Participating in Enrichment Activities : Avoiding Scheduling Conflicts

Of course, determining which pursuits benefit and
appeal to each family member is only half of the process. The important
issue of working the activities into your family’s schedule remains.

caution

Just because someone is good at something doesn’t mean it’s the right choice as one of that person’s enrichment activities.

You cannot be in two places
at the same time. By ignoring or denying this basic fact, many families
create a great deal of tension and stress. Now that you’re taking
control and organizing your family’s schedule, you’ll be able to deal
with scheduling conflicts before they happen and avoid all of the
resulting unpleasantness.

DON’T PLAN TO BE LATE

Planning
to arrive at an event late is a way of avoiding the responsibility of
making a hard choice in the first place. Being late carries with it lots
of disadvantages:

It’s impolite. It interrupts the proceedings and shows a disregard for the people who made the effort to get there on time.
It’s a bad habit. It connotes an uncaring attitude toward your personal performance.
It’s
stressful. Even if you think you’re okay with arriving late, your level
of stress is probably higher than if you were on time.
It
reduces the respect you receive. People figure if you don’t care about
your schedule and time, then they shouldn’t have to care either.
It
reduces your success. Athletes late to team practices and students late
to class don’t perform as well as those who arrive on time.

If
you take the time to plan ahead, you’ll find that you have plenty of
options to arrange your time so that you’re late only in the rare
instance when circumstances beyond your control are involved. If you
really stop to think about the situation, making the effort to organize
your family’s schedule is pointless if, in the end, you still plan to
live in a frazzled way.

To do list

Eliminate activities with overlapping time frames
Schedule time for drivers and spectators, as well as participants
Resolve conflicts before they happen

Choosing Between Overlapping Activities

Unfortunately, for all
but the dullest of people, there will always be more enticing options
than there is time available. So, you can at least begin whittling down
the choices by accepting the fact that you can’t participate in two
activities that take place at the same time. This rule applies to
schedules that overlap as well. Your rewards for making a tough choice
up front will be greater focus and less stress later.

If one activity meets
on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the second activity meets on Wednesdays
and Thursdays, then you need to recognize that the two of them are
mutually exclusive. Rationalizing that you can skip each activity just
once every other week will result in your receiving less than half the
benefit of either activity. Plus, you’ll constantly be faced with the
almost paralyzing dilemma of which one to attend on each Wednesday.

In addition, don’t
forget to include travel time when determining what activities your
schedule can accommodate. Two activities that run back-to-back but are
in locations 30 minutes apart still require you to be in two places at
the same time; you’ll be traveling between the activities when you
should already be at the second activity.

Scheduling Drivers, Spectators, and Other Family Participants

Make sure that
you take into account everyone whose time will be involved. Hidden
scheduling conflicts can exist when someone else is needed in addition
to the primary participant. Especially for young children, you must
remember that it’s not just their time that you have to consider,
because someone has to chauffeur them to and from the activity. If you
have only one person in the family who can drive, then you can’t let one
child have sports practice on one side of town at the same time your
other young child has an art class on the other side of town.

The only way around
having to make a choice between the two activities is to arrange for
someone else to drive one of the children, and, to keep things running
smoothly, you need to do that before you sign up for both activities.
You’ll also want to look into carpooling options if one child’s activity
will require that your other children accompany you on a long drive to
and from the activity because that’s not a good use of their time,
either.

Some activities
require family involvement by their nature. Events that have an audience
or spectators—music recitals, sports competitions, and so on—really
need family members present to support the participant. When making the
choice to become involved in these pursuits, make sure that family
members have room in their schedules. If, for some reason, family
support isn’t possible, this information should be disclosed to the
participant before signing up for the activity.

Resolving Conflicts with Other Family Events and Activities

Next, look at what already
exists on your family’s schedule. If the summer league playoffs for a
particular sports activity will take place during the week that your
family has scheduled its annual vacation, then you’ll need to make some
adjustments up front. Is summer league a really high priority item? Or
would another activity be equally satisfying and not create a conflict?
Are the dates for the family vacation unchangeable because there’s no
other time you can take off from work or you’ve made a nonrefundable
deposit? Or can you shift the vacation to another week without causing
any new conflict?

If adjustments can
be made to accommodate everyone, then that’s great. If not, then the
family will have to settle on a hard decision. The most important point
is that you make the decision before signing up for the activity, so the
conflict is dealt with before it becomes a reality.

THE BEST USE OF YOUR TIME IN THE CAR

You’ve
probably figured out that the more children you have who aren’t old
enough to drive and the more activities those children undertake, then
the more time the adults in the family will spend in the car driving
those children where they need to go. And, because having a
smooth-running family schedule depends, in part, on making the best use
of your time, it makes sense for us to take a few minutes to discuss
productive ways for you to use the time you’ll be spending in your car.

