Let’s face it, as single parents our time is precious and wasting time or energy just is not a welcome option for most of us. I have found that one of the biggest time-wasters can be duplication and redundancy—whether it is doing something that is already been done, or lack of communication between myself and other people in my children’s lives that results in doubling up and duplication of stuff and adult “coverage.” It takes planning, scheduling, and sheer determination to try to cut out the redundancy and duplication.
The trick to stamping out duplication is in understanding that our kids actually WANT it! Who among us hasn’t had a situation where our child managed to get money for the same thing from both parents (or from one parent and a grandparent). It is up to us to make sure the lines of communication stay adequate enough so that we don’t have two doctor’s appointments or two new bicycles.
This is also true of other things: calls to the child’s teacher, signing up for summer camp, competing extracurricular activities. Even if you are the sole, full time parent of your child, duplication can be an issue—you may find yourself doubling up on something that has already been done (one example I remember is one year my kids all went to the pumpkin patch for a school field trip—but I had just taken my kids to the patch to get pumpkins the weekend before. We ended up with 6 pumpkins! 3 more than we really needed.)
While you may not be able to completely eliminate opportunities for duplication in your family life—by keeping a written schedule, anticipating what is coming up in the future, and open communication—you can save yourself time, money, and stress by cutting back on the redundancy and duplication over all.
Also: Problems Don’t Always Have to be Due to Single Parent Status
Consistency is Big for Single Parents Too
Do We Expect More Responsibility From Our Kids?