Taking Back the Afternoons

We recently adopted a new routine in the afternoons and evenings, and I’m so glad we did. Before everything after pick-up felt like an onslaught. Now the two hours before bedtime are much more manageable.

The first thing we do when we get home is enjoy some quiet time. My daughter is required to read for at least 20 minutes. My son can do whatever he wants as long as he does it quietly and by himself. This is when I make dinner and unpack our stuff. They used to spend this time in front of the TV or on their pads, and it was a hard week or two transitioning to the quiet time, but now they rarely complain about it anymore. Sometimes my daughter would rather do something else besides read, but she is learning that if she just gets started quickly, she’ll have time to do an art project or mess around with something else before dinner. My son sometimes requires more attention during this time than I’d like, but he’s learning how to entertain himself.

Once the kids’ dinner is ready we eat at the dinner table. I’m ashamed to say it, but before we were committing the cardinal parenting sin of letting our kids eat dinner in front of the TV. I say we, but really it was me. I was the one at home during dinner, and I was the one who let them eat it while watching TV. (I know, I know, I am positively the worst mother ever – I definitely win some kind of horrible award.)

My husband actually broke them of this habit while I was away. I must say, I was impressed, and a little scared to keep it going. But I did, and it was actually keeping them away from the TV before dinner that inspired me to implement the new “quite time when we get home” routine, so he really deserves the credit for this positive change.

So now we eat at the “back table,” (technically our dining room, but has so rarely been used for dining that we never really called it that) where we share our highs and lows (one good and bad thing that happened to us that day) and talk about other stuff. These meals are still filled with reminding kids to take bites, refereeing fights,  and requesting they please return to their seats, but at least they are at a table eating. (Sometimes my husband and I eat with them, but right now we don’t manage that consistently.)

After dinner they get 25 minutes of screen time. This can be TV or devices. Right now they are choosing TV because they are on Season 2 of Gravity Falls and loving it. When they get new games they want to spend their screen time playing them.

Before they watched at least two, sometimes three programs, or were on their devices for up to an hour. I’m very pleased that now they are spending less time in front of a screen.

After screen time we try to get them to spend five minutes picking up. We aren’t great about implementing this, and our son still needs one-on-one attention if he’s actually going to put anything away, but we want to keep trying. My husband and I both suck at cleaning up, but we want to get better as a family. Next it’s PJs, brushing teeth, and bedtime. This is where everything usually unravels – where it has always unraveled – but with the new routine the unraveling is much less stressful.

I should also mention that after over two months of not working out, I’m starting to re-incorporate exercise into my evenings. I am not at all sure how I will manage to get one workout in a week (that is my current goal), but I’m hoping to figure it out without adding more screen time. We shall see.

I know this is not much to write about – most families probably already have a routine like this – but it really has made a positive change in our lives and I’m proud of us for sticking to it. I look forward to maintaining this routine over the summer and into the next school year.