Tag: Calendar

The Most Important 20 Minutes of the Day

My son had a basketball game today for his middle school team.  He’s on the C team (which comes after the B team which comes after  the A team) so we’re not talking a glamorous, high profile game.  But when I walked into the door, saw his face light up and then proceeded to witness his game and his constant looking over at me, I knew the 20 minutes of play time he got today were the most important 20 minutes of my day.

For working parents, being able to attend these events is hard.  Looking around today, there weren’t that many parents at the game. I’m sure every parent who was NOT in attendance had very good reasons and it had ZERO reflection on how much they love their child.

My son has Autism so communication, verbal communication, is really hard.  He doesn’t like to have conversations.  He’s not capable of sharing his feelings verbally.  When I try to tell him how I feel about him, he doesn’t want to have that conversation either.  As I’m connecting with more and more parents of typical kids, I’ve learned that my teen with Autism isn’t so different than a typical teenage boy.  My ACTIONS need to be the way I tell him how much I care about him.  Today, I was able to tell him I love him by attending his game.  And he was able to tell me that he’s glad I’m his mom.

But making this 20 minutes happen took a lot of planning and preparation.  I’m hoping that sharing how I accomplished this helps another parent get the same 20 minutes I got today.

Block Your Calendar

When I got the basketball schedule, I added the games to my work calendar along with travel time.  This way, when others are trying to schedule time with me, they know that I’m busy during this time so they can find a better time that works for both of us.

Set Expectations

I’ve let my manager and my team know that attending these games is important to me.  I try to structure my work so it’s about what I’m delivering each week rather than how much time I spend at the office.  This helps.  I set goals based on a full workload for the week and then juggle the time as necessary to meet all of my commitments for both work and home.

Carve Out Time

Even when you block your calendar and set expectations, it’s still hard to find the time to do it all.  Sometimes I get up early so I can start on my work day earlier.  Commute time takes up at least 45 minutes each way.  Today, I worked from home and got 90 minutes back.  I got my full workday in AND made it to the game.  I also reduced travel time by staying closer to home for the day.

It Goes Both Ways

Often, spending time at a school event in the afternoon means I need to focus on work in the evening–and miss that time with my family.  I try to use this to teach my kids about trade offs and balance.  I want them to be hard workers when they have jobs.  I want them to see that when I leave work early, that time needs to be made up somewhere.  It’s a good lesson to teach them.

Let’s face it, we’re all very busy.  It’s easy for the pressures of work, meetings, deadlines and commuting to cause us to miss opportunities to really connect with our kids.  But with a little planning and preparation, we’ve got a better chance of catching some of the precious moments before we lose track of where all our time went and our kids grow up faster than we could have ever imagined.

Bring All of Your Calendars into One Place

Do you find yourself having too many calendars?  There’s your work calendar, your family calendar, and maybe even a personal calendar.  Even if you’ve got all of these calendars in electronic form, you can still find yourself in a situation where you need to check in multiple places to make sure you’re free.  And with multiple places to look, mistakes are bound to happen.

It’s pretty easy to bring all of your calendars together on any mobile phone, but it’s hard to see and plan from such a small screen.  Depending on how strict your workplace is, it may be harder to bring all of your calendars together at work.  I just started a job at a company that takes security around personal laptops very seriously.  I can’t install any old app or plug in onto my computer.  When it came to my calendar, this was leaving me very frustrated because I wasn’t allowed to add my personal account to Outlook.  If you’re in the same boat, here’s how you can easily get around this problem.

I’ve got a family calendar in Cozi.  And a personal calendar in Hotmail (Outlook.com). In my case, as I was trying to coordinate my work schedule against something as simple as attending my son’s basketball game or making sure I left work on time for an evening school meeting, I had to check my work calendar, Cozi.com and Outlook.com.  That was just too much for my brain to keep track of in 3 different views.

We’re using Outlook at work.  We happen to be using the 2010 version but what I’m about to describe also works in 2013 or Office 365. From most calendar programs, Google, Outlook.com, Cozi, you can share your calendar as a calendar “feed” or as a link.  This generates a URL that you can use to access this “calendar feed”.

From inside Outlook, under the home tab, choose “Open Calendar”, then choose “From Internet”.

Outlook Open From Internet
Outlook Import Calendar Feed Menu

After this, you’ll get a dialog box that lets you copy the URL you got from your other calendar program.  Once you paste that in, that calendar will be added to your calendar list.  In my case, I’ve got my personal calendar that I named “Doreen Hotmail” and my family calendar from Cozi.

