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?

Sitting on a toilet for ages, you say... My partner does it at the age of 45. Apparently, quite a normal thing for a lot of people. In fact, I remember my father doing the same.

Yes, me too though my issues hit later. At puberty. I was only diagnosed in my 30ies though. I take the medication because I can't work otherwise but I absolutely hate them. I hate how they make me feel. Maybe that's why I'm a bit reluctant to go down that route for dd at her age. I know everyone reacts differently to the medication but I think for everyone there is a.period of adjustment and peak side effects. I think it might be easier to cope with that when you are older. At the same time I know how much being undiagnosed for so l9ng has affected me. Anyway, Just musing. As I said it's for another thread...

There's definitely a lot of faffing in there isn't there?! That's good though. Plenty of room for improvement.

I would already be up, showered and breakfast prepared by 7:15 so that I can wake dd up with a 5 min cuddle. It's nicer and way more efficient than shouting up the stairs for 20 mins. Straight down to breakfast, something nice to encourage her, pancakes, waffles, whatever she thinks is a weekend treat kind of breakfast. Done by 7:45. Easily ready by 8:00. Bag, lunches, everything else sorted the night before. If ds is quick, fit him in whenever works, and let him play if he has time. No way should he be refusing to leave the house though! You're in charge. Don't let them forget that.

In the evening bedtime is set by how many hours sleep they need. Mine needs 10 so for 7am wake up that would be lights out by 8:45 ish. Your 30 minute school commute isn't helping that btw. Why does it take so long?
In bed at 8:15. In shower at 7:30. Dinner at 6ish-6:30, allowing an hour of chilled family time after. Snacks, homework, helping me with dinner, TV, play, hobbies between school and then. If dd needs 11 or 12 hours sleep it will totally eat into that. Not your fault. Prioritise the sleep.

We do a couple of evening clubs too so get most homework out of the way on Friday evening so that we don't have to do it every night. Even the app based stuff, do 3 or 4 days worth.

Honestly it feels to me like discipline is lacking. My son would object to most of the stuff I have written if I gave him the option. So I don't give him the option.

6 - 7.30pm is far too late for an 8 year old to be eating dinner.
Primary schools will usually have an early lunch, around 12pm, so she'd be hungry by 4, let alone 6 - 7.30pm.
And she's going to bed less than two hours after eating!

OMG so so much pressure!!! We are a ND household so we take a low pressure approach to everything. Trying to force DD to speed up or rush makes everything worse and actually slows things down. It also makes everyone miserable and makes us feel we are failing.

Try making a list of non-negotiables. Your kid needs an education, to eat, to wash, to sleep, to have free time and to get positive parental attention.

Homework, instruments, dancing so as not to feel too full, a set amount of talking or playing, craft... All negotiable.

Focus on reducing the stress around the non-negotiables. Kid can finish breakfast in the car if needed - that's 30 minutes of extra eating time right there! Make sure everything is ready the night before and in the car / in front of the door so you forget less. Don't try and make a forgetful kid do it!! If she will only eat in front of a video then maybe give her one with headphones. try and make reminding non-negotiable. My niece (ADHD and ASD) is the worlds slowest eater but prodding her in the wrong way causes outbursts. My ASD DD finds eating at a noisy table impossible so she eats in the next door room on her own (her choice). If she likes to read let her read, even if it's slow. Some parents would kill to see their kid read.

Throw away all the "oughts" and "shoulds" and try to make things easier and enjoyable for everyone. Also I would prusue that diagnosis. ARFID, not sleeping, excessive talking, dreamy forgetfulness, never feeling hungry.... Sounds like my brood and they are all some sort of ND or another!

