Quality Family Time vs. Outside Activities

Balancing the amount of quality family time you have with the amount of outside activities your kids participate in can be tricky.  If you have several children, then even just one activity per child can totally eat away most of your evenings!

If it’s important for your family to build and nurture your family relationships, you need to keep these two dynamics in mind:  the time you have with your kids during the day and the time you have as a whole family at night and on the weekends. One other dynamic is you, as their mom/teacher/chauffeur/cook. You need to make sure you don’t become burned out by taking on too many outside activities.

During the daytime hours, it can be easy to get sidetracked by all the classes and activities offered in your community, from fun meet-ups to science and art classes and so much more!  If you’re not careful, you can find yourselves running every day of the week! Sometimes, it feels like we’re addicted to busyness … and this isn’t healthy for ourselves or our children.

That being said, your evenings and weekends are an important time to be together as a whole family unit, including the non-teaching parent.  Unfortunately, outside activities (such as community and competitive team sports) usually happen during that time.

So, let’s talk about how to make sure you keep your family time as the priority it is even while enjoying extracurricular activities that your homeschooling children also need.

4 Ways To Maximize Family Time:

1. Learn to say no. In short, your kids can’t have everything.  You might have to say no to that extra soccer game or evening chess class.  Although it would be ideal to be able to go to one activity that works for all, invariably there will be scheduling conflicts.  To minimize this, learn to turn down opportunities in order to keep enough family time in your schedule.

2. They need to pick and choose. Each child has to do some picking and choosing.  Ask them what they would rather have, for example, soccer or horse riding lessons. This is an important life lesson, as we have to learn to say no to many activities in life, no matter how awesome they may seem. If your children are getting older, give them some of the say (within guidelines) and let them pick what they want to spend their time doing.

3. Maximize “bang for your buck” (both money & time). During your daytime school hours, try to find activities that include a majority of your children. This might mean you need to opt out of something because the commitment involved for just one child is too much sacrifice for the others in your family.

4. Choose to stay together.  When outside activities call, try to keep as many of you together as possible.  Have your spouse and children join you at the soccer game or swim meet whenever possible. Look for activities that are available for multiple ages, so your kids can participate in things together. And remember, sometimes it’s better to just stay home and have some family fun! 

3 Benefits of Outside Activities:

That said, there are plenty of reasons you don’t want to close your kids off to important extracurricular activities. Besides the obvious educational benefits of the activities you are participating in, there are plenty of little “life lessons” that your children can learn through managing their time both in and out of the house.

1. Your kids might learn that they can’t have both parents at every event all the time.  They will learn to “share” time with their other siblings and be grateful for whichever parent has come out in support of their current activity.

2. Your kids will also have the opportunity to learn to give their time to each other. When they sit at their siblings’ sporting events or chess matches, it’s a terrific way for them to learn to support and cheer each other on.

3. Without the bustle (and sometimes stress) of juggling outside activities, your kids will never appreciate the family time you have at home together. The days you can stay in your PJs all day, or the evenings when you can eat a leisurely dinner and not be running out the door to somewhere are that much more enjoyable when you have those hectic days or evenings to balance them out.

What are some ways that you keep your family time sacred while also making time for outside activities? We’d love to hear from you!