Outlook Calendar List
Outlook Calendar List including Hotmail Calendar

Now, you can see all of your calendars overlay-ed with one another.  This helps you keep from double-booking yourself and helps you more easily manage family commitments against your work commitments.  The best part is that you can keep your work calendar as the “active” calendar and the other calendars really appear to be sitting in the background, not distracting you but helping you avoid creating conflicts across work and home.

Outlook Multiple Calendar View
Multiple Calendars Overlay-ed in Outlook 2010

Note:  I’ve shaded out the names of my kids and co-workers to protect their privacy

Meal Planning with a Magazine

We all know that if we plan our meals ahead of time, we eat healthier and the work week is a lot less hectic.  But this is much easier said than done!  Saturday morning soccer games, Sunday football, and all kinds of weekend activities make it hard to find the time to do meal planning, let alone grocery shopping.

I struggle with this myself sometime so today, I’m trying something new.  I’m already a subscriber to Cooking Light magazine – but any cooking magazine or your favorite website will do.  This morning, I didn’t need to be anywhere until noon and I found myself in a quiet house, kids doing their own thing and a warm cup of coffee in my hand.  I decided to get my meal planning done for the week.

After I picked my meals for the week and captured my list on my favorite phone app, I was on a roll, so I kept going! As I found a recipe that I wanted to eventually make, I just picked a day in my calendar and added it along with info on which magazine and what page it’s on.

I’m hoping that by doing this, next week, when I’m possibly less motivated to get my meal planning done, I’ll see these recipes in my calendar and I have a lot less thinking and planning to do.  I just need to pull my weekly shopping list together.

Also, by capturing the magazine details, I can quickly open up the magazine to look at the recipe.  I love all the recipe apps out there but I keep going back to my recipe magazines and cook books.  There’s something about the paper and not worrying about the screen timing out that I just like.  Call me “old school” I guess.

Here’s to a chaos free week ahead – and healthy dinner on the table after a long day at work!

Helping Kids to Manage Their Own Schedule

School is officially underway.  As I sat in my 2nd Curriculum Night of the week, I breathed a bit of a sigh of relief.  It’s my 3rd year in both my daughter’s elementary school and my son’s middle school.  I know the routine.  I understand how the special ed program at the middle school is supporting my son’s IEP and how it ties in with our Autism program at home.  Next year, more heavy lifting as my daughter enters a middle school I don’t know (as my son is at a different school that has an Autism program) and my son enters high school.  Yikes!

The topics I blog about often focus on how I manage our family calendar.  More and more, I’m trying to teach my kids how to manage their own schedule.  It’s a skill they need to learn.  And as I shift responsibility from me to them, it helps me focus more on my career as needed.

This year, my son is on the tennis team for the first time.  Instead of emailing the coach for the schedule, I’ve been pushing my son to bring the schedule to me.  This has been hard for me.  After 2 weeks of practice, tournaments had to be starting soon.  But I trust my son can problem solve if something goes wrong.  Well, we tested that today.

4:54 pm, a very alarming text message from my babysitter (and new babysitter in training who starts next week) came in:

Tennis Text

OK, I admit I felt some panic first. 🙂  But logic quickly found me and I thought:  “the first tennis tournament is today”.

My resilient babysitter found someone and got the information on which school the tournament was at.  It happened to be the school closests to where I was so I headed over.

As I reached the school, the coach and remaining kids were leaving the tournament.  I introduced myself to the coach and turned to my son and said, “You’re in trouble.”

I turned back to the coach and asked him if he had a schedule.  He told me he sent one home with the kids yesterday.  I tunred back to my son as he was pulling the schedule out of his backpack.  “You needed to give me the schedule.  We went to your school and when you weren’t there, we were VERY worried.  I’ve been asking you for your schedule all week.  This is why you need to give me the schedule.”

When my son and I got home, we put the tournaments into our family calendar so he could see it on his phone and we talked some more about why he needs to show me papers from school — an ongoing problem that I think MANY parents face.

Needless to say, it was a rocky afternoon but mistakes are moments we learn from.  I think my son understands the worry he caused.  And if his current track record is a good indicator of the future, he won’t make this mistake again. 🙂  And we’re now set up to manage the crazy logistics of the tennis team schedule.

