Schedules and Child Care

Our first was born in the thick of the “feed your infant when they cry” philosophy, based on the reasonable premise that a baby knows when he/she needs food for that tiny little tummy. Part of this philosophy was that the youngster would settle him/herself into a routine.

The proposition sounded like a great experiment, so I made a chart: days and times on which I could color code blocks for eating, fussiness, sleeping, and contentedness. After several weeks, it was clear that no pattern was emerging; the chart was put away and we began moving toward a family schedule.

Based on my experiment, my longstanding conviction is that the sooner any baby realizes he/she has to fit into the marvelous family bustling with spiritual vitality, growing responsibilities, and appropriate fun that he/she has joined, the better everyone is.

This is not the day for schedule specifics, but a thinking day of what schedules do for families:

1)      As mentioned yesterday, the first and best place to learn about schedules is in the home. Particularly for families with many outside distractions, home begins to look like the only place to “kick back and relax.” No, home is for learning important truths and living biblically. If other schedules curtail lots of free time at home, then the adults still need to attend to all the important priorities of the home. IF there is any time after that, the remaining time can be considered “down time.” Schedules are, if anything, more important for “busy” families.

2)      Schedules professionalize the routine activities of an at-home mom and her children. Way too much time can be spent drifting along reacting to one little issue after another without a schedule—because a schedule usually indicates some foresight and planning.

3)      Schedules force an at-home caregiver to face all the selfishness built into his or her own day: don’t want to be bothered by kids during food preparation, housecleaning, phone calls, or computer surfing. Staying up late is “easier” to manage than an enforced bed time. Allowing children to sleep in is a disguise for giving the care-giver a chance to sleep later. Sorely needed child-naps are optional when they interfere with adult’s desire to go shopping or to get out of the house, but are ferociously enforced when the adult wants peace and quiet. Anyone with a spiritually ordered home knows the behavior minefields buried under each of those justifications that allow the adult to indulge self before providing a prayerfully professionally designed scheduled environment in a preschooler home.

4)      Schedules help parents reveal behavior issues and the level of consequence or further training needed to address those issues.

5)      While schedules cannot guarantee enlightened conversations with children, they certainly can help. Everyone knows a week old baby does not understand anything a parent is saying. But as the parent moves through the day, commenting on the “good” behavior the child is showing and talking about how to make a bed as the first step to caring for a personal space, or the need to learn to settle oneself for sleeping, or to eat in a focused manner, the parent is

• Practicing how to speak positively, calmly, and clearly to the child before it becomes imperative to do so
• Reminding him or herself of why they are doing all these basic care activities
• Planting simple commands in the sub-conscious of the child, waiting for the day of enlightenment.

“Stop!” as the baby rolls on the changing bed, with a restraining hand, sets the stage for “Stop!” when feet are ready to run away when the child is older. “Good Boy! You stayed very still for that diaper change,” sets the stage for appropriate compliments for good behavior when he will understand the words. Calmly reminding your unhappy daughter that she only has five more minutes of play time in her infant seat, keeps the adult focused and patient in spirit, and sets a pattern of calm and measured intervention after the child has been given opportunity to entertain and control herself. Reading Scripture out loud, morning and night sets the stage for family devotions in later years.

None of us know when verbal “enlightenment” will happen for any child, but the way we communicate, our tone of voice, our positive outlook, in the context of keeping to a reasonable schedule, all help assure that the moment of enlightenment brings a sense of wise care and orderly family stewardship for the child when it happens.