It’s a month into the seasonal family routine we call Fall Schedule. How is it going?
That’s essentially what I asked my kids this morning. So after giving you a whole playlist on family routines over on my youtube channel (and also posted on the blog), I thought I’d give a follow-up post in real time of what it looks like to get feedback and re-evaluate routines here in my home.
Here’s a little glimpse into that conversation and what I learned. At breakfast, I opened a conversation with my kiddos by saying:
“It’s been a month with our fall schedule.
What’s working?
What’s not?”
and here’s the notes that came out of it:
I learned what they liked and what they didn’t, and I will be tweaking things from this brainstorm.
Among other things,
- I learned that they are forgetting to do their zone almost every single day. (Oh dear.)
- I learned that they really like our Gathering time. (Hooray!)
- I learned there is not enough science or family history in our schedule. And that the lesson time feels perfect. (Where does the extra time come from then? Hmmm.)
- I was reminded again that one of my sons is transitioning out of family learning time as he has other interests he wants to pursue. (What? When did he grow up?)
- And that another is motivated by specific deadlines. (Maybe he gets that from me…)
All in all, I’ve got some good food for thought on where to focus my efforts on making this routine work better for our family.
And here’s the thing: all of this is just information as long as I don’t put value judgments on any person because of it. (As in, I am so ridiculously blind – how could I not notice they hadn’t done their zones all week?) With good information, I can tweak the family routine into something that works better. I do not need to feel guilty or less than enough because some things are not working – yet. I just keep changing and trying again.
Here’s how this applies to you and your family routine:
- Tweaking what’s not working in a schedule is simply part of the process. It is not failure.
- Your children have valuable feedback! Ask them for it.
- Celebrate the success! Yes, there will be some things that need changing. But what about the things that are working? Notice them too.
By the way, if you haven’t seen it, I have a whole life planner for sale on the resources page to help in your seasonal schedules with seasonal planning sheets and monthly reviews as well as monthly and weekly planning sheets. If you want it, head over to my Resources page and grab it. I just lowered the price!
