Please help me figure out how to fix my kids ' childhood

[DrowningInChaos]

Theoretically, we are very privileged. Both dh and me have good jobs and the kids are relatively healthy. But our biggest issue (at least mine) is that there is just not enough time. Ever. The kids never have enough time to play, do craft, practice dd's instrument or do homework. We barely have enough time to talk and on top of that the kids are sleep deprived because there isn't enough time to sleep. And dd is late to school most days. I blame the long school days in the uk but other parents and kids seem to manage much better so it's obviously something we are doing wrong. I'm desperate. Please help me figure it out. Dd is 8 and in year 4. Ds is 3 and in pre school.

This is our schedule:

7.00 wake dd
7.20 dd slowly gets up (after lots of attempts to get her out of bed. Mostly still no shouting at this point)
7.20-8.00: dd gets ready (go to the toilet, get dressed, brush teeth and hair, pack school stuff, eat breakfast if there is time otherwise pack breakfast and eat in the car). More and more shouting and stress at this point for the kids to hurry up.
8.00 we have to leave at 8 to be at the school by 8.30. Most of the time we don't manage and are 5-10 minutes late. Most of the time we have forgotten something.

Ds gets up quite easily at 7 but needs help wothe very step of grtting ready. So he gets ready very quickly but then often delays everything by starting to play and refusing to leave the house.

8.30-3.30: school
4.00-4:15: back at home.
4.15-6.15 free time (but dd loses a lot of time by very slowly washing her hands and removing her shoes, etc). This is the time when theoretically she could do.any school related work or practice her instrument. Ds can just play.
6 -7.15 or 7.30: dinner. I know it's long but dd is severely underweight. No medical issues. Possibly arfid. She eats extremely slowly but we cannot cut down on this time and risk less calories going into her.
7.15 or 7.30 - 7.45: dance or play (so they don't go to bed feeling too full)
7.45 -8 or 8.15: get ready for bed (This is when I start getting stressed again)

8.30 - 8.45 lights out after reading for a while
Dd takes very long to fall asleep. Often an hour or so. It's not hecause she isn't tired. It's irrespective of when she goes to hed and she struggles so incredibly much waking up in the morning that she imo she needs more sleep. Ds is out like a light sometime between 8.15 and 8.30 whenever we manage to put him to bed. He is just turned 3, has just dropped his nap but we don't manage to put him to bed before that. He refuses to go upstairs without dd.

Once a week dd has a club at school followed by swimming so she only comes home by about 7pm and then everything is even more delayed. Once s week I need her to.atrend a club or after school club so I can finish work.

On Saturdays we have a slow start. Dd has an extra curricular activity at 11am but somehow we are also always late for this club. The biggest bottlenecks are getting ready and breakfast. She hates both. She is adamant that she wants to do this club. We try and keep Saturday afternoons and Sundays free for family outings, meet8ng friends, birthday parties, going to the park or play dates. Somehow they pass in a jiffy too. Sometimes her homework takes a couple of hours (or more).

Our biggest bottlenecks are getting ready and eating but I just don't know how to get dd to speeden up. I'm not sure she can. She is very absent minded and dreamy. And she is so tired in the morning, which slows her down too.

She loves doing craft but we have got a million craft projects lying around that she has started but doesn't get time to finish because she never gets a decent few hours or fald a day in one stretch to work on just one thing. There are the weekends but I also think it's important that she plays outdoors and with other kids so half a day goes at least in going to the park or on a playdate.

She loves reading but she reads so much that slowly I think it's doing more harm than good because of all the other things she is missing out on. She also loves talking which slows her down but then we need to have time to talk don't we? She often wants to talk to me at bedtime but we are usually so late already! I get some time to play with ds after school but at all times when dd is at home she talks non stop so there is very little opportunity to talk enough to ds. I thought his language skills were. underdeveloped for his age because of that but according to the health visitor his speech and comprehension are quite good. Still. I feel so bad for not talking to him enough m

Anyway, dd is also meant to do 20min of school work every day (app game based) but there is just no time. We just don't do it. She used to do very well academically but is noe starting to lag behind. She is learning an instrument but rarely practices.

Apologies for the length of this but I just don't know what to do. 1-2h of free time a day are just not enough to fit in anything of quality but I just don't know what to do. I wish she went to a different school that was closer to us and had a shorter day (and no homework) but that's a whole other thread. For now we are stuck with the school.

What am I doing wrong? What could i do betterI ?

I can feel my blood pressure rise every morning and evening when I need the kids to get ready either for school or for bed and I'm exhausted by the time it's done. I always used to be a calm and patient parent but now I'm starting to become more shouty and I hate it. It seems like there is no time for cheerfulness or playfulness let alone any proper playing. This isn't how childhood is supposed to be. Kids are meant to have loads of time. Enough time to get bored. My kids don't even have enough time to sleep. Please help me. What am I doing wrong?

