Over-Scheduled to Conflict with Other Parent's Time

>> Sunday, September 20, 2009

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?

2 comments:

Mommy of 3 September 20, 2009 at 8:48 PM  

We are actually living this right now. While we are happy that SS is involved in sports, we feel that spending uninterrupted time with his 'other parents', and his 'other siblings' is more important. We will more than likely be dragged to court because the Ex wants to control every waking moment that we have with him. Heaven forbid he just enjoy being a kid and have some good times with his family.

If we could get the Ex to be as involved with school as she is with sports SS would really be getting somewhere in life!!

Syn September 21, 2009 at 1:39 PM  

I understand. We used to live that every other weekend. Dad's time was the LAST priority over everything else...still is. The other parent didn't matter, the siblings didn't matter. Only what mom wanted mattered.

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