9 Strategies for Balancing Work, Kids, and Activities During the School Year.
Are you familiar with the classic circus act of spinning plates, where the performer has to frantically run from plate to plate to keep them spinning on top of those flimsy sticks to prevent them from shattering on the ground? If you’re a busy parent, perhaps you can relate!
All the things parents have to keep “spinning” in their lives, especially during a school year, can be exhausting and frustrating. Nevertheless, you gladly do it because you want those you love to be happy and thriving.
While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for finding that ideal balance in your life, there are many effective strategies parents can use to help them be more efficient and successful at keeping their plates spinning.
Let’s take a look at few of those strategies, with the hope of adding more balance to our lives when we’re trying to do it all.
Strategy #1: Design routines and stick with them.
As ABA therapists, we talk a lot about the importance of creating and maintaining routines. The great thing about routines is they not only help children on the autism spectrum, they can help everyone by adding predictability to our lives. With routines, we always know what to expect. There’s no guesswork to routines, so they work to our reduce and make our hectic lives a little easier. Morning and evening routines, in particular, are a great way to start and end your day, plus they can work to strengthen family bonds. A win-win.
Another strategy along the same lines is having an area in your home where you routinely keep things you’ll need to grab before heading out the door, like keys, backpacks, briefcases, umbrellas, etc. Have them ready to go the night before to eliminate last-minute scrambles that can throw a wrench into your whole day.
Strategy #2: Make to-do lists for home and work.
Making a list is the process of getting organized for the day, the week, or month ahead. With everything going on in your life, lists can help keep you focused on what’s most important. Lists also work to reduce your stress because you’ve already done the hard work – thinking through everything and prioritizing. Once you have a list created, it’s all about getting things done and checking them off. The key is to create realistic goals for yourself, so you don’t feel overwhelmed. You want to feel a sense of accomplishment instead.
Strategy #3: Create a weekly family calendar.
In ABA terms, calendars are a type of visual aid. They help you see or visualize your schedule. Calendars are similar to lists as they both contain to-dos, events, and activities that matter most to you and your family. They remind families of what they have planned, keep parents and kiddos on the same page, and can be changed as needs arise. Calendars can be a physical planner you hang up on the fridge or a digital version that everyone can access online. A best practice for families is gather to gather at least once a week to review and discuss their calendar in order to eliminate conflicts ahead of time and ensure everyone’s needs are being met.
Strategy #4: Negotiate flexible work hours with your employer.
Flexible work hours, or being able to choose when your work day begins and ends, offer benefits for both employees and employers. As an employee, you’re able to better manage your work and parent duties. You’ll have more control over your time and your job satisfaction will increase as a result. For employers, they get a happier employee who’s able to work more productively without having to worrying about not being able to meet the needs of their children.
Before you talk with your boss, do a bit of homework to decide what flexible hours would look like for your role and your needs. It has to be feasible for you, your team, and your employer. Be sure to set clear expectations with your employer about the working hours you want, but also be prepared to comprise and stay open to periodic reviews of your arrangement to ensure they’re still working for everyone involved.
Strategy #5: Draw clear lines between work and home.
This strategy ties into Strategy #4 above. The goal here is to protect both your work productivity and your family time. The key is setting boundaries and communicating those boundaries to your employer, your child’s school and teacher, and organizers of your child’s activities. Let them know when you’ll be working and when you’ll be offline, focusing on your family. Being transparent with them ahead of time will help eliminate confusion, while reducing your stress and feelings of guilt.
To help yourself stick to the boundaries you’ve set, create simple routines that will have you transition from work to home mode, like changing your clothes or taking a short walk to decompress when you get home.
Strategy #6: Limit your and your child’s extracurricular activities.
This strategy is an instant timesaver. Fewer extracurricular activities mean less organizing schedules and getting to and from activities, and more time to do other things as a family or nothing at all in particular. With just one or two extracurricular activities, you automatically create a more manageable schedule for yourself and your family. Even better, choose an activity your whole family can do together. What you get out of those activities is beyond compare.
Strategy #7: Take care of yourself.
This one can be hard to do. Guilt can creep in. Don’t let it. A relaxed, clear-headed parent is a better parent. The way to be sure you’re taking care of yourself is add time on your schedule to indulge in something you enjoy, even if it’s just for a few minutes to breathe and recharge. Your needs are just as important as everyone else’s. Schedule a coffee date with a friend. Do some yoga. Enjoy a hobby. Just close your eyes for a few minutes. It’s all about purposefully adding calm to your busy days.
Strategy #8: Build a support network.
Asking for help isn’t always easy or needed. But when do you need help, it’s nice to be able to turn to friends and family who understand and are more than happy to back you up. Your network can include grandparents, neighbors, other parents, babysitters, professional caregivers, teachers, and your child’s medical team, especially ABA therapists. From emergency situations to simply lending a shoulder to cry on, your support network can play a vital role for your well-being as well as your child’s.
Strategy #9: Let your core values lead you.
This strategy brings us full circle. Perhaps the first and best thing you should do when you’re trying to balance work, kids, and activities during the school year is to think about your core values. In other words, what do you care about most? It’s easy for your core values to get lost in the shuffle when you’re reacting to situations as they come at you day in and day out. But when you sit down and write out what your core values are, your priorities in life come into focus. And it’s those priorities that should guide your decisions when it comes to the routines you create, the lists you make, what’s on your family calendar, what activities you participate in, and so on. By following your core values, you’ve got a roadmap for finding true balance in your life.