Is she taking ages because she's resisting doing the things at all, or because she's getting distracted before/during, or something else?

My DD is16 now, but had some of the same issues. She has now been diagnosed with Dyspraxia and Dyslexia and has been referred for ASD and ADHD. Some things that jumped out at me

You need to be more organised yourself, so every evening get bags and uniform ready for the next day, make packed lunches etc.

You need to take control of every situation and stop letting them dictate what happens. It will be difficult at first but the more you back down the more they walk all over you.

Stop dance/play just before bedtime, that is only going to wind them up and make them hyper not tire them out/ease digestion.

Stop the instrument, DD had lessons for years and never got anywhere.

Stop anything at mealtimes except food, videos etc are too distracting

Play soothing music at bedtime, or a meditation app etc. Do it with her to start with then leave her to it.

Put the 3yo to bed much earlier, it is not about what he wants, you are the parent, take control here.

Get DD up earlier if 1 hour is not enough time for her to get ready.

Leave home at 8am on the dot whether she is ready or not. She can finish getting dressed in the car or when you get there. It all helps to impose that this is what happens, you must be there by that time not matter what.

As someone who also has ADHD I mean this kindly- I think a lot of this probably stems back to you.

The school day with 1 evening of clubs, 1 afternoon of after school club and a Saturday activity that starts at 11am shouldn't be causing this much stress and tiredness. There's evidently more at play in terms of mealtimes here; but you need to get organised.

Can dinner not be any earlier? 2 hours of free time then feeling flushed over dinner taking a while seems a bit wild. Bedtime also sounds late, being over tired can actually make it worse.

She's probably overtired. Fix the sleep and the rest should slot into place.

Dinner takes between an hour to 1.5 hours.

She doesn't even do homework. She should but I don't make her. Well she gets official homework once a week, shich she does do at the weekend but they are expected to play a math and spelling based online game every day, which I don't enforce (also because she already gets over an hour of screen time with the dinner videos every day).

I'd be happy with 10min of instrument playing.

Do the school app over mealtime?

I have an a yr 4 DD, probably ND, struggles to sleep, obessed with reading and plays and instrument. Previously had CMPA. They could be twins.

I think you need to look at strategies for parenting a ND child. Even if she isn’t ND it maybe helpful.

Our routine
6.45 I get up and dressed
7.15 wake the kids if not awake
7.30 breakfast, look at spelling and chat
8.00 upstairs teeth, dressed, hair, quick tidy for robot hoover (she has a check list, all uniform is ready and accessible). Room is not overly cluttered. I’m bouncing between both children’s rooms checking and prompting them to get ready, opening curtains, maybe sorting washing.
8.20 down stairs, snack in bag, shoes and coat. Everything else eg wellies for allotment club, swimming bag in front of the door the night before so not forgotten
8.30 - cycle/walk to school - getting outside is important for her regulation

4 ish - home from school, youngest has snack. Free choice of what they want to do, craft, play or whatever.
4.20 - some times music practise here or sometimes after dinner
4.30 - screen time
5.00 dinner (what does DD’s paedatatric dietian recommend about food?)
5.30 - piano or play, does 6 mins time tables rockstars for school
6.15 - supper
6.40 - bath
7.00 - in bedroom room for chill time, reading or lego usual reasing
7.30 - reading if not already started
7.45 - lights out, weight blanket, armotherapy oil, guided relaxation story, heated cuddly toy

I double check everything is ready for the next day.

This is a normal amount of time for a U.K. child.

Most kids are on a schedule which means they get stuff done.

So for example mine played an instrument at the same age.

We practiced (together - I ran the practice) after school.

I had a rock solid routine - come in from
School, eat snack. Then music practice one child at a time. Don't measure it by how much has she achieved measure it by it was 10 mins long.

Then homework. Again, at this age you sit down and do it with her. If it's 20 mins then that's how long you sit down for.

You have four hours most days after school. Plus a day and half at weekends.

I suspect this is going to come down to your adhd and her neurodiversity.

Getting ready in the morning seems long to me. To go to toilet, get changed, wash face and brush teeth should take ten minutes if you’re there supervising. That leaves lots more time in the morning

You need to give more detail about the tasks, why do her shoes take so long to take off? Is she struggling with laces in which case look at silicon dress shoe laces on Amazon they turn every shoe into a slip on.

Is she struggling with time management? In which case music is your friend. Make a morning playlist and play it in the hall way. Something relaxing to start and then something more up beat, IE everyone has to be dressed by the end of the Spice girls song, everyone has to have breakfast finished by the end of the three Backstreet songs or whatever your DC are into. It means you don't have to nag and puts some oomph in heir step.

