Let Your Kids Plan Family Activities
Things can seem a little chaotic when your kids are out of school. To prevent Spring / Summer break brought to you by screen time, many parents I know rush to fill their calendars with lessons, camps, and family weekends . But the assumption that you, mom or dad, are solely responsible for planning activities doesn’t help anyone. This puts pressure on you and your children end up in the back seat in question. They shrug their shoulders and assume that someone else is responsible for the joys and disappointments in their lives.
On the Getting Things Done podcast , a show for people using the GTD work and personal life management system, trainers Meg Edwards and Mike Williams talk about ways to get your kids involved in the planning process. (I’d say it’s worth giving it a try, even if you don’t practice GTD regularly.) The exercise uses the Do It And Do It Principle. It’s fun, makes everyone think, and teaches kids that they can bring the crazy ideas in their heads to life.
This is how it works:
1) Do it. Take a stack of blank index cards 3×5. Have the children sit down at the table and ask them: what would you like to do by the end of the spring / summer break? What do you want to do, watch, eat or cook? (You can also do this on weekends and generally on free days.) With his kids, Williams says he always wants to know “what crazy, crazy and interesting ideas are locked between their ears.”
Ask them to write or draw each idea on a index card. Turn on the 15 minute timer and say, “Done, get ready, go!”
2) Miracle. When the time is up, put all the cards on the cork board and marvel with them at the fact that everything that was stored in their brain is now on paper. It’s good practice to jot down our ideas, even the funniest ones. Edwards says that so many adults are afraid to write something down because they believe that when it is written on paper, they should make a commitment. But that’s not true, ”she says. We just write things down so we can see what’s in our head.
3) Do it. On the day of the break, when you have nothing planned, ask the children to select a card from the board. Maybe they want to set up a lemonade stand or look for seashells on the beach. In the morning ask them: what would you like to experience at the end of the day? What does this day look like and how do you feel? After they answer these questions, ask them: What do we need to do today to make this happen? Williams recommends that parents try their best to try their best to get the kids to figure it out.
Some ideas, of course, won’t work right now – you can move these cards to the Someday / Maybe list. But there will be many, and you are likely to find yourself on adventures you never knew existed.
Edwards and Williams say things won’t always go smoothly, but the process puts everyone on the same page and gives kids more control over their days – and therefore over their lives. “It teaches them that they have created something,” says Edwards. “They brought this matter to the end. It wasn’t just luck. This was not just due to osmosis. They understand, “I achieved this by thinking it over carefully.”