My Tyrant, the Planbook: One Mother’s Solution

A teaching mom once described nearly driving herself and her children crazy by being driven to adhere to a detailed daily schedule she felt she needed and that was provided by the curriculum she selected. When she realized that the frustration and pressure of those detailed plans were canceling any positive results on either family life or their school experience, she made one simple change. To keep herself accountable, she rewrote less specific plans for longer periods of time, leaving the daily entries in her planbook blank. In those blank spaces, she wrote down what occurred daily as each school day closed. She was amazed at the difference it made in her sanity. Even more amazing, her husband and children seemed to suddenly recover their sanity at the same time.

We have used her experience and solution frequently as an illustration, because parents who feel most secure with detailed plans are also most susceptible to be driven by them. For many families, a good flexibility/structure compromise can be provided by planning backwards, beginning with larger blocks of time.

Record what you want to accomplish in a month, then divide monthly goals into weeks. Many planbooks have six columns. If you don’t have one, you can make one in a notebook with a two page spread. Record your weekly goals for each subject (or student) in the sixth column as something to work toward during the week. Record what you accomplish daily in columns one through five as a record, after you do it.

This method gives you a To Do list for the week, and a Did list for each day. A Did list provides good direction when you resume and has a special advantage in both recognizing and recording the learning that might not be listed on any schedule.