Do you wanna know how to create a really powerful family schedule? Well, I'm Nicholeen Peck,
the creator of teaching self-government. A parenting program that had gone across the
whole world and if there's one thing that people love to ask me about is, "Nicholeen,
how can you schedule your day and your family?" We're gonna talk about that in this video.
I'm going to tell you what my family schedule is like. But before I do, I'd love to give
you back story how I created that schedule in the first place. In order to create a really
great family schedule, you have to determine what your priorities are. There are multiple
areas that could be considered priorities. Some people consider education or religious
worship as a priority. Maybe meal times are priorities, maybe friends and social times,
TV time, exercise time, sleep time, personal grooming. List all the of the ways that you
might spend your time in a day and then prioritize them. So pretty number 1 by the activity,
that you feel like should be the most important. Not currently taking the most of your time.
But what should be the most important? Is it the family bonds that you have together?
Or maybe, it's the spiritual study and encouragement in that way with the family. What is top,
number 1? Put the number 1 by that and then go to that list of priorities that you've
made and number them. So that you'll get to the list important priority with the largest
number. When I did this exercise with my family, I realized that within a week we spend of
course the very most of our time on sleeping. But actually sleeping wasn't my top priority.
There was something that is even more important. The family time that we have together, I felt
like was number 1. First our family then our scripture study and our religious worship.
Then came education, then came the chores and things around the house or keeping the
home going and down the list. Ending with things like entertainment and TV and stuff
like that, and friend time just a little bit above that. When I looked at our day I thought,
"Are we really following those priorities? So if you take the amount of hours you have
in a week. So you figure, 7 times 24 is 168 hours that you have in a week. So, of those
168 hours. How many hours do you need for good health for sleep? So factor that in,
maybe you need 7 hours a night or 10 hours a night, and then you remove that from the
total of hours that you have to work with. In order to incorporate your priorities.
Then, of course, you have to have meals it's just a have to but that's not necessarily your
very top priority, but we gotta factor those in. So how long does it take to eat meals
together as a family? Then after that, start looking at your priorities and see how much
time you spend on those priorities each week. Versus how much time you really at to be spending
on those priorities. When I took a really great look at how many hours I had to work
with and what my priorities were. I recognized that I could be putting a better effort on
having family time. In fact, I realized that my children were spending too much time doing
extracurricular things and friend things outside of the home. And, it's possibly damaging our
opportunity to bond as a family. Now, I'm a big picture thinker, and if I'm going to
make a great schedule for my family. I wanna keep a large view, not just each individual
little detail. Where am I going as a family, anyway? That has to stay at the top and forefront
of my mind. I've got to make sure that, that's my goal. So, when I determined that we're
spending too much time on extracurricular activities and friend time, we significantly
scaled back. I also analyze the developmental needs of my children. So, my children had
different needs based on what phase of development they were at. So when they're little like
toddlers up until that age 4 or 5, they really don't much social development outside home.
Infact, too much social outside of home decreases the bond, which can create problems for their future.
So, I determined they could stay close to me and not have many social interactions.
Maybe cousin time, here and there, and a few friends engagement. But we're probably gonna
see friends in places like church and stuff like that, anyway. But when they got a little
bit older maybe they would have more friend time. So, between the ages of probably like
5 and about 12 years old. This was the time when they would have a little bit more friends
time. During this time they are developing basic social skills. Now, I do believe its
the family's job to teach proper social and the children use their time with friends to
practice those social skills. Which also means, parents needs to be nearby to make sure that
the social practicing is happening in a good way. But they do need more time with friends
during this phase of life. Then when they hit the ages between 12 to 18, they're starting
to prep towards adulthood. Now they do need time with friends but they also need more
time dedicated to their studies and to developing adult skills. Sometimes, they need a job for
instance when they're older. So, they might have to have time for that and some of their
other extracurricular things. Their starting to develop more independence but that doesn't
mean, that they get to pull completely away from family. So, one thing I determined was
even at those older ages, family had to come first in their lives. So, what does it look
like? Let me explain by telling you what my schedule is. So, the first thing, after I
do all these analyses of what I need to factor in to make a good schedule. I realize there's
no problem with me just being deliberate. Deciding, my family needs this many hours
a week, and when I decided my family needed a certain amount of hours a week because our
top priority is family. Then I deliberately choose what was going to miss. Now, when I
say time for family, I don't mean just were on the same house. I mean real family time,
I mean we play games together, we're talking together, we're discussing books together.
We're really living together, cooking together, working together that's real family time.
And I wanted more of that for my family. Because I know that the families who have increased
amount of quality family time, which includes quantity. You can't have quality without quantity,
the 2 we're joined together. In fact, quantity of time actually has greater influence upon
your child, than those few little minutes that you think of quality time my have.
So don't be filled by that, that was actually just an idea that came out back in the day.
When woman were trying to make themselves feel better about not being with their children,
and doing child-raising activities with their children that they needed. I think we're wiser
than that now, and we know we need time with our children. So, what I decided was, I would
get deliberate about it. So, no matter what decision you make for your schedule it doesn't
have to copy mine. Make sure that you deliberately choose and you consistently stick with it.
Allow the family to know that anything outside of that family schedule, is going to have
to be considered, and maybe a family meeting. Which is something I teach, in the teaching
self-government parenting program. Or maybe the family is going to have to accept a no
answer. Which is another one of the skills that I've thought my family, so that they
can be self-governed. So, this is what my basic family schedule look like. Now, of course,
we get Christmas time things change a little bit. We hit you know that summer, or around
vacation things are going to adjust. But this is the basic outline that I have in mind.
