How do I prioritize my children and family time amid the busyness of life?

This is a question that I certainly relate to. I am hard-pressed to think of a modern family who doesn't wrestle with this question of how do I prioritize my children and family time amid the busyness of life? It's a great question. Parents feel very regularly the reality that our days with our kids are numbered. “Babies don't keep” is a saying that also reflects that fact that time keeps on moving and we don't get to go back. Our babies won’t keep; they grow and change. And this thoughtful parent wants to prioritize his or her children but encounters the competing demands of a busy life. That immediately makes me think of Psalm 90:12—"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” This verse sobers me often as a parent and is a good thing for us to pray. We need wisdom from God about how to number our days, which is a way to say, how do I spend my time? Because it’s not always straightforward to know how to create the space in our lives to devote the time we want to devote to our children and families.

As I have worked with parents and couples on a similar question to this, I encourage something really practical, which is to sit down and make a weekly calendar. So don’t pull out your yearly calendar, but just a blank piece of paper, and you’re going to work on your typical week. Take your typical week and make a column for each of the 7 days, and fill it in first with the commitments that can’t be adjusted, so think work, school, Sunday worship. These happen at times already set and there’s no adjustment you can make to them. Next, you’re going to work on the family time, filling in times on your weekly calendar for connection with your kids. The key here is to fill these in before you fill in the extracurriculars. So the sequence matters here, and the mistake we make as parents sometimes is we say yes to extras without protecting the family time. So work on the family time first. If you are married, have a conversation together with your spouse about what you want the family time to look like right now in this season of life. Discuss and decide together, what’s the vision for our time together as a family? When will family worship and prayer happen? Do you want to commit to dinners together? If so, how many times per week? Do you want to commit to family walks after dinner or certain days? These are just examples. If you are single or if you are divorced and co-parenting, then I am still recommending that you vision cast for what you want the time with your kids to look like, though the divorced parent has the layer of complexity of having to navigate decision-making on behalf of the kids differently, and that can certainly be challenging. Still, with your time with the kids, think about what you would like the family time to look like. So imagine and envision, understanding that seasons change, but with what this season looks like with those commitments that can't be changed, go ahead and fill in on your weekly calendar the family time that you would like to commit to. And now these commitments become nonnegotiable. You are making the commitment and so that means you’ll have to protect the commitment because of competing opportunities that could take up your time.

Now on a separate piece of paper write down all the other possibilities of commitments, so think mid-week church activities, any extra-curricular sports or dance activities for kids. Write all of those down for each member of the family and then go back to your seven-day column week and be really realistic at this point. Understand that you are going to have to practice saying no to some really good, neat activities that your kids could do but you shouldn’t commit to because that extra time commitment will create too much pressure or stress on someone in the family. And that is the hardest part of all of this, is you have to say no to good opportunities and you have to weigh questions like what is most beneficial to my children, to our family? And I encourage you to wrestle and pray with that question as you consider the options available to you that could fill your calendar. Modern society provides so many potential activities and opportunities, especially for kids, which is amazing that we live in this day and age and such a gift, but the fact remains that all of us are working on a limited weekly schedule, that there are only so many hours in a day, and that intentionality within our relationships and within our parenting doesn't just happen.

So you can try working on a weekly calendar like this, knowing that you'll have to revisit it as seasons change. But the main principle here, the takeaway, is intentionality, that prioritizing time for the family and connection and resting together doesn't just happen. There are just too many demands, there are too many opportunities that can easily encroach upon a family's calendar, and so the practice is to be intentional before adding something to the calendar, to really weigh, does this fit? What impact will it have on our other commitments? What is the cost, not the financial cost, though that has to be considered too, but what will be the relational cost? What will be the physical cost, as we are perhaps out later at night, or the kids are getting less sleep. So weigh the costs and again be prepared to say no to really good things. And remember the prayer, “Teach me, Lord, teach me to number my days, to live wisely and be faithful with my time.”

And in all of this I think there is an opportunity as well to be talking to your kids about these decisions and teaching them how to weigh and how to wade through really good options, and how to practice putting what's most important first and how to protect that and how to honor that, and that will sometimes mean saying no to other good opportunities.