Schedule conflicts

[thyme4change]

Two kids - and basically every one of my daughter's performances conflicts with something my son has going on.

How do you handle schedule conflicts? How do you pick?

[mroped]

Pick one and declare him/her your favorite.
The chosen one gets everything! All the attention, a good education, goes on to college and so on and revolutionizes the world with great discoveries in some science or something.
The other one...lives with you for the rest of your life.

Or maybe my wife can chime in and tell you how she did it!

[saveinla]

Alternate between the two and let the kids know what is happening. I think they will understand. 

[ken a.k.a OMK]

Alternate between them and maybe pick certain events that they say are most important to them. 

[swamp]

I alternate, or divide and conquer.  DH goes to one, i go to the other.

Or we send a grandma. 

[thyme4change]

Oct 10, 2017 9:22:13 GMT -5 mroped said:

Pick one and declare him/her your favorite.
The chosen one gets everything! All the attention, a good education, goes on to college and so on and revolutionizes the world with great discoveries in some science or something.
The other one...lives with you for the rest of your life.

Or maybe my wife can chime in and tell you how she did it!

I am afraid my daughter already thinks we chose our favorite. Although I did recently tell her that I was done with my son and all my time and attention will go to her, as it always should have been. She looked pretty panicked about that.

[Tennesseer]

I like Ken's suggestion.

Also make copies of their schedules and then sit down with the kids and copied schedules so they can see for themselves their event days are frequently the same as their sibling's event days.

[ken a.k.a OMK]

Or we send a grandma. 

Or a grandpa. I like this. 

[bean29]

When my daughter was in dance, she always had a friend participating also. They worked it out so that one Mom would do drop offs, and the other pick ups.

My husband and I usually coordinated, and we also sometimes drafted the grandparents to drive.

We occasionally shuttled a neighbor kid to an event our kids were not participating in too, just b/c their parents asked us to do it. I also once gave a ride to one of DD's friends b/c she was stuck somewhere and DD texted me asking what her friend should do-I just offered to go get her (DD was not with her).

[Ryan]

I have 3 kids and am usually coaching either 1 or 2 of their teams.  So this year, I'm at all my older son's and daughter's practices and games.  The way it works out, I can still go to most of my younger son's practices/games, but his are the ones that I miss most frequently.  Last year, I coached his team so it was flip flopped.

If I can't be there, then my wife goes.  If she can't go, then I usually recruit my family to stand in.

My kids know we run around ragged trying to make it to all their events, so it's not an issue so far.

[Shooby]

Depends what it is.  If they are pretty much "equal' like a soccer game and a swim match, then DH would go to one and the I go to the other.  When the kids were little, we had grammy who could fill in.    If there is an unequal thing, like a concert that will only be performed once, then both of us would go to that and miss whatever our other child was doing.  And, if something really important, then we would pull the other child out of the routine thing to attend as a family, if we felt that was important.

[mroped]

We kinda split things in a way that worked somehow for everyone.
First we made it clear to the kids that they can do so many things in equal ways.
When they were little they were both doing AYSO and I took care of that since I was coaching. For games my wife had to take our daughter to her games for the time that I didn't coach her team.
Then our daughter took ballet and my wife's took care of that mostly, I went with the kid to classes very few times but I went to all recitals and of course to "daddy dances"
Those were fancy events! Tea and cookies and waltzing!

When they got older, they both started going to a climbing gym and we kinda took turns however it worked.
I must admit that our kids were in fact quite understanding of all that is going on and that there is a limit to what we can do for them.

[NoNamePerson]

Just reading the posts makes me sit in awe of how all of you handle things with your kids. Kudos to you!!

[thyme4change]

They may be the same night, but not the same time. I might be able to rocket ship from one to the other.

[alabamagal]

We just did what we could. Our 3 kids are close in age so they were in a lot of the same things but we sometimes had conflicts.

One time we had 2 baseball games and a softball game all at the same time at different parks. DH went to one and I went to 1. Of course the other kid, DD, got hurt ( very minor) so I got a call and felt bad. She survived.

When youngest played middle school football, it was tough because they had games up to 2 hours away at 5 pm. One of problems with small private schools in rural area. We were late to one game due to work and arrived at end of 1st quarter. DS was not in game and he never got put in. They were small team as DS was a starter so we were not sure what was going on. We asked DS why he didn't play and he didn't know. We asked him what he did to piss off the coach and he claimed not to know. So we asked the coach in a non confrontational way what was wrong. He said DS started the game and got knocked out for a second. Not remembering he was in the game is a sign of concussion. So we thanked him for not putting him in.

I was also a bad cheerleader mom. I didn't go to all the games just because my DD was a cheerleader. But when she made football cheerleader, older DS was on team and then 1 year I had 2 boys on football team when DD was a senior so we got 3 for 1.

[dee27]

Since YDS and DD are 6 years apart, usually there were no conflicts. YDS played soccer from age 5 until his junior year of HS, and basketball from grades 6-8. Both the MS and HS were close to home, and I had to pick him up after practice and games for both sports. When YDS was in youth soccer, games were always on Sat so DH and I attended all of his games. BB games in MS  were at night and we both went. In HS, I went to some of the home soccer games if they were later in the day after work. YDS's dad went on some BS campouts and trips, and I went to weekly meetings.

Activities were crazy in HS because YDS played soccer, and he was in the Honor Society which was very active volunteering in the community and in the stage crew that worked all year for HS concerts, plays, and assemblies. He also tutored in the elementary schools. Except for soccer, most of these activities were after school or on weekends, and I was the designated driver.

DD disliked sports but had to play a team sport, field hockey, in HS and I picked her up from practice and games after work. DD was enrolled in dance class, GS, art classes, and riding lessons which were at night; I stayed during dance and art classes, but I returned home for her two hour riding lessons. DD volunteered a lot during the school year and summer, and either my mom or I did the pick up depending on the time of day.

Because DH commuted to the city, his drive was 60-90 minutes w/o traffic, accidents, or weather delays, I did the majority of kid duty during the week. I was very happy when the kids got their licenses junior year because I had some free time after work.

[suesinfl]

What I did for two years was, if DD had a volleyball game against one of the school's rivals, DS had to pick her game or his foot80+ball practice. But, he had to find a way home, his father never went to the practices and only lived five miles away. If he couldn't find a ride, he missed practiced.

If DD was playing a team that we know her team would win, DS went to practice. Some times I would drop DS off at practice drive 15 miles to watch part of her game and then rush to pick up DS. 

One time DD was playing in a two day tournament in a large city about 80+ miles and DS had a one day football game in the same city but it was 30 miles across town. We watched about 20 mins. of her game and I drove the 30 miles to his game, watched about 30 mins. of his game to drive back the 30 miles to pick her up and them back to pick DS up.

Oh, did I mention that I hate driving in city traffic and google maps sucked at the time? Plus it was raining and missed my exit. Oh what fun times we had.