Teaching Children Weekly Planning

A recent post on TJED Muse got me to thinking about how we have handled these issues when our children were younger. I decided to answer a few of these and post them here.

Question

My 7 year old daughter has been asking recently what exciting thing are we going to do today, meaning what field trip or go over to someones house. We do not do any of those things on a regular basis so I am not sure where she has gotten the idea to expect it. So I tried to explain to her that life is made up of our everyday work, either home or school work with outings every once in a while. I tried to find a book that might explain this better but so far I have only found books that highlight all the exciting things of a person's life. Does anyone have any suggestion on what I can do or books that would be good to read?

My Answer

Your daughter's inquisitive questions are simply a sign of her age. She is becoming capable of seeing into the future of days and weeks rather than the moment. I find these questions are just so they can know the plan and maybe influence the plan with their own wants and desires.

At those ages, we simply installed a desk calendar to the wall and wrote down what was happening as it was scheduled...everything from doctor appointments to play dates to fieldtrips and outings. You may find this will appease her need to know what is happening on a daily basis and alleviate the questions. You can just turn her towards the calendar and say "Go see!" We still use this method today.

Another idea from TJED books is the weekly mentor meeting to plan your week. This helps children learn how adults go about planning their lives. We've found it very useful in teaching our children how life is just a series of hours, days, weeks, months, and years. Some days are busy and others are "homebody" days.

Book Suggestions

A few people did post some book suggestions that I would have suggested also:

• The Little House on the Prairie series
• Little Britches series
• Little Women and Little Men
• Laddie

Here is what our calendar looks like today. It is posted near the phone and everyone is asked to add their appointments, classes, and events to the calendar so that everyone knows the plan. This is especially important for my teens so that we can work out car issues...with four drivers and two cars it can sometimes be tricky.