Know a good after school routine?

[lisacol]

Hi - I have 3 children 7,5 and 2. I work till 3 every day in quite a stressful job and then do pick ups.

I haven't posted on here before but wondered if anyone could help in a good after school routine that works. As a preference my children just want to watch TV and eat continually so is a continual battle to do other stuff, but when we do we all enjoy it, but is really hard work to get them motivated and am aware that they need downtime to.

We do Brownies/Rainbows during the week and music at weekends, and don't want to fill the time with too many more clubs as will have to switch to a full time job in March, so won't see them as much and want to enjoy the time now.

I am looking for tips/ideas on the real basics i.e. on when best to do tea, when to do homework, how/whether to restrict TV etc. and what else we can do given the weather is so rubbish.

[fidelma]

I find it much harder in winter.

If we aren't under 2 feet of snow we walk home up a hill for 1 mile.

I have tea ready.They are always starving. They then eat a good tea which I have all cleared up by 5pm. They have a super before bed.This stops some of the snacking.

Followed by free time,homework,tv and computer .Outside play in the better weather.

They often have a mad time dancing and jumping around especially after tea which I encourage.

Nothing is in and nothing is out.This is just what we do.

[fluffycauliflower]

I have three children. They do quite a lot of activites, but ignoring those, our basic routine is:

Come home from school, fruit snack and a treat straight away. Free play/whatever they want to do, this might be the telly, but they often don't put it on s they are not that inbto it, until tea which I do at 5. After tea they have to help wash up we have a rota, then they do their instument practice, spellings, times tables and reading, then they are free again until bed. We probably eat tea too early - they aren't all that hungry by then, but it suits me to get it out the way, and when they were younger it took from then until bedtime for me to listen to them all read and do the other stuff. I find it works best to stick to a routine, otherwise they just refuse to practice their intruments and we forget the other stuff. On the day we have swimming lessons this goes out the window, other days we may have tea lator.

[lisacol]

thx both, like the idea of structured time for instrument stuff and homework - music practice always a struggle