Time Management for Today's Kids

In an age of busy lifestyles and two career families and single-parent families, parents spend a lot of energy trying to manage their time more effectively. However, we rarely consider how important it is to manage our children's time as well.

Busy work and home schedules emphasize the importance of working efficiently on the job, and parenting efficiently at home. It would be silly to parent our children the way a manager supervises employees. However, helping your children structure their day makes it easier for everyone to get things done. It also makes the time we spend with our children more enjoyable.

Just as parents transition from the work to home environment, today's children are frequently shuttled from home to school to day care to activities then back to home again.

It is during these transition times -- the times when kids are between activities -- that they are most likely to misbehave. "Idle hands are the devil's playground," may be a cliche, but it holds some truth. Kids rarely misbehave when they are absorbed in enjoyable or challenging activities. However, as we all know, it's impossible to keep a child involved in these types of activities all day long.

This report provides advice to parents on managing their child's time. It focuses on critical transition times across a child's daily life when parents say they have the most problems.

Most parents find that by using strategies such as checklists, streamlining morning routines and structuring their child’s after-school time, they are able to increase the amount of time spent on positive interactions with their children while greatly reducing the amount of time they spend punishing and scolding their children.

Download a copy of the UF Extension publication “Time Management for Kids” by Garret D. Evans, which includes practical tips for parents at: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/HE/HE79500.pdf

Time . . . is on our side

Managing time effectively is a necessary skill for today’s busy lifestyle. Getting the most out of the time we have for taking care of ourselves, or for building relationships is a very significant part of time management. The University of Nebraska Extension Service has identified seven traits of people who handle time to their advantage. Consider these traits and how you can apply them to your life.

• They believe they deserve time for themselves. Their sense of self-worth inspires them to claim time for themselves. They believe in their responsibility to preserve their health, their mental and emotional well-being, and their creativity.

• They experience the present moment to the fullest. They have outstanding powers of concentration and capacity to focus on the moment at hand. This quality appears in both work and play. They demonstrate an exuberant gift for laughter, pleasure and enjoyment.

• They never seem to be in a hurry. Time-integrated people set their own pace, regardless of their expectations and somehow convince those around them to accept them on their own terms. Even their body language tends to be graceful and purposeful, not jerky and rushed.

• They make time to get what they want. They believe they have the right to arrange their time to fit in the things they want to do. They accomplish more than other people with the same amount of time at their disposal.

• They welcome the future with confidence. They don’t live in constant anticipation of deadlines, responsibilities, due dates, tomorrow, next year or five years ahead. They realize that life is precious, that change supplies opportunities for growth, and they remain open and flexible.

• They create a rich, usable past. They don’t waste precious time with negative thoughts about the past, guilt, anger, regret or blame of others. They regard the past in a positive way, as a rich harvest of experience.

• They spend time on relationships that matter. They try to increase their time with people who are important to them, in both their personal and work lives. They assertively seek out mentors. They renew relationships with old friends and distant family members. They don’t carelessly use other people. They are willing to teach and learn, as well as care and be cared for.