Dear Pointy,
School sports have taken over the lives of my children! Some nights, my kids don’t have the time or energy to study. There’s no time for doing chores or taking on an after-school job, which some kids need. Coaches don’t accept any excuses for missing a game or practice, including weddings or funerals, much less eating with the family. I want to call on all fellow parents to stand up and demand their kids’ time back, taking their weekends and summers back and requiring coaches to limit sports to within that timeframe. Agree?
– Frustrated Parent
Dear Frustrated Parent,
We’ve all dealt with the frustrations of too many things to do and not enough time to do it. But if you think it’s difficult trying to put together a schedule for a family full of kids, organizing every parent in America is likely going to prove impossible.
Before you try tackling that, you might try managing your child’s schedule with rental software. You can enter your child as an inventory item, rentable in increments that suit your schedule. If you’re concerned about a lack of downtime leading to decreased performance, you can require your child to be back for a period of time before he or she is available to rent again. When maintenance is required on your child, you can put them in a maintenance status, which will prevent others from being able to cause further injury. You can even determine store hours and charge additional fees when people keep your child away from home for too long.
However you decide to approach it, raising kids is an exhausting and rewarding process. Good luck!
-Pointy
If you need advice from Pointy, email [email protected]. Bear in mind it may take him a while to respond.