The Happy Libertarian

How the Family Schedule Affects Your Child


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[Week 2 of 52 Weeks to a Better Relationship With Your Child]
What is a schedule?

A schedule is an attempt to allot time to certain activities and outcomes. Some scheduling is obviously useful. It helps people make agreements and do business.

Schedules are also a way to be considerate to other people. Making it to an appointment or meeting a deadline makes it more possible for other people to use their time the way they want to. Any way you look at it, a schedule is a reflection of our priorities.

From a child’s perspective, the family schedule has three main categories.

  1. parent’s schedule
  2. child’s schedule
  3. other family members and household schedule
  4. All of these converge on a child’s life. The way schedules are handled has the potential to foster relationship or squeeze the life right out of it. The choice is basically in the hands of the parent.

    The limits of a schedule

    As adults, we can feel very pressed by responsibility. Scheduling can help us attend to the responsibilities such as feeding the family or paying the bills to keep a roof over everyone. Scheduling can also lead to developing good habits or making use of discretionary time.

    Scheduling is a little more iffy when it comes to relationship. Relationships need relatively large blocks of time to grow. These blocks of time need to be very regular and frequent. For a child this usually means at least daily. The time involved needs to be somewhat unstructured in how it dictates human interaction and communication.

    Relationships also require time frames flexible enough to allow opportunity for self-initiated relating. It takes time to get to the deeper levels of communication. The mind must be given time to relax. There needs to be time to sift through the more obvious decision making or sharing of events. Then there is time and inclination to test the deeper thoughts and concerns of the day.

    Fake relationships versus organized social opportunities

    Some people mistake programmed interaction for the communication of relationship. Programmed interaction may seem like a way to stimulate social bonds, but unless the individuals themselves spend significant time initiating personal communication, there will only be the facade of a relationship.

    An example of programmed interaction is where someone outside of the potential relationship creates detailed and time consuming plans for interaction. This could be a therapist or religious leader or sports coach. Even if done with the best of intentions, it can often lead to frustration unless the people who are the primary actors in the relationship take over control of interaction.

    This doesn’t mean that nothing can be organized. A game or a meal or a project has been the backdrop of many a growing relationship. The difference is that such broad arrangements for when, w

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    The Happy LibertarianBy Laura Blodgett