And then there is you - you need to be more organised, observe both your self and DC and find where the time sucks are and then rearrange the day so they dont happen. So don't check your phone in the morning /Mumsnet until washed and dressed yourself etc. you need to be actively supervising them so have them in your room getting dressed whilst you do your hair / have a coffee.

Yes, we do that. We need a checklist by the door and we need to get into the habit of packing her stuff the night before. It always seemed like another thing to fit in before bed time but maybe I should just do it myself.

And yes, what I want from this thread is exactly this: advice on how to use our time better.

Your DD needs to be assessed for ADHD and autism. Her slowness can be a sign of both poor coordination and failure to focus. The restrictive eating and lack of appetite are also red flags for these. And you have a family history of ADHD.

The school will often be reluctant to support a referral because they don't want the added workload on the SENCO and all the added support that they legally have to provide.

I was that dawdling child. Autism diagnosis in my forties.

I suspect she’ll be quicker if she isn’t as tired.
The fact she isn’t eating enough will be a big part of that. And nutritional deficiencies (not having a go. It’s just harder when a child doesn’t eat enough)
Issues with falling asleep won’t help either re tiredness.

You CAN put strategies in place but I would really want to sort those above (and maybe look at ASD too if there is some afraid going on) because they will impact what is going to be the best way to approach it :)

In the mean time, I’d

• prepare everything for school the night before - no more running around to prepare stuff
• have your dh more involved in the am (you dint mention him so I’m assuming he isn’t a big part of the morning routine - if he is already, then great!)
• eat the evening meal earlier and put her in bed earlier. Hopefully she’ll then get more sleep iyswim. Plus my dcs have always found it harder to get to sleep when over tired. I’d say 7.00pm is a good time to go to bed for a primary aged a child tbh.
• stop concentrating on how little she does but concentrate on how happy she is (or isn’t) doing whatever she is doing.
• not something I’d usually say but maybe stop activities during the week, incl the dancing after the meal . If she is choosing to read because it’s the less tiring activity, then I’d see that as detrimental.

Just to clarify: she doesn't take 2h to take off her shoes and wash her hands. It doesn't take her longer than other kids. So she will come in and then pick up a book or do this and that because hand washing is boring. So she will procrastinate handwashing for a quite a long time but in that time she won't start anything of what she wants to do because she knows she still needs to wash her hands.

Where she loses a crazy amount of time though is sitting on the toilet and day dreaming. Is that normal?

This may be somewhat controversial but we moved our son’s bedtime forward by an hour (it had slipped to almost 9pm) with a short course of melatonin. Bought gummies from Piping Rock. He now has an occasional one when he’s is very wound up. Fwiw: we suspect ADHD too and are waiting for an assessment.

Get rid of instrument. Have dinner much earlier. No dancing before bed.

school days in the uk aren’t long- usually 9-3.30 ish. So plenty of time in the evenings.

homework isn’t as beneficial as people often think it is so I wouldn’t stress too much about it.

otherwise your week looks quite normal for a parent of 2 small kids. Busy and chaotic at times but with times to play and relax in there too.

Personal preference but I think waking up at 7 is too late to leave the house at 8am unstressed. I also think the bed time is far too late for that age. So, overall I'd shift your schedule to be
6am wake up. Allows for getting ready slower or allowing practice time or craft/reading
5pm dinner time
7-8pm bedtime. Which allows you time to unwind yourself!
As for activities:
Instrument practice is 5-10mins max X3 times a week.

My kids were also super slow eaters and writers. Neuro typical, they just needed tist time when they were that age. They sped up. Enjoy your talking time over dinner. See it as a positive.

Good luck!

Brilliant. thank you!!

Thank you every one for taking time out to try and help me with this. All the replies have been very helpful and have given me lots to think about and some pointers of what we could change to improve things. 💙

It sounds like there are quite a few issues here. My son is also pretty easily distracted, so we use timers and checklists quite a bit. A printable checklist he can carry with him is a helpful visual reminder for getting ready in the morning (along with some pointers: "I see you're dressed now, well done, what's next on the checklist?"). Having a playlist for him is helpful too as an auditory reminder that isn't me talking to him (when x song is on, he should be brushing his teeth; by the time it's on to y song he should be brushing his hair; etc.). And using timers helps us make use of short bits of time for necessary things - e.g. after breakfast we set a timer for 10 minutes and that's how long everyone has to put on their outdoor clothes so we can go out. If you're not dressed by the time the timer goes, whatever you didn't put on but need gets hastily shoved in a rucksack and we go anyway!

I think this may be more around your expectations rather than the hours in the day. It sounds like you had a much shorter school day as a child.