Easy, Breezy, Summer Morning Routines

It’s the first official week of summer camp.  Getting the new morning routine established each year is a bit tough but within a few weeks things usually begin to smooth out.  We need to leave earlier.  There’s so much to remember.  If it’s a field trip day that involves swimming, we need the swim suits.  Packing a lunch is just like the school year but without the safety net of just buying lunch if the morning completely goes sideways on us.  And there’s more traffic to battle because we’re not just meeting the school bus.

Believe it or not, what I’m about to share is a true story.

This morning, as I opened the refrigerator to grab some milk, there it was – a perfectly packed lunch.  Where did this come from?  I peaked inside: sandwich, apple, granola bar, cheese stick, juice box, a full lunch.  My 9 year old daughter is NOT a morning person.  Yesterday, as she was grumpily making her lunch, I casually suggested that she make her lunch the night before since she’s such a sleepy head in the morning.  But I figured it would take a couple of weeks and a lot more suggesting to get her there.  But she did it.  And I didn’t even SEE her do it the night before.

While I was still recovering from my shock and dismay, my 13 year old son came in, backpack in hand, heading for the front door to set the backpack by the door.

“What is your field trip today?”

“Swimming.”  I think one word answers are pretty typical for a 13 year old boy, especially one with Autism.

“Do you have everything you need to go swimming?”

“Yes”, as he walked passed me, no eye contact, and headed back into his room.

I couldn’t help myself.  I had to peak inside the backpack to see if he really had everything.  Towel, swim trunks, even a swim shirt, and a packed lunch.  He listened.  He took responsibility.  He was ready.

As working parents, heck, as ANY parent, having the kids take responsibility like this makes getting out the door in the morning SOOOO much smoother!  We’ve been working on this for  while throughout the school year but I was so pleased so see them handing the additional responsibilities that summer camp brings.  Here are my suggestions for how to help the kids chip in to have an easier time getting out the door in the morning.

Set Expectations

The week school ended, one night over dinner I explained to the kids that they’d be going to the same summer camps as last summer but this year, I wanted them to take responsibility for bringing what they needed for their field trip days.  If they forget to bring a swim suit on the hottest day of the summer, they will be sitting it out.  It’s up to them to remember.

Use A Calendar 

My son has an iPhone and we have a family calendar that I share with him.  We get the schedule (from Outdoors For All) in advance via email.  When the calendar for the week arrives, I create an all day appointment for each day of the week.

SUBJECT: OFA: Swimming  [The OFA stands for Outdoors For All and my son understands this.]

LOCATION: Bring swim suit, towel, sunscreen, lunch

He looks at the calendar, knows what he’s doing that day and knows what to bring.  My daughter picks up a flyer on the Monday of each week at camp.   She is then in charge of that information to be prepared for her Wednesday and Friday field trips.

Stock the Fridge and Pantry with Lunch Stuff 

We’ve got a shelf in our refrigerator designated for lunch stuff: Juice boxes, fruit cups, cheese sticks.  it’s just above the fruit drawer that has apples, oranges, grapes, etc.  It’s right at eye level for the kids.  And as I see it get emptied, I know what I need to shop for.  We also have a shelf in the cupboard set up the same way, at kid eye level, filled with granola bars, bread for sandwiches, chips, fruit roll ups, etc.  The kids have 2 places to look for lunch ideas and lots of variety.

Help Your Smart Phone Be Smart

I know approximately what time we need to leave to drop off my daughter on time, then drop off my son on time, and then get myself to work on time.  This year, I added an appointment to my calendar, “Drop off E”, set for 8am WITH the address of where the camp is.  As I’m about to leave, Cortana on my Windows Phone (or Google Now on an Android Phone) pops up telling me I need to leave so I get there on time.  This is the first year I’m trying this.  I’m hoping that if traffic is bad one morning, Cortana will let me know that I need to leave earlier than usual in order to get there on time.

Your Family Calendar is Your Safety Net

Family life has a lot of routine to it.  A lot of us keep the routines in our heads and use our calendars just to manage the exceptions.  But trying to keep track of everything in our heads actually adds to the stress of keeping the family running smoothly.  “Clearing the Mental Clutter” is good advice.

So how can you use your calendar to help you clear the clutter, keep things running smoothly AND be your safety net?  Here are a few simple tips:

#1 Keep the recurring appointments in the calendar and include addresses and contact numbers

If you are sick or your babysitter is sick and someone else like Grandma or a friend are filling in, you can simply forward the calendar item and all the info is there.  Often, a spouse who isn’t as familiar with the routine is trying to fill in.  Set them up for success by having these details in the calendar when you create the appointment in the first place.

