Want to win spouse-of-the-year? Help your spouse during the school year with one of the seemingly never-ending tasks. Here’s how!
It’s not breaking news that the school year is a lot. Every parent of school-age kids knows this truth. Your brain is swimming with bus schedules and after-school activities and teacher in-service days and permission slips and camps for next summer and…. You get it, it’s never-ending.
The non-stop mental and physical load of the school year is especially present for all the default parents out there. You know the ones, the parents who are the primary point of contact for the children. If you’re not the default parent in your household, the school year is a great time to raise your hand and take some of the load off the back of your spouse.
Now, I get that often the default parent is default for a reason. Usually, the other parent has a good reason for not being the default parent like a crazy work schedule or lots of travel or a job that doesn’t allow easy access to communication with the outside world. The good news is that offering to help your spouse during the school year isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition. You can help your spouse during the school year in lots of ways that don’t interfere with your other obligations!
If you are the default parent in your house, this is a good post to forward to your spouse. If you think that’s a little passive aggressive, use the ideas to start a conversation with your spouse about what he or she can do to take a little bit of the load off your plate this school year.
How to Help Your Spouse During the School Year
Drop-off/Pick-up
Is it hard to drive kids to school, pick them up from school, or get them to and from the bus stop? No, it’s not. But does it take up an inordinate amount of time every day and risk sucking the soul out of your body (especially if you have multiple kids at multiple schools)? Yes, yes it does.
Because every parent I know who does the school run every day would love a break from this task every once in a while, helping with drop-off and/or pick-up when you can is a great way to help your spouse during the school year. Now, I say when you can because I know that often one parent simply can’t help with the kid transport on a daily basis. If this is you, don’t feel bad about not being able to help in the way on the regular. But if you find yourself getting out of work early on a school day, offer to pick up the kids from school. Your spouse will appreciate the break and your kids will love the novelty of being picked up by their other parent.
Emails/Parent portal
Emails are a modern scourge on our society. We all get so many emails every single day that it’s really hard to keep up with all the traffic in our inboxes. But the powers that be who send all the emails don’t seem to understand the sheer volume of emails we are getting. They expect us to read every email immediately after we receive it. They bury really important information in long emails that are filled with mostly inconsequential nonsense. You’re going to miss things.
If you’re a parent who has a crazy schedule that prohibits you from doing drop-off or pick-up on a regular basis, being the designated reader of emails from the school or monitor of the school parent portal is a great way to help your spouse during the school year. Being the keeper of the electronic information is a hugely important role, so you’ll feel good knowing that you’re contributing in a major way. Your spouse will also have peace of mind that he or she isn’t missing things while he or she is doing the shuttling of children. It’s a win-win!
Calendar
One of the most challenging things about the school year is the calendar. I mean, the calendar is challenging all year round, but it’s especially challenging during the school year. Your kids have extra-curricular activities, special days at school, and weird schedule disruptions. There are also appointments, family obligations, and work schedules to consider. The calendar is an absolute mess during the school year.
Because the calendar is such a mess, it’s really a two-person job. I believe that there shouldn’t be a keeper of the calendar who just barks out reminders to the rest of the family. The calendar should be communal. If you haven’t traditionally taken an active role in the family calendar previously, now’s the time to help your spouse during the school year and at least be aware of what is on the calendar.
How the members of an individual family help with the calendar will be very specific to each family. In my family, I’m in charge of updating the main calendar, but I get important information from my husband each week to do so. We begin our calendar each week with my husband’s work schedule and add from there. Then, we take some time over the weekend to discuss what’s on the calendar for the week ahead so we can make sure that everyone gets where they need to be when they need to be there with whatever they need to have with them. Help with the calendar, it’s crucial to your family’s success!
Extra-curricular
Another great way to help your spouse during the school year is to take charge of an extra-curricular activity. Ideally, you take charge of this activity soup to nuts. Talk to your kid about what he or she wants to do, research options to do it, sign the kid up, and be the one who takes them to the activity. Heck, if it’s a sport and you play it, you can even coach it! It’s a big job, so you might need to split the tasks associated with the activity with your spouse.
Weekend
If you struggle to have meaningful time to devote to the family during the school week, either because you work long hours or you travel a lot for your job, don’t think the help you can provide on the weekends isn’t helpful. Au contraire! Hanging out with the kids on the weekends, either taking them to sports or just having them tag along as you run your errands, is a huge help to your spouse during the school year.
If you’re in charge of weekend fun, this frees up your spouse to take a break for an hour or two or go get groceries with an audio book in his or her ears. It also gives you some quality time with your kids, who you don’t get to see a ton during the week. Everyone wins!
Home tasks
Another easy way to help your spouse during the week is to take a look around the house and do something that you can easily see needs doing. Here are just a few ideas.
Dishes
Are the dishes stacked in the drainer threatening to fall over? Make sure they are dry and put them away. Now you have room in the drainer to wash the dirty dishes in the sink.
Laundry
Has a mountain of clean laundry grown overnight in the laundry room? Get to folding! And while you’re at it, throw a load in the washing machine so your spouse can get a head start on his or her daily habits.
Dinner
Did your scan of the calendar this morning make you realize that dinner was going to be hard to accomplish? Stop and get takeout on the way home. Your spouse and kids will be so thankful to have a hot meal.
These small, seemingly meaningless tasks are extremely impactful and will win you major brownie points too!
Homework
My kids are still too young for homework, but I’m told that homework is just about as bad for the parents as it is for the kids. If this is true, helping with homework will be a big lift. If you are up to the task, this is a great way t help your spouse during the school year. Let your spouse focus on getting dinner on the table and watch your kids learn and push themselves. Sounds like a pretty sweet gig to me.
Bedtime
The end of the day is hard. Everyone is tired. The kids don’t want to go to bed. The parents desperately want to go to bed but they have a list of about 67 things they need to do after the kids are asleep. It’s a strange time of the day that happens, without fail, every single day.
But, armed with my tips to make bedtime easier, you can handle this time of day like a pro and give your spouse a much welcome hand. And what better way is there to end your day than snuggling your favorite people on earth?
Communication
Often I start these lists off with a bang and begin with the most important things. This time, though, I saved the best for last. If you really want to help your spouse during the school year, communication is key!
In my family, we set aside some time over the weekend to discuss the following week. It’s part of my plan to set our week up for success. We figure out who will do what, when, and with whom for the week ahead. This weekly communication date helps us make sure that no balls are dropped and no fingers are pointed. If you aren’t having a dedicated chat with your spouse to discuss the week ahead, I highly recommend you give it a try. It will change your life!
Other posts
Want more posts that could help you juggle the many aspects of parenting young kids? How about you start with these:
I hope you now have a bunch of ideas for how to help your spouse during the school year. If you all work together as a family, the chaos of the school year can be fun! How do you pitch in during the school year? Share down below or over on Instagram @sarainseason.