Saturday is the most challenge day for a lot of families. It is a weekend, but as a parent, you need to grocery, laundry, house cleaning, if your kids having extracurricular activities, then it is not a relax day at all! My family also have a very busy day on Saturday, starting early morning with swimming lessons and music lesson till the end of business hours. (PS: I am not a tiger mom, that is all the activities they would like to attend). Here is my family weekend schedule on the busy day and all the activities are in different locations.
| Son (7 years old) | Daughter (5 years old) | |
| 8:15 to 9:00 am | Swimming | Swimming |
| 10:00 to 12:00 am | Hockey match | Dance lesson |
| 1:00 to 3 pm | Rest / Library reading | Flute lesson |
| 3:30 to 5 pm | Flute lesson | Rest / Library reading |
| 6 pm | Dinner and relax | Dinner and relax |
Expect drop off and company kids, we try to take as much as possible for the time for other activities such as cleaning, grocery, and laundry. How did we manage the time? Here are some tips:
Table of Contents
First, prepare you need in the evening before and put it close to the door.
Due to the short break in between classes, we will not have enough time to go back home again. So, prepare as everything in the evening before. And, let the kids do that, they know what they are going to need.
Tips: Each activity need to have a dedicated bag in case of do not mix up.
For example,
| Swimming | Hockey | Flute | Dance |
| Entrée pas Towel Changing Clothes | Hockey Sticks Sports Shoes Sports clothes Socks Mouth guard | Practice Books Notebook Instrument | Clothes Shoes |
Secondly, priorities the activities with parents accompany or not.
Some activities are required parents involvement, others you just have to wait in the build or drop off. For the swimming lessons, I rather sit in the podium with a cup of coffee and relaxing to write my blog or chat with other parents. Every now and then I check how things are going in the swimming pool but only give thumb up to kids when they look at me.
Tips: For swimming, I also use the time to reply quickly for the piling up messages, online grocery, calendar updating etc.
For the hockey trainings, since it is a teamwork that requires quite some technics and cooperate with each other, we subscribe as the volunteer parents. One of us are participate in the club training for young age, so most of the time we follow with kids progress and make sure they we know if there is any body conflict as well.
Tips: Working together with other parents as well, because it is very time consuming and many kids to management. It is better to take turns with good communication.
For the music part, it is more enjoyable for us to join, to see how kids listening, developing their skills. We have little music knowledge but rather follows the teachers and taking note for homework and practice. In the meanwhile, we are there to support kids and also to compliment.
Tips: Chat with teacher a little bit more about the kids performance and progress
Finally, after the whole day, enjoy a family dinner outside
Note: Time including the travel time as well
Overall, here is our overall schedule on a busy Saturday, if you also have very energetic kids and they want to do everything, all I want to say that it is manageable. Both parents and kids have a relax time in-between, for example, my daughter is free after 3 pm and can start to enjoy an afternoon tea. My son has a long lunch break which he can take a nap or quiet play.
About Me
Hi, there. I am Lin. Together with my husband and two kids, we live in the beautiful Netherlands in Europe. I am dedicated to self-development, creating quality time for the whole family, and fully supporting kids with their potentials with all I have learned from engineering, MBA, and 10+ years of working experience in the energy sector.