#2 Capture cancellations in the calendar

If the piano lesson or the soccer practice gets cancelled, update the calendar to say something like “Piano Lessons Cancelled Today”.  If you just delete it, when you look at that week, your first thought will be, “Did piano get cancelled?”  Turn that question into a statement.  You want to be confident that it’s cancelled and not force yourself to remember why the appointment isn’t in the calendar anymore.  If you’ve got a babysitter managing the schedule, this will also save you from getting an unnecessary text in the middle of your workday asking to confirm whether or not Piano Lessons are actually cancelled.

#3 Put reminders in the calendar

A lot of these routine appointments involve things you need to remember.  If your child needs to remember to wear a white shirt and black pants to her choir assembly on Wednesday at school, add an item to your calendar for the night before to remember to lay out those clothes.  You may even need a second reminder so those items are clean so you’re sure you can set them out the night before.  Google Now and Cortana are great ways to capture these reminders in your calendar and by doing so, you’re getting them out of your head and putting them into your calendar to remind you when you can actually act on those things.

Part of the stress of juggling a family AND a profession is keeping track of all of these details.  By dumping these details into your calendar, you remember things at the right time and your calendar becomes a safety net when you need a friend or family member to fill in for you.

How To Set Up A Calendar for a Busy Family

If you’ve got kids who are involved in after school activities, this blog post is for you.  If you’re a Stay-At-Home-Parent, you’re trying to coordinate everything and make sure the kids are where they need to be.  And you want them getting picked up and dropped off on time.  If you’re a working parent, you’re trying to coordinate all of this with your child care provider.

Our family had a busy week this week.  It was the first week of track practice for my 13 year old son in the 7th grade AND it was the first week of rehearsals for the school play for my 9 year old daughter in the 4th grade.  I faced the week with great trepidation.  Looking at my calendar, I think you’ll see why:

FirstWeekTrackPlay

To try and tame the chaos, I color coded my son’s activities in red and my daughter’s in blue.  I told my sitter, “Let’s just plan to text each other a lot to get through this first week on this crazy schedule.”  On Wednesday, I had the pick up time for Play Rehearsals wrong.  And my sitter was having a really hard time understanding all of this when looking at it on her iPhone.

My son has Autism, so it’s particularly important that he understands the schedule using the visuals of a calendar.  When I got this text message from him on Wednesday night while he was with his Dad, I knew I needed to do something to make this calendar easier to understand:

AidenCalendarMsg

Looking at the calendar, I had everything crammed into ONE calendar.  I had more details than were really needed.  Too many things were overlapping each other.  I needed to simplify the calendar.  My babysitter needed to understand when to pick the kids up and where.  My son needed to understand his own schedule, know when he was getting picked up, and not have his sister’s activities cluttering up what he was looking at.  He needed to see what HE cares about.

What to do?

I created a separate calendar for my son.  It’s under his Outlook.com account, but I set things up so that I can edit it directly while using my own account.  I also set up an account for my daughter while I was at it.  Next, I got rid of the overlap by moving my son’s track stuff into his calendar, my daughter stuff into her calendar, and then focused the family calendar on pick ups and drop offs.  The new version is much better:

FirstWeekTrackPlayRevised

Notice the tabs across the top.  Each tab represents a different calendar in a different color.  You can show multiple calendars at once.  And when you turn off my daughter’s calendar, it was a much clearer picture for my son.  We sat down and reviewed the schedule again.  Here’s what he is seeing on his iPhone now:

AidenTrackPhone

And here’s what the babysitter was looking at (on a Windows Phone), because my son’s calendar is NOT in view:

TrackPhoneView2

I’m hoping that the schedule will be more clear.  Everyone will be happier.  And I won’t be distracted with lots of text message from a frustrated babysitter who can’t figure out where I need her to be because I haven’t set her up for success.  Yes, we’re using multiple calendars and sharing them.  It may sound complicated at first but once it’s set up, you’ll wonder how you ever functioned any other way.

For those of you interested in some of the nitty-gritty details, keep reading.  For the rest of you, happy scheduling!

Some details for me to explain:

What is “Juanita House”?  We are in a split family.  Since the kids have 2 homes, “home” isn’t clear.  I call my house “The Juanita House” so they know where they need to be.  I don’t want to call it “Mom’s House” or “Mom and Jeff’s House” because it is “Our House”.  Dad didn’t name his house (because he’s functioning like a normal person 😉 ) so we just call his house “Dad’s House”.