So, I wake up every morning at 6:30 or maybe 7 o'clock and I start my day. I do my exercise,
then I do my scripture study, my personal learning time maybe journal writing. And then,
we start our day as a family at 9 o'clock. Now, my children are up not long before 9
o'clock but we start our actual deliberate schedule at 9 o'clock. So my family does homeschool,
so this schedule might need to be adjusted. What I'm going to be explaining to you on
my schedule, is the things that we do that were most important to us. But you may have
to factor those things in other times. So, before 9 o'clock my children get up and they
get showered. They get some basic chores and things done and sometimes even do some of
their music practicing before then. And then come 9 o'clock, we have what we call family
can. This is the time where we get together for family devotional. We pray we say our
family mission statement, we read scriptures, we do memorization together, and then I to
the children and we discuss. This is all good family time, it also spiritual development
time and academic time. So I'm hooking together multiple priorities all at the same time.
So, we have discussion if the children is littler, we're gonna take this time all the
way up to about lunchtime. And then after lunchtime, they'll have independent study
time after they clean up with their after-lunch chores. But, if they're older then probably
about mid-morning, maybe around like 10, 10:30. They will go off and start their independent
studies and I will just work with the younger children. Some people might be thinking,
"This is what I'm good but I don't homeschool, so how does it apply to me?". Well, there are
certain things that apply, do you read your children? When? You've got to decide when?
Is it in the morning before they go to school? Is it after-school? Is it before bedtime?
When are you factoring in that type of activity? Because if it's one of your priorities to
have increased family time then you wanna fit that in. When do you do your family devotion
if that is something that you do with your family? Or, you come and talk about your core
values together as a group and maybe pray as a group. You've got to have those time
set in place, that's an important piece to add to your family schedule. So we do school
throughout the day, so there you go you do school throughout the day. Now, my school
is much more hands-on than probably a lot of people because I'm doing homeschooling.
So I count some of that school time as family time, depending on what some of our activities
are. If the person is off doing their own reading, their own studying then that is definitely
solely school time. But if we're doing arts and craft together or maybe were on family
walk for exercise and were talking together. That can also be considered as family time.
So we do school until about 3 o'clock, give or take. If the child is in their scholar
phase which, if you're not sure what that is. You can look at some of my homeschool
videos here on the channel. Because people do ask me homeschool questions and I do make
homeschool videos. You can find more information there. But if there's scholar phase they're
doing more learning and they might go a little later for their school day, and that's totally
fine. So at that point then we do some of our other family time or extracurricular things.
So sometimes, the children might have lessons. Now, what I did is I tried to put a lot of
the lessons at the same time or even put multiple children in the same lessons. So I wasn't
running all over the place. So If someone is on swim team, maybe another person would
also go on swim team. Or, if I could get 2 people to be part of the same club then that
club would be worth it for my family. But if I had to take each of my children's spots
all of the time, then probably I wasn't going to do those activities. Because it would then
take my entire night and I was not willing to give up my entire night with my family
to run them everywhere, every week. They're a lot of things that come in with church and
school and some of our hobbies. We've got to be selective and careful. Often times,
we would pick a certain night, maybe 2 nights of the week, no more than that. Where we would
allow some of these extracurricular activities. But all of the other nights of the week we
decided we're for family and we safeguard of those things. In fact, if we started doing
too many other social things, we would pull back say no and call it a family night. Sometimes,
we have extracurricular activities, sometimes there might be a little bit of social time
in the afternoon. But then in the evening, we're back to family time again, and that's
just one maybe 2 nights a week. Where there are some other extracurricular activities
that might come in there, maybe things happening at the church. And during those times as a
family, it's not about TV at our house. It's about reading books together and discussing,
playing games, building ports and clubhouses. In the backyard going fishing with dad, doing
real things as a family. Having activities that build memories they create conversation.
So, that's the type of activity that we do, and then we have dinner and then we maybe
read a little bit more. If you wanna have TV, you can do a little then. Although stories
are way better than TV before bed because it helps the brain to suit and to calm down
a little bit more, and then it's time to get ready for bed. So, I was not that type of
parent to put my children to bed way early. Because my husband did some time to get home
until later, and I wanted him to have his family time with the children too.
Before bed we all gather together and say a prayer. So, you need to decide what bedtime works
for you and what type of routine you wanna have in the evening. Do you wanna read a story?
Do you wanna say a prayer? and how long is that going to take. And then make sure you
budget that time into your schedule. There are other days of the week like Saturdays
and Sundays were things are just a little bit because there's no school. But we still
have our family can and our devotional time. We still have our routine in the evening when
it comes to bedtime and we still decide how much time we spend as a family. Maybe if there's
one thing that I can share with about family schedules it's this. Your family and the priorities
that you have are the most important thing. Not exactly what time you start a certain
thing, so keep that in mind. A family schedule means that your principles and priorities
have been put together in a way where the family thrives. Don't worry as much as the
clock, worry about the experience your having and the priorities that you're following and
then you'll know you had a great family schedule. Putting a family schedule is part of being
self-governed person. Another part of being self governed is learning how to deal with
disappointment. If you've enjoyed this video, I'm pretty sure you'll like my next video
which is: How to help your child deal with disappointment. Click on that video now, I'll see you there!