8 year old - am I being unreasonable? Please help!

[Createausername1234]

Hello,
my soon to be 9 year old struggles to hold down a routine. I have tried reward charts, helping make diary entries, offered sleepovers( her most favourite) if she can hold down a school routine for a week without multiple reminders.
This is what I hope she does and below what she does:
hope:
home at 4:30, a shower and snack - 1 hour
(to also empty school bag, lunch box and hang clothes)
homework/studies - 1 hour
dinner followed by whatever she wants to do

reality:
first 2 -3 hours are spent in uniform playing, followed by multiple reminders for shower and change of clothes.
Then it takes a very long time to eat dinner
followed by multiple reminders to do homework.
She is considered a great child in school by teachers.
My job is also very demanding, so I am finding it very exhausting to be constantly reminding her.
My husband thinks I am a perfectionist(he is way too relaxed in my opinion) I may as well be, please pour in your feedback/advise. Thank you.

She's been in a rigid routine all day and needs to relax.

I don't want to come home from work shower and then do an hours work. Its decompress time.

The routine you describe sounds like its what you need not her

But I am really struggling to have any sort of routine without millions of reminders :(

Thats because she’s 8!!! Leave her alone and let her play. Call her for her dinner, then maybe after that she knows it’s homework time. Then have a set time for bath and bed. She’s a child not a robot.

Edited to add stop trying to make your life easier by making hers harder, again - she’s 8.

I think the shower after school routine is odd - almost as if you haven’t realised your child is no longer a baby. At 8yo I expected my dc to come home and have a snack, then do their homework (not an hour), then I served dinner for the family at around 6pm. If a dc took ages to eat it then there probably wouldn’t be much pudding left for them 🤷🏻‍♀️

I expected bath/shower as they got into their PJs. Hanging clothes up? Yes, with help. I think there is quite a broad middle ground between anarchy and the regime you’re prescribing.

Relax take the peessure off yourself She's 8! They need prompted alot and are still kids, you are expecting her to do what most teenagers would struggle with tbh.

Most kids would play endlessly if you let them tbh it's normal.

My DD who is 8 does maybe at a push 10mins of homework maybe 3 nights a week. This is prompted and we have the odd meltdown. She does not shower/bath daily maybe 2/3 a week again prompted and sometimes a battle to get her to do this. She's just started getting her bag ready for next day but again this sometimes gets forgotten and I do it. It's about making life easier for everyone at home.

let her be a kid, before you know it she'll be grown up and you'll have missed out in seeing the joy of letting her play and being a bit more free.

Why don’t you change the routine to work around your daughter? Showing her some flexibility in the routine will role model to her that in your family, you can be flexible around the needs of others, which will in turn encourage and promote collaboration and working together.

The way you’re doing things at the moment doesn’t work for her and is setting her up to fail.

And as others have said, homework reminders are normal at that age. And is school really setting homework for an hour each day, or is this additional work you’re setting?

She clearly needs the immediate downtime after school, and if this means she plays in her uniform, let it go.

I have an 8 year old and these is no way I would impose such a draconian routine on her every day. Let her just be a kid for gods sake, why are you making her do an hour of studying on top of her school day, and whats with the shower when she gets home. My mum was a controlling micro manager too, and those are the strongest memories I have of my childhood, even though she was a lovely mum in other ways.

Edited to ask, why do you need her in a strict routine anyway, she is not a baby any more where you need to manage her every move..

Sounds stressful all round. Why does she need a shower immediately? Let her play and process the day first.

Thanks all, very helpful to get other perspectives

As the parent of a just turned 8 year old who does daily homework (alongside other extracurricular activities), you need to meet somewhere in the middle.

Expecting that level of structure daily after school is a bit much but children cannot always play all evening - my DC has the option of stopping the activities should they want more free play but they opt to continue because they love them. Homework set by school is non negotiable and likewise for daily reading

We get home from school and have dinner ready - I know most give a snack but my kids are very hungry and I prefer to get the full meal into them earlier and snack later. Before or after dinner, homework comes out and they make a start. Homework is max half hour and we are at the stage where they will get it out themselves and usually finish it - this naturally took more prompting when younger but they now know they need to do it and they’re accountable, not me. If it’s a bit harder, they’ll take a break and finish off later

If they have an activity, it’s usually after homework, other days they are then free so they will play (and shower somewhere in the middle with prompting). They will ask when they want snacks.

They go upstairs by 7.30 to brush teeth and read. I join at some point and spend at least 20 mins reading with them, the rest is unassisted

Edit to add - the emptying of bags/lunchbox etc is usually still done by the adult. Something we are working on but I have to pick my battles and that isn’t one for now!