Who are all of these people?  Dad is Dad.  Jeff is my husband.  Marie is the afternoon babysitter.  Lauren is my son’s ABA therapist (Autism services aide).  When I set up appointments with Lauren, I actually email those to her so they are on her calendar.  Dad also has the appointments for “which house” on his calendar as well as anything that is on the days when the kids are with him at the end of the day.  There’s a lot going on here but this way, everyone has what they need on THEIR calendar.

Please send me your follow up questions!  I’d be happy to do a dedicated blog post to deep dive on any questions you have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding Hope at a Track Meet

I remember when my son’s middle school PE teacher reached out to me and asked me if I thought my son would like to join the track team.  I was elated!  My son has Autism and somehow, through all the speech therapy, ABA therapy, IEP meetings and everything else, I had just given up on the idea of my son being involved in any organized sports.  Thank goodness for this very proactive and caring teacher!

I think the way I find the energy to tackle and break down new challenges like this for and with my son is through an incredible sense of optimism when I launch into something new.  In this case, I immediately had fantasies of my son becoming an amazing track athlete, overcoming the odds, and being one of those viral stories that hits the internet and motivates countless people.

The realist in me understands the odds I’m up against.  But this remote possibility is enough to help me get started.  If you share a similar dream, here’s how I broke this down:

1. Find the time.  My son has ABA therapy twice a week and lots of help with homework.  We just had to put this on hold for a while.  Track season isn’t that long.  6 weeks to make room for a new experience that has the potential to build confidence and potentially open up an entirely new world is worth it.

2. Support the time.  Our ABA therapist met my son at the track 2 days per week.  Her time was spent observing my son to determine where he needed help.  He knew NOTHING about track and has gross motor problems that inhibit his ability to really run.  As he runs, it’s as if he needs to think about every movement to make it happen.  His arms pumping, legs moving, even how his feet touch the ground – it’s as if he has to think about each movement to make it happen.  We worked on running, understanding the track, “the rules”, understanding the race he would run, the starting gun (and how LOUD it is), what a finish line is, everything.

3. Coordinate the time.  On the days when the ABA therapist was not at the track, the babysitter would pick him up from track practice.  On Wednesdays, there was no track practice so my son needed to understand that on that day of the week, he needed to get on the school bus to get home.  Track meets were typically on Fridays.  He would need to support this very chaotic environment, to know when his race was and what he should be doing before and after his events.  I would flex my time at work to support this when our aide could not.

We used a calendar to help our son (and the rest of us) understand the schedule.  A typical week looked like this and was critical to not only ensuring my son knew where to be but to help coordinate who was picking him up on specific days and setting his expectation so he knew who was meeting him.

Track Schedule

4. Enjoy the Ride.  The first time I saw my son run in a race is something I will never forget.  I was fearful.  I knew he was slow and I wondered how all of these people would react.  What followed blew me away.  As my son was waiting, he was smiling, happy to be there and be part of things.  This really warmed my heart.  But not enough to lessen my fear that he’d cause a false start. He and the rest of the runners were ready.  The starting gun went off!  No false start.  YES!  As predicted, the other boys were running faster and got farther and farther away from him.  As the first kid hit the finish line of this 55 meter race, the crowd cheered.  By now, my son was really far behind and he was going to be running the last half of this race all alone.  But as he became the only kid still running, this wonderful crowd of students and parents did something I would have never expected.  They started to cheer LOUDER!  Louder than they did for the kid who came in first.  When my son crossed the finish line, the crowd cheered for him.  I’ve never seen him smile so big.  After the race was over, he literally skipped over to the coach who gave him a high five.  A couple of the other kids on the team also gave him a high five.  He was part of something and his confidence soared.  I sat there with a huge smile and tears running down my face.

There’s a good chance that my son will NOT become an Olympic track star or be part of any viral video that inspires countless people.  But he’s happy.  He’s doing new things and learning new things.  He’s becoming part of something larger than his family, becoming part of a community.  He’s showing the world what it looks like when integration in schools works.  As track season came to a close, ALL of his teachers noticed a big difference in him.  He was more confident, raising his hand a bit more in class, improvement with eye contact, improvements with greeting his teachers, all kinds of positive intangibles that are almost impossible to teach.  I would have never known that track would be such an important step to making improvement in the classroom.

