If you are single parent like me with multiple children (and even those of you who may only have one child, but also have work, house, family, and other obligations to juggle), there may be those days when you think it is absolutely impossible to keep track of everyone. As children get older and head off in all sorts of different directions, just keeping a tally on who is where, which permission slips you have to sign, and the phone numbers for all the friends’ houses can seem like a full time job!
I think the sooner you can put some of the responsibility on the child or children in a single parent family, the better off you will be. If children are old enough to make plans, sign up for classes and pursue personal interests, they are certainly old enough to write their itineraries down on a master calendar. In our family, we learned early that everything had to be written down and as soon as my kids could handle it, I put the responsibility of writing their activities into the calendar on them.
I also think periodic check-ins are very handy. I hadn’t realized how much my kids and I share our plans until recently when I realized that we all do a morning check-in that has evolved over time. Each of us will ask, “What are your plans for the day?” I know that I must have started this as my kids hit adolescent and started getting busier–but now my kids will even ask me over breakfast and we’ll do a brief check-in with each other about what we have on our personal dockets. I always found the morning check-in to be more advantageous than the evening one and I can remember doing this with my kids as I was driving them to preschool and elementary school. Our schedules would be fresher in our minds and we’d have a good idea of what lay ahead for the day.
There is just no way that one single parent can keep track of everything and anything that might happen in the family–the more kids you have, the more complicated it can be. Set up good working systems, and train your children to help and share their activities regularly–this way you can do your best to keep track of what is going on.
Also: We Learn By Doing
Where Would I Be Without My Notepad and Datebook?