Three Priorities for Your Family Schedule in the New School Year
Grady Johnson, LMFT
Labor Day's passing can only mean one thing for families with children: ready or not, a new school year is here! For some, this is a time of excitement in re-establishing routines and reconnecting with others. For others, it’s a time of dread at mountains of homework and every-night sports practices. However we feel, the frenzy of the school year schedule can turn family time into ships passing in the night. Adults and kids can begin to feel stressed out and less connected to their loved ones. It’s difficult to avoid being busy, but it’s important to consider which items to drop before others! Today I want to share how adequate sleep, quality departures and reunions, and family meals (often some of the first to go) can help maintain togetherness and boost the overall health of your family as the schedule overflows.
The first priority I encourage is adequate sleep for the whole family. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. How often have we heard this as a reason to sacrifice sleep in the name of getting something done? Way more often than we should when sleep is a proven cornerstone of mental and physical health. During the school year, extracurriculars, late work nights, and homework can push bedtimes later and later. In the United States, one in three adults and eight in ten teenagers suffer from inadequate sleep, which has proven ties to depression, impaired cognition, and obesity (just to name a few).i Even if our families can survive on less sleep, this should be one of the last things we give up if we want them to thrive.
While we can’t control a baby that wakes up in the middle of the night or a sports practice that runs until 9 PM, there are opportunities to prioritize sleep in our families. Consider how many extra events on the schedule you can add sleep is sacrificed: set reasonable limits for yourself and your children with how many activities you do. Model healthy sleep habits and attitudes as parents by not discouraging needed sleep (sleeping in on weekends) and making a point to keep phones and TVs out of bedrooms. Improved sleep quantity and quality pays dividends in how it improves nearly every other aspect of our lives.
Our second priority is quality hellos and goodbyes. With hectic days and rushed drop-offs, sending each other off or welcoming each other back can often feel like going through the motions. Researchers John and Julie Gottman see these transition times as key to our relational health. For couples, The Gottmans encourage spending two minutes on quality departures (a twenty-second hug and learning one thing about your partner’s day) and twenty minutes on quality reunions (a 6-second kiss followed by a 20-minute stress-reducing conversation).ii This may seem like a lot, but can we start by sacrificing 10 minutes of scrolling for extra connection time with our partners? These transition times are also perfect for family rituals (repeated shared actions with special meaning) with our kids.iii Maybe it’s that extra-long hug when they get back from school or those special words you say every day when you drop them off at practice. The significance of sending our kids out to the world to succeed and welcoming them back to rest can be highlighted as a unique time of connection.
Our last priority is another family ritual: the sit-down meal. The family meal is the Swiss Army Knife of family well-being and outpaces many other factors in health childhood development (lower risk of depression, higher self-esteem, lower risk of substance abuse).iv Unfortunately, it’s declining both in the time we spend with it and how many families do it at all. Meals are often spent in drive-throughs or in front of screens, missing out on time to develop healthy eating habits, build communication skills, and increase family cohesion.v Finding the time can be a challenge, but start with one night a week that is reserved family meal night! It may seem awkward and new, but the benefits are real!
Adequate sleep, quality hellos and goodbyes, and family meals may be the first to go when the schedule gets tight, but they are some of the most important items to keep on the family calendar. We don’t have to be perfect, but none of these will happen by accident. If it seems overwhelming, start small and work from there! The stresses of school, sports, and work are exhausting, and every member of the family can benefit from having a consistent safe haven in the home to recharge so they can get out there and be their best selves!