For context my children are similar ages- Year 3 and preschool. Our day looks like this if it is helpful:
6am DS2 wakes up 😩
7am DS1 wakes up
7-8:30 Breakfast, dressing, packing bags etc. DS1 has ASD so I do know what you mean by things taking ages. We find a set routine and alarms/timers helps.
8:30 Walk to school (starts at 8:50 and preschool at 9)
For me the work from 9-5
3:30 DH does the pick up, kids home by 4. They have a snack, relax, watch a bit of TV. This is usually done by 4:30. Then they can do a bit of craft/drawing/play dough etc and DS1 can do his homework, usually 10 mini on an app. He only has one piece of proper homework which is done at the weekend.
Then at 5 I finish work, come downstairs and sort out dinner which I meal plan quick dinners or slow cooker ones usually. Or DH will start it.
5:30-6/6:15 for dinner
At 6:30 DS2 goes up to bed, can you convince yours to go up earlier than his sister?
2 nights a week DS2 does a hobby so leaves with DH at 5:15 back by 6:30.
DS2 usually asleep by 7/7:30
DS1 does homework if not done, play, read etc downstairs with whoever isn’t doing bedtime
7:30 DS2 bedtime
7:30-8:30 tidying etc

I agree. When I was in school, it finished at 12.15 at primary and no later than 2pm in secondary. This, of course was back in a day when kids were allowed to walk to and from school independently and could spend a few hours home alone

I'm not meaning to sound rude but you have lots of time! I leave the house at 7:30/7:45, back at 5 and then we have clubs 4 out of 5 school days. It's all about being organised (which I've had to really work on) and prioritising.

I really think either you need to be firmer and keep to timings with your daughter or there is a reason she's struggling so much with organisation and eating.

My tips that I've mainly learnt from Mumsnet!
• everyone gets dressed and does hair first before breakfast
• set time breakfast ends
• if we need to leave at 7:30 then I'm timing it in my head that at 7:20 we are getting shoes on etc so that gives me 10 minutes leeway for something to go wrong. You said your son plays but you need to be firm because being late isn't a good habit to get into
• use the journey home to listen to an audiobook and eat their snack if the journey takes a while then snack needs to be finished when you get home
• pencil in 4:15-5:15 as their time to relax, play etc
• 5:15-6:00 dinner (I've given more time as you said she takes ages)
• 6:00 reading, homework for both, non-negotiable so you don't get sidetracked

Do you lead by example? I'm not trying to be rude but are you a late person? Or is it just your Dd?

Why does she need to wash her hands? I can see it if you’re worried about outside germs, but if she’s touching everything, picking things up, playing, etc. It’s seems a bit pointless to wash hands after that. Can you quickly wipe them over with a cloth if it’s something you’re worried about?

Drop the instrument. You don’t have to do it formally, just let it slip. If she has to watch a screen with dinner, do the homework then (do it together, ask what she thinks the answer is, you can press the buttons for her).

You seem to have loads of time (we only have 6pm-bedtime at home), but you’re focussing on having to check all these things off. Prioritise the homework, then just let her do what she wants for a bit unsupervised. You can then introduce more things later. She sounds overstimulated, no wonder she has trouble falling asleep. Plenty of time on the weekend for dancing and crafts.

This is exactly what I came to say. Because life becomes like wading through treacle and it's no fault of anyone's,but life is stressful, chaotic and different for most of us with ND kids. ( That is no criticism of the children ). It's trying to get them to operate in an NT world, it's so hard on them and parents.

What id do - drop every single thing you don't need. Stuff the instrument, who cares. I learnt guitar as an adult, they can do the same.

Do they have to do the Saturday club? Can you drop swimming once they're capable of swimming well enough to enjoy it and not drown? Beyond that, forget it maybe.

With the homework - some of this is so bloody unnecessary in my opinion at such a young age. In primary most homework is reading. Can you just lie sometimes and say they read more than they did?
I am the most honest person and don't like people who lie. Yet on this one, I thought that the requirements were daft. My ND child was reading brilliantly and it was getting too much reading these crap Enid Blyton books every night. We'd get an audio version often and ' blag it'.

By secondary school they won't be able to do this so much but for primary level, i don't agree with how much is put upon kids and alot is not necessary if they're doing ok academically. ( My thoughts of course)

Honestly, 2 hours of free time every evening is a luxury: my child’s school day doesn’t finish until 5.30 so we aren’t home until 6. My eldest in Year 8 stays for club/choir/orchestra/sports until 8pm so we aren’t all home until 8.30. We do NOTHING in the week except schools/work/eat/bed. Saturdays are school sports matches and homework with free time in the afternoon. Sundays we try to keep free for family time but usually something crops up.

To me your days sound luxurious 😂. I do think modern life is way too busy and stressful and often think back longingly to the days at home through Covid.