Over-Scheduled to Conflict with Other Parent's Time

Do you find that the ex schedules activities during your time without asking you? Do you think he or she does it on purpose?

We had that problem for the first several years. The ex would sign my stepdaughter up for an activity that interfered with every weekend dad had for nine months of the year when she could have scheduled it on any weekday (We checked the activity schedules to see and guess what? Yup, could've been scheduled when it didn't interfere in dad's time.) The ex wanted to make sure she could see the children during dad's weekends...can't give dad 48 hours alone with his kids now!

That wasn't the only problem though. We were finding that the kids, from age three and on, were scheduled for several activities every single week. Add in the visitation schedule and they ran from place to place constantly. So, we made sure our weekends were unscheduled most of the time just so they could have some down time and be kids. They played with their siblings, they played outside, we all played together with creative toys (Playmobil Toys would be a great idea for some creative toys for families to play together with young children), they made up games to play, we did crafts, we cooked. We did stuff together that didn't involve hyper-parenting.

According to an article I read at The Parent Report:

"A recent University of Michigan study even showed that we parents are now spending more time with our children. Unfortunately, careful analysis of the data shows that much of the additional time is being spent chauffeuring them from activity to activity."

Sounds like fun, doesn't it?