You probably don’t need much convincing about the importance of maintaining a clear daily routine. However, with a growing desire for independence, kids often start to push the boundaries—trying to go to bed later, spend more time outside after school, reduce time spent on homework, and generally cut down on responsibilities while increasing their time for fun. You’ll need to show firmness and stick to some of these boundaries.

A good idea is to work together with your child to create a rough daily schedule, outlining wake-up and bedtime, coming home from school, homework time, extracurricular activities, play, and rest. This might sound a bit old-fashioned, but if you treat the schedule as a guideline rather than a strict rule, you’ll see that it actually helps your child and gives them the ability to organize their time more easily.

Don’t forget that your fifth-grader spends a lot of energy at school just dealing with the challenges of adjusting. On top of that, most kids also attend extracurricular activities, which take up a big part of their free time. Add in the increased amount of lessons and homework, and you'll realize that children don’t actually have as much free time as it might seem. The real question is how—and on what—they spend it…

Tips for Parents:

  • Let your child have at least 1–2 hours a day just for themselves to enjoy their favorite activities – playing with friends, reading a book of their choice, gaming, or as Pippi Longstocking would say, “doing nothing.”

  • Did you know that children need twice as much daily physical activity as adults? Experts recommend that school-aged children have at least 1 hour of active physical movement each day.

  • Include physical activity in your family life – go for a family walk after dinner, plan a weekend hike, or visit a swimming pool together.