Re-establish family time by changing how you do things for better results
By Karen Parker, Project Specialist,
Healthy Family Healthy Child Project
Building any type of relationship
takes time, patience and forgiveness. This
is especially true when you are talking
about family and the issues we face in
today’s 24/7 world.
We are so caught up in working extra
hours, getting our children to and from
activities, helping others, lending a hand
to our children’s best buddy of the week
and picking up the slack for our partner or
lack thereof that it is easy to forget about
family time.
Having received the same message
– “Make it a family night” – through the
media, co-workers, children’s teachers
and from my children, I too was guilted
into trying to juggle four more activities
into my already crazy day.
Oh sure, my intentions were honor-
able. I was on a mission to include at least
half of my family in game nights, chatting
sessions, walks and dinners.
I read article after article solely
dedicated to time management and pur-
posely targeted at moms. I know that a
lot of helpful hints can be gained from
these articles and that most are there as
a resource guide, but would like to add
that too much of something is not always
a good thing.
I started paying attention to first orga-
nizing and then coordinating all the sched-
ules. I had it worked out into 30-minute
color-coded sections. This alone can drive
anyone crazy because if you are like me,
you look down at the clock in the car and
realize that you did not allow for practice
to be 20 minutes late and, oh yeah, the
youngest got sick all over the car and into
her brother’s shoes.
All of these acts alone are not bad and
usually can be handled without too much
of a fuss, but if you don’t have the time to
spare, then what?
It was at this point that I decided to
start implementing a different kind of
plan. I wanted to keep up with the sched-
ule and remain organized, so I went online
and found a couple of websites with dif-
ferent ideas and templates.
I gathered all of our schedules, calen-
dars, planners and cell phones, put them
on the table and began a master calendar.
It’s important to note that while looking
all of this over, I kept thinking, “How did
our parents and their parents manage all
of this?” So I contacted relatives, asked
questions and took lots of notes. This is
what followed and my reasoning:
Organized carpooling
Carpooling details were not done
in the traditional way. Usually whoever
worked the closest, could get to the loca-
tion and then back in the quickest amount
of time was chosen. Instead, I made up a
“best fit” chart.
This chart consisted of the children
being driven and where they were being
driven. For example, if it was a middle
school trip to orchestra rehearsal, I would
pair up age-appropriate children and
friends with my husband. He has more
patience for this and then I could be at
home focusing on other activities with
the remaining children.
I added in a few other tricks as well.
A big one is that in order to get in or out
of the car, each child had to report two
things they learned that day (sorry, but my
car so my rules). These two acts solved
two issues I was having, 1) Getting the
children to open up about what was going
on inside and outside of the classroom;
and 2) Having the right parent with the
right child or children at the best time,
i.e., “best fit.”
It is common knowledge that our
children learn and respond differently to
different parents, peers, authority figures
and family. So if you think about how
to get the most out of our time driving
around, it makes sense.
Suddenly, there were discussions
about school, teachers, peers and life in
general. The children did not realize it,
but the parents were actually listening
and comparing notes. We became more
aware of our children as individuals and
were better prepared to deal with antici-
pated growing pains, issues, thoughts and
changes they were going through.
Balancing
I cross-referenced lunch and dinner
duties to coincide with little ones around.
This is what I call “balancing.”
My grandmother used say that part of
raising a child involved teaching and even
more importantly, listening. By including
children in meal preparation, I was able
to build up our relationship. Working
Photo by Diane Rodriquez
Kai Florendo-Blomstrom (right, standing), a senior at Siletz Valley School, responds to a question from Oregon Youth
Development Council representatives.
Youth, con’t from page 1
in the student leadership program at Siletz
Valley School met at the Tribal adminis-
tration building to discuss issues facing
Siletz youth.
This discussion focused on three
questions:
2. What programs or services are needed
in the community to reconnect those
youth to school or work?
3. What mechanisms should be built
into a funding model for youth devel-
opment in the state of Oregon?
1. What issues exist in the community
that disconnect youth from schools
or work?
OYDC staff received a lot of responses
from Tribal staff, the school principal,
council members and students. They were
especially impressed with the high school
leadership class, which had discussed the
questions among themselves and selected
several students to deliver their responses.
Concerns identified during the visit
included drug and alcohol use and abuse,
no focus on academic excellence in high
school, no resources for extracurricular
activities – music, fine arts, life skills,
vocational training for youth and tutoring.
together on a regular basis helped me
instill respect back into our home.
I listened to what they said and
shared with me, which showed them that I
valued and respected them. In return, they
would show me respect and listen to what
I was sharing.
Meal time became one of my most
favorite times of the day. No longer was
I constantly thinking and planning (well,
OK, there was a little planning). The
point is that the children and I not only
looked forward to it, we also gained so
much from it.
Our time
I decided to play around a little with
a couple of things. I took two things
away and re-sorted them in a different
kind of way.
First, I took away the gym and
second, I took away TV time. I then
inserted 20-30 minutes of walking, skat-
ing or biking with each other. This I called
“our time.”
This one took some getting used to
and I must admit that three out of four
did not participate happily at first. We
started out slow and it was usually a walk.
I wanted to really concentrate on problem
solving, self-expression, empathy and
cooperation.
Because this physical activity was
being implemented, surely I could easily
instill just a couple of these qualities sim-
ply by insisting that we stick it out. This
was easier to dream about than it was to
actually implement.
I decided to tell stories instead of
forcing the conversation. Oh sure, we have
all heard our parents and grandparents say,
“When I was young …” usually followed
by an exaggerated tale of walking miles
in the snow just to get to school. I was
determined to not be one of those, so I
brought up examples and told them in the
form of a story.
I asked the children questions like,
“What would you do?” If one particular
child had been reprimanded or was fac-
ing some sort of conflict, I started out the
conversation by asking them questions.
The answers I would offer were put in the
form of a story and in this way they could
come to their own conclusions.
Soon the children were talking about
everything and on holidays there was a lot
of laughter as they regaled the extended
family with the stories. This brought
up powerful memories and soon aunts,
uncles and cousins alike were telling their
take of various stories.
I am proud to say that after sticking
with this new setup, my family shared
special times together. I wrote this with
the hope of helping other families who
are finding themselves wishing for more
than 24 hours in day.
This is not to say that readers will
not have to make adjustments and tailor
some of the suggestions to meet their
family’s needs. Here are two references
that can help – mommytracked.com and
familieswithpurpose.com.
November 2013
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SiletzNews
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