I marked YANBU not because I think you are doing anything wrong, but because I wanted to say that I feel very much your situation and think it's perfectly reasonable you feel this way.
(I haven't read other replies, so maybe I'm repeating something that has already been said.)
I say I feel you because I could have written your post: I feel like I'm always rushing my daughter and become very agitated and anxious and shout and I hate it because I don't recognise myself in this witch... I don't know how to fix this but know that I'm in the same boat and wanted to share some insight in case it helps:

1. I change with my DH whenever possible if I feel I'm coming to the edge and about to become an ogre (which, as I say, happens more than I'd like). I'm learning still to recognise my triggers and I don't always get it right, but I try.
2. There may be practical things you can do re. time management: e.g. prepping the night before. But I won't focus on that because I'm not very good at it 😅
3. Recognise your triggers for snapping: are you tired/hungry/uncomfortable in any way? Put your oxygen mask on first of all, that kind of thing.
4. The thing that's been eye opening to me (this is me, not necessarily you, but I share in case it resonates): my daughter reacts to the stress I create! She slows down the more I rush her, not on purpose I believe, but as a kind of balancing unconscious mechanism if it makes sense? I know because I used to do the same as a child: I'm literally repeating what my mum did 😂 I always felt rushed, there was never time to play or just go to my rythym. So I find it very difficult to allow it for my daughter.

As I said: I don't know how to fix it, but in my case, by aknowledging that a big part of the problem is my own mindset, I've been more aware and able to correct some things.

You are not doing anything wrong, you've identified a problem and want to fix it: you want to do and be better for your children, that is great seriously 🙏 I honestly wish you find the way for your family!
(Sorry for the lengthy post 😳)

Medication is not the only option. In fact, at the age that she is and the sorts of tasks she struggles with, she will benefit from OT and psychologist.

I really don't mean this as a personal attack, but if you have attention issues and you are having the problems you describe, your attention is probably the root cause of the timetabling difficulties and ALSO the stress you experience around them.

You find coordinating three kids is more difficult than some people do. Really sit with that and be kind to yourself but also honest.

And if you daughter also has attention problems (which could present differently to yours), a mess happens in the middle. Again, no one's fault but a reality to come to terms with before leaping to a new system.

Schedule space for downtime when you can and then you won't be stressed that anyone is 'wasting' time. Don't jump into dropping music but maybe take an intentional few weeks off practising before considering further.

In France, primary school children are in school from 8am till 5pm. Like the PP said, the UK isn't the shortest, but it's definitely not the longest either.

The adult in charge needs to make her wash her hands before she does anything else. And accompany her to make sure she does it.

I have a 10 year old with ADHD who i still have to accompany to the bathroom to ensure he washes and brushes his teeth. Also with getting dressed. Otherwise he gets distracted and you find him sitting on the windowsill staring out the window while fiddling with a rubiks cube 15 mins after you sent him up to get ready. Keeping him on task is a full time job!

Also important to pick your battles. Decide what are the non-negotiable things like mealtime, bedtimes, washing and cleaning teeth and let the other stuff go (dancing after dinner, instruments) if you are really struggling.

What are the things you want to fit in that you think your children are missing out on, OP, and in what order priority would you place them? I'd start with that and work your schedule around them.

Now that it's getting dark earlier, for example, my priority is for my kids to spend as much time as possible outside each day provided the weather is ok (i.e. not heavily raining). So everything else (homework, crafts etc) have to fit around that. In a couple of months, it will start getting dark earlier and the kids will have plenty of time to stay in and do crafts and play with toys. But they'll have limited time to be outside in daylight playing.

Likewise at the weekends, when winter gets going properly, we'll only have 8.00-3pm of decent light before it gets dark, so the priority will be making sure we're out of the house as much as we can be for that time. Crafts and indoor playdates can be done after 3pm when it's getting dark.

We have a lot of birthday parties to attend at weekends so often fit getting out for the day around then. We'll do a walk or a playground either before or after the party.

Shepherd your child to minimise distractions.
Eg in the door coat off shoes off straight to wash hands. No wandering into living rooms to be distracted by books.

Warnings before changing tasks. My 20yo (dyspraxic, dyslexic, mh issues) still does much better when given 5 min warnings.

Yes you pack the bag. You model checking the checklist. You get the routine working and then slowly hand over bits. My ND kids needed scaffolding far longer than most MN kids, but they got there in the end.

I don't think the dance at night is really helping. It will over stimulate her before bed and if she is hardly eating at dinner, burn even more calories that she needs to keep.

Pack school bags & make lunch night before.

No we couldn't afford that. In fact I've just gone full time to cope with increased costs.

Neither of the kids fall asleep alone. My husband and me take turns putting them to bed and we stay with them till they fall asleep. When ds dropped his nap this September to go to preschool I thought we could all go up at 7, get ready for bed and then ds could go to bed and dd could quietly do stuff in her room (reading, playing or even school work) but somehow we never manage to go upstairs before 7.

