What’s the Right Time to Do Anything? | Geekdad from Wired.com

Geekdad offers some tips borrowed from a new Consumer Reports magazine called ShopSmart about the best days and times to engage in different activities or tasks with your children.

Having to work around a custody schedule can make some parenting tasks more difficult than they should be. I remember when my ex and I first separated — the custody schedule originally provided for me to spend mere hours a week with my kids. Seven (our seven-year-old) had always insisted that I be the one to cut his fingernails. He usually panicked around the clippers, but we had a little routine worked out where I would trim one nail at a time, pausing to ask him, “Did that hurt?”, and he’d smile and say, “Yes,” and I would move on to the next one. I respected his fear but didnt let it get in the way of doing what we had to do, and he enjoyed having the opportunity to own his feelings on the matter, even though it didnt really hurt.

But being allowed only a few hours each week didnt give us many opportunities for normal parent-child interactions. Since our time was so limited, I would pick him up and take him to the town library, where we would spend about 90 minutes reading and working on the public computers before I brought him back. But he still needed his fingernails to be cut, so we’d do this in the library’s family restroom.

At some point during a custody conference, the issue of trimming his nails came up, and the custody officer appeared horrified to discover that I was doing this in a public restroom instead of at home. That was the first time I had to restrain myself, but I still expressed a great deal of frustration, telling this idiot custody officer that if she had “granted” me the “privilege” of being able to spend more than 2 hours a week with my own children, I wouldnt have to conduct personal hygiene tasks in a public bathroom. She immediately shut up on the issue.

Geekdad’s suggestions include the best time to:

Grocery Shop with Your Kids? The day after the supermarket’s ads come out, and right after breakfast or lunch on weekdays.

* Why? This is when you can get good deals and there are plenty of on-sale items left in stock. When the aisles aren’t clogged with after-work and weekend shoppers, you’ll navigate faster with your cart and kids.
* Hint: If your kids have eaten before you leave, you’ll spend less on “gimme” items like fruit roll-ups and crackers. Also, bring snacks for your kids to munch on while you’re shopping.

Working around a custody schedule adds an extra layer to the challenge of finding the best times to get things done with your kids. What are some good methods of managing time in these circumstances?

1. Plan ahead — brief periods of custody time are compounded by travel time. If you’re spending part of your custody time just getting your kids from one place to the next, by planning ahead, you can combine trip times by doing some chores on the way home or on the way back to the ex’s house. But to do this takes planning — know ahead of time if you need to do grocery shopping before a weekday custody period, for instance. Especially with young kids, the act of getting in the car can take lots of time — tying shoes, bundling up in coats and mittens, collecting toys or snacks as distractions, and getting everyone buckled into their seats — this is all time that you can eliminate by combining chores that require you to get in the car.

2. Know your kids’ routine — custody officers and judges dont give a shit about when your kid takes a nap or normally eats lunch. But if you’re negotiating a custody schedule, keep these routines in mind and try to prevent the court from interfering with this time by applying thoughtless schedules. And, in many cases, mom is going to encourage schedules which cause you difficulty, even at the expense of the children. Know this ahead of time so you can try to avoid these conflicts — dont allow the court to dictate that you will pick up your children at noon if they usually eat at noon and it takes you 45 minutes to get home with them. Instead, try to push the time up to 11:30 so you can be home in time to maintain their own schedule. If your kids usually wake up around 8am, dont agree to drop them off at mom’s until you’ve had time to give them breakfast and get them ready for the day. You are the guardian of your child’s routine, and even if (especially if) the other people involved in scheduling their time dont seem to care, it’s up to you to make things as easy for the kids as possible.

3. Be creative — Geekdad includes advice on when to schedule dentist appointments:

Tuesday through Friday, between 10:30am and noon, or 1:30 to 3pm.

* Why? Those are generally the slowest times at the dentist’s office. By scheduling yourself or your kids then, you’ll avoid the morning rush of 9-to-5ers who swing by the dentist on their way to work, during lunch, or on their way home.
* Hint: Always avoid Mondays. That’s when dental offices fill up with emergency holdovers from the weekend.

I’m glad I didnt see that item before I was scheduling my kids’ dentist appointments. In order to coincide with their custody schedules, I always bring the boys to the dentist on Monday mornings following a weekend when they are with me. This has never been a problem — I’ve even been able to keep mom notified early enough to avoid issues with me bringing the boys to her house “late” on these days. Dont ever accept the custody schedule at face value — life requires flexibility, on everyone’s part. You are the parent — you are entitled to be able to figure out ways to solve a problem outside of normal schedules. Custody courts dont appreciate conflict between parents, but they also want the parents to be able to figure out how to be flexible on their own — by coming up with creative and reasonable solutions to scheduling issues, you are doing everyone a favor, the kids most of all.

Do check out the link to Geekdad’s article. Many divorced dads are unsure about how to integrate normal chores into schedules that include taking care of the kids, and there is some good advice there. But above all, know your own situation so that you can make the kinds of decisions your kids need you to make.