and/or breakfast. Or, you can choose to have bedtime stories or bath time as you and your child’s quality time. Decide ahead of time what activities are important to you, and plan your day around them.
- Make space for downtime
As you slot in activity after into your busy day, don’t forget to make time for yourself. No matter how busy and packed your day is, remember that you should not give to others and neglect yourself. Create time to do something that you love, and also causes you to unwind. If you are worried about what your child might be doing while you unwind, there are plenty of educational apps and writing worksheets for 1st grade available to keep them learning.
No doubt that it is indeed tricky to manage a work life while juggling family, social obligations, and children, but it is doable. The strategies we have listed will help you maneuver through some of the hectic days that would have you feeling overwhelmed.