If you find yourself sitting in the car waiting for your kids to come out of locker rooms or lessons:

You
might find you have enough time to pay your bills or catch up on your
correspondence.
You
have plenty of work to do right in the car. The dashboard and the
inside of the windows frequently need dusting or cleaning. If you keep a
package of premoistened wipes in your glove compartment, you can use a
few spare moments to spiff up your car’s interior. If you keep a small
plastic bag handy—either recycled from shopping or a zip-closure bag—you
can de-clutter your glove box and gather and seal up the trash from
around the inside of your car. Younger children really enjoy helping
with these tasks, so you can keep them from becoming bored and restless
by letting them help. Or let them do the cleanup on their own while you
pay the bills.

You can even use the time you’re on the road productively:

You
can absorb a lot of information about what’s going on in the world by
keeping your radio tuned to a National Public Radio station. Your kids
will learn some current events, too. You may find that you no longer
have to watch news on TV, which is largely teasers and commercials and
can waste a lot of your time. You may be able to cut down on your
newspaper and news magazine time (and expenses), too.
Your
car is one of the few places where you can have a totally private
conversation with the other people you’re with. You can take this
opportunity to have some real heart-to-heart conversations with your
captive audience. Just be careful not to get involved in emotional
discussions that may distract the driver too much and lead to unsafe
driving.
If
you’re transporting both your children and some of their friends, take
the chance to listen to some of their conversations. You may find you
can pick up a lot more information about what’s going on in their lives
at school than you can by asking them directly and receiving the
legendary “nothing” answer.

Please
be aware that you’ll miss out on a lot of these benefits if you rely
heavily on cell phones and DVDs to keep your children occupied.

And always remember to put safety and health first. This means the driver should
not

Talk
on a handheld cell phone. More and more municipalities are making this
dangerous activity illegal. If the driver also has children in the car,
talking on the phone may well be one distraction too many.
Finish
her personal grooming. People who comb their hair, polish their nails,
or apply makeup while driving can’t have their hands or attention where
they need to be in order to drive safely.
Eat.
Not only is eating while driving a distraction, it’s bad for digestion.
If you don’t have time to stop for 15 minutes to eat, then you’ve
packed your schedule too tightly.

As your family continues
to work toward an ever more organized schedule, consider following
these steps whenever potential scheduling conflicts come up:

1.	Make sure all known events are listed in the family planner (for example, birthday celebrations, sports competitions, piano recitals, business trips).
2.	Remember that events posted in the planner always have priority over unposted events if a solution or compromise can’t be reached.
3.	Discuss a potential conflict as soon as it arises.
4.	Look for a way to eliminate the conflict.
5.	Practice good negotiating skills if the conflict can’t be eliminated and look for a solution that will provide a win-win situation for everyone. (Example: In exchange for moving your daughter’s party to a day other than her birthday so the family can attend her brother’s tuba recital, you’ll allow her to let her two best friends sleep over on her birthday.)
6.	Be aware of—and resigned to—the need for compromise if you cannot find a win-win situation for everyone involved. In other words, don’t create the conflict and figure you’ll resolve it later. (Example: Because your son’s track meet is at the same time as your daughter’s piano recital, they know well in advance that they have to settle for the fact that their father will attend the recital and their mother will attend the track meet.)

FAMILY MEETINGS

You’ll
have noticed that selecting enrichment activities for each member of
your family needs a lot of coordination—and sometimes negotiation—among
everyone in the family. Sometimes this coordination requires the family
to get together to discuss the plans. And sometimes, to convey the
importance of the discussion, someone in the family—usually one of the
parents—calls for a family meeting.

Finding a time
in the family’s schedule to hold a meeting can be a scheduling problem
all its own. So, your best bet may be to plan to have the meeting
whenever you can get the whole family assembled—and you can get creative
in finding that occasion:

When
your family eats dinner together—which you may find you’re more able to
do the more you organize and coordinate your family’s schedule
If you offer to take everyone out for ice cream
In the car on the way to a baseball game

Don’t try to have a meeting when people may be hungry, sluggish, or in a hurry to go somewhere else.

Before
you get everyone together, make sure that you’re prepared with the
information you need to resolve your scheduling issues. Maybe you’ll
need to have other family members get information and thoughts together
in advance as well.

In
the business world, there is an ever-growing recognition that companies
should hold as few meetings with as few people as possible. You would
be wise to adopt this same philosophy at home. The occasional meeting
that really accomplishes something will hold everyone’s interest. A
meeting held on a weekly or monthly basis, whether needed or not, will
quickly have family members giving little priority to attending or
paying attention. Call for a meeting only if there is truly a need for
an exchange of ideas with discussion. And involve only the people in
your family who can contribute important questions, ideas, and solutions
related to the meeting’s purpose. For example, your eight year old
doesn’t need to attend a meeting to decide who will drive your five year
old to ballet class, and your teenager doesn’t need to attend a meeting
to decide whether your eight year old should play soccer or baseball.

Always aim for effective family meetings that produce exciting ideas and solutions.

To do list

Create a to do list for each activity
Estimate the amount of time each item will take
Decide who needs to be involved in each task
Schedule each item into the participant’s personal schedule and the family’s planner
Store each activity’s equipment in a portable container
Check periodically to make sure your family hasn’t signed up for more activities than it can handle