I’m so grateful for the school my son attends and these wonderful teachers who are making such a difference.  I’m grateful that I’m sitting with parents who cheer on the underdog and are being such a good example to their own children.  No wonder my son is so happy at school.  We need to do what we can to help our kids be part of things that expand their world.  And even if you’re not in a situation where you have a child with special needs, I hope my story shows you how you can be part of making the world these kids live in a better place.

Behind every strong person is a supportive family

We’ve all read the quote “Behind every strong man is a strong woman” as well as all of the related quotes that mock the whole idea.  While I understand the criticism of this quote, I strongly believe that having a strong support network, whether it’s a spouse or extended family or friends, it’s a critical part of being a successful working parent.

At work, when I see someone that I view as very successful, when I am able to get more “behind the scenes” information, I often learn that they have a spouse at home who doesn’t work.  Their spouse is doing all of the heavy lifting related to keeping a household running, raising the children, volunteering with the PTA, very important and critical work.

For those of us who don’t have this kind of situation, we can still be successful at work.  It just requires a bit more juggling and planning.  This blog focuses on a strategy to help your support network at home help you so you can be more successful at work

Tip #1   Create a Family Calendar and share it with the right people.

In my case, I created a calendar on Outlook.com.  From any calendar, Outlook.com, Google, Yahoo, whatever, you can “Share” the calendar by clicking the “Share” button and then providing the email addresses of the people you want to share it with.  My babysitter and my husband have the calendar.  I helped my sitter set up her iPhone so that she sees this calendar.  I only add items that show up in the weekday afternoons so that she only sees stuff related to our family when she’s working.  She literally uses this calendar on her iPhone as a checklist for what needs to be done today and where the kids need to go.  My husband usually has this calendar turned “off” but it shows up in his list of calendar so that he can easily see what’s going on at any time.

By creating a Family Calendar, you’re creating a “Communication Center”.  All appointments go here.  Everyone knows where to look for information.  How does this help you at work?  You cut down on how many times the babysitter is texting you with random questions during the day about the schedule.  In fact, when she DOES send you a text, you know it’s important and related to something that you really need to respond to in the moment.  You no longer have your spouse IM-ing you with questions about whether or not you’re free next Thursday after work so you can get together with his co-worker and their spouse.  You organize your schedule so you can FOCUS.  This is a critical element to being successful at work.  if you’re constantly being distracted by things from home, your efficiency at work drops more than you realize.

Tip #2  Get the right appointments onto your spouse’s work calendar

Many working families share the responsibility of dropping off and picking up the kids to/from school and childcare.  But work responsibilities often mess up that routine.  When an important meeting is scheduled first thing in the morning on a day when I’m usually taking the kids to school, I create a calendar appointment that covers the school drop off time and send it to my husband.  If he has a conflict that he can’t move, he just “Declines” and I know I need to figure something else out.  The same goes for me.  If he can cover it, he “Accepts” and I know I’m covered.

Share Appointment with Spouse
Outlook calendar shows family coordination to determine who is taking the kids to school today.

By doing this, you’re setting things up in the moment.  No need to remember to talk about this when you get home from work (and risk forgetting).  No risk of your spouse forgetting to put this in their calendar, not to mention getting on the right day.  It’s fast, simple, clear.

This same approach can be used for meetings at the end of the day.  Have you ever had one of those “Executive Reviews” scheduled from 3 to 5pm?  They never end on time.  You spend the last half hour of the meeting watching the time.  You’re stressed.  You’re distracted.  You’re not focused on the actual meeting because you’re worried about picking up the kids on time.  Don’t put yourself in this situation.

When that Executive Review is scheduled for the end of the day, send your spouse a calendar invitation for them to pick up the kids or meet the babysitter.  You’re now free to focus on the meeting.  Beyond that, often, the most important conversations happen in the hallway after the meeting.  Put yourself in a position to be there for that conversation.  By taking this simple additional step, you’re lowering your stress, covering the responsibilities at home and creating an environment where you can focus, do your best work and be there for critical conversations.

Tip #3 Planning for the Week

Even with all the right appointments in the calendar, sometimes the family may not be actively looking at their calendars.  Family life is all about routine.  Routines are what help us manage the chaos and the volume of activities going on.  We can keep a lot of that routine in our heads and not rely on a calendar.  But the exceptions are the things that mess us up.  And the exceptions are the most important things to capture in the calendar because they are hard to remember.