Dh used to be very hand-on but he works very long hours and he's got a chronic pain issue. Considering how much pain he is in every day he does a lot. Lately I've been getting the kids ready for school and he mostly finishes work either at dinner time or sometimes only when it's time for them to go to bed.

I talk to my psychiatrist once a year and I'm prescribed medication. I use lists and alarms and all the usual stuff but not very successfully. I'm not functioning very well but it's enough to get by.

My one bit of advice, for getting to school on time. This is the only thing that gets us anywhere on time:

Tell yourself that you need to leave the house 10-15 minutes than you actually do. So be aiming to be IN THE CAR BY 7:45 latest. That will probably mean setting your alarms for 6:45 too. If it's properly in your head that you need to be in the car by 8:45 then you'll actually be on the road by 8:00 and there on time.

I'm not joking, me and DH apply this method literally every single time we leave the house.

I have a ND slow eater.

We limit dinner to 30 mins and then top up
With a plain supper an hour or so later. Rice, toast, bagel, crumpet - plain carbs so she'll eat and not be hungry

Hello OP, I just came to say that you’re not crazy. The UK school day IS incredibly long for primary kids. 8:30-3:30 is bonkers in my opinion. We have a shorter day where I am from 9-2:40 and I still think that far too long for primary kids. I’m baffled that people think the UK school day is short! You’ve gotten some great advice here though, I hope things get easier for you and your family. Try not to be too hard on yourself, it’s easy to feel like we are never doing enough for our kids, but sometimes doing less is more x

Oh and I agree that a shorter formal school day with extra curricular time in the afternoon would be great for lots of kids ( I know that logistically it is challenging for parents who work)

In terms of hand wash -that is the behaviour you want and that is what she is dillydallying over so change the routine.

If you have a back access go through the backdoor, or shepherd everyone through to the kitchen straight away heling with shoes if necessary - shoes off, hands washed at the kitchen sink, everyone sat down for a drink and snack and chat about the day /colouring board game in the kitchen - I used to keep washable board games so Battleships, connect 4, Uno cards and playdoh in the kitchen cupboard.

You empty, wash and refill lunch boxes whilst you chat ready for the next day.

My ND child has always struggled going asleep alone.

A great investment was Alexa, installing Audible books and letting them select their books to listen to. They can have a timer on. You can also install excellent apps to help with sleep. Background noise apps such as Sleepjar ( rain, thunderstorms). The comfort of the background noise helped alot with settling without me.

You are my hero!!!

I love especially the 30min on the playground every day while the other parent prepares dinner. I think I'd be happy if we managed to.do half of what you do. I'll have to come back to this post and others to write down pointers.

There's lots of things you can do the make things easier.

For example if you want her to wash her hands when she comes in from school (why?) try instead buying antibacterial hand gel and having it by the front door and spraying it as soon as she gets in.

Immediately you no longer have a job, she's not procrastinating for two hours because washing her hands is boring.

I'm no expert, but maybe I detect a smidge of neuro diversity here - the dreamy dawdling and the food issues and the hand washing are all pretty classic. But also, this all sounds pretty standard - mine are now 17 and 20, so I don't recall the exact schedule, but probably not a milion miles off. My younger one got an Autism diagnosis at 11 and then ADHD at 14; she is now getting 3 x A/A* A levels at 6th form college, but there was a time when I thought she was falling behind at school, and also I thought there was not enough creativity going on - turns out, that is just her thing. She too was an avid reader - this is GOOD! Not something to be worried about. I am not suggesting that I know that this is the case with your daughter, but I would say that having someone who knows about neurodiversity just have a chat with her might be all you need to click a few things into place and allow yourself to feel that you are in fact doing a very good job :)

Single and Proud's list is good but I'd go for an earlier bedtime. My youngest child is almost 4 and goes to bed at 7, I think your littlest one probably needs 12h sleep. Sounds like DD could do with more sleep too. I'd reduce that free time block a bit more. If she's better rested she may well speed up a bit and do less daydreaming. But I think early dinner and then a little supper later would probably help both kids get a bit more food in them, if DS isn't hungry really at 4.30 he can always just snack a bit and then have his bigger meal at supper time.