On Sunday evening or first thing on Monday morning, email the calendar out to the people who need it.  In my case, this is obviously my husband and babysitter.  But I also include my ex-husband and the behavioral therapist who works with my son who has Autism.  To email the calendar from Outlook, go to the Home tab and select “E-mail Calendar”.  From there, you’ll get options to send the “next 7 days” and an email will be created with the calendar info.  I highlight the exceptions to the routine so my family can scan the email and get those exceptions for the week in their head.  If you use a calendar like Cozi, they have a wonderful feature that automatically sends a weekly calendar to a preset list of people every Sunday evening.

EmailCal2

By incorporating these 3 tips into your day to day management of your schedule, you’ll be amazed at how it will smooth out the bumps in the week.  It should also help you go from “surviving the week” to really excelling at work.

The Summer Camp Scramble

For working parents, having a plan for what the kids will do over the summer when they are off from school is important — and stressful.  It’s expensive.  There aren’t always a lot of options.  My school aged daughter doesn’t even want to go to camp, asking me if I could stay home with her instead.  And my son with Autism needs a camp that can accommodate him, which is even more expensive!

As I talk with other parents, we all share the same stress, whether you have a child with special needs or not.  Here’s my advice on how to approach, and conquer, this very daunting task.

Set a Deadline.

My deadline is the end of March.  In the Seattle area, and probably any larger city, there’s a sweet spot between when registration opens up for summer camps  and when registration fills up.  In the case of summer camp, I sign up for emails from the camps I’ve used in the past and I sign up for them on any camp that looks interesting.  As Spring approaches, I look for these emails to help remind me that I need to sign up.

Plan Ahead.

I like to involve my kids in the decision on where they are going to camp.  Do they want to do the same camp as last year?  Do they want to try something new?  Since my daughter continues to beg me to quit my job for the summer and stay home with her, involving her makes it easier to get her into a place where she’s actually looking forward to the summer.

Involving the kids in planning includes figuring out where their friends are going to camp.  Encourage your kids to ask their friends what they are doing.  Reach out to the parents you know.  This is a great way to discover great camps you don’t know about and potentially sign up the kids for a camp they can attend with their friends from school.  And as your kids understand that many of their friends are doing summer camp as well, this helps with their enthusiasm.

Finally, planning ahead involves figuring out any summer vacations you’re going to take.  You don’t want to sign up for a week of camp if you’ll be away on vacation.  This adds to the complexity of planning but once you’ve got that detail figured out, not only do you get child care covered for the summer but you also have your summer vacation to look forward to.

Camps for Kids with Special Needs

This situation is a lot trickier.  Just like with typical camps, doing research and asking friends is important.  In the Seattle Area, I’m lucky to have many options, though they are expensive.  My son has attended summer camp with Outdoors For All for 3 summers now.  It’s a relief to have this option.

If you live in an area that doesn’t have camps for kids with special needs, there are still options.  Before I discovered Outdoors For All, I found a local daycare that had a summer camp program.  I met with the director and explained my situation.  The group of kids was small enough that she felt she could accommodate my son.  I also arranged with her to get the schedule in advance so that I could communicate that to my son.  At the time, having him know ahead of time where he was going and how the daily schedule would break down was half the battle.  I kept a tight communication loop with the daycare provider and the summer worked out really well.

Other Logistics

For a working parent, the other element of summer is focused around logistics.  Drop off times and locations are different than the school year.  To simplify things, we work out a schedule for this in advance.  For example, I’m taking the kids to camp on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and every other Monday.  My ex-husband is taking them on the other days.  The babysitter is picking up in the afternoons.  We add the drop off and pick up times to the calendar, including addresses of pick up and drop off locations, so that the first week, everyone knows where they are going.

As the dates get closer, we also agree on a plan to put details of field trips into the calendar and work with the kids so that THEY remember the things they need to bring.  Swimming stuff for swimming related field trips.  Camp t-shirt for field trip days.  Hiking boots for fields trips that need that item. By putting this responsibility on the kids, they learn to be responsible and it takes some of the burden off of you.  Trust me, it only takes one field trip of them sitting beside the lake rather than swimming in the lake for them to remember to bring their swim suit the next time.

Register and then Relax!

If you’re like me, until I have camps all set up, Spring just brings me anxiety.  Once registration is complete, I can relax, enjoy Spring and look forward to the Summer!