Solving the Puzzle: Why Structure Is So Important for Families

The hardest thing as a mother is to find time to do everything. If you are constantly chasing your tail, you may feel that you won’t be able to keep on top of everything for long. When there are so many things to do and not enough time to do them, the one effective solution is structure. This is not just for you, but for the sake of your children. In order to be an effective parent, you’ve got to put structure in place. Why is structure so important for families? 

The Importance of Family Structure

Structure Takes the Unknown Away

Structuring your lives means that you know exactly what’s going to happen, which for someone under the age of 10, can make a big difference. Children benefit greatly from the school system because of its structure, and it is something that you could benefit from at home. You may have noticed when your children were very little they needed consistency. Structure is something that doesn’t just stop as soon as they’ve learned to walk and talk, but it’s something that sets them up for life. 

What’s more, it works wonders for you as well, because when you start to realize that there’s not enough time to do everything, you can look at the structure of your typical week and offload certain tasks. If you are not able to clean the house every single week, this is where you can look at your schedule and outsource this task to a house cleaning service, so you don’t just have the benefits of a less stringent schedule, but you can actually spend more time with your children as a result. 

Reducing Conflict

Children and adults are all prone to anxiety when there is less structure. We can all feel that we are not able to deal with what’s going on in life, so if we have the right schedule in place where we set up the building blocks for the day with a good breakfast and ensure that everybody is ready to leave for school at least 10 minutes beforehand, this allows you 10 minutes of free time rather than feeling like everything is tightly structured, so you’ve got more freedom to play with.

It can prove difficult to have everything whittled down to fine art, but for the sake of your children, having a structure means that siblings will be less prone to conflict because they just don’t have the time to argue with each other! 

If your children know they need to brush their teeth at a certain time, turn off the television, or come to dinner and head to bed at the same time, it takes a lot of pressure away from you because you don’t need to enforce these things. The structure becomes a well-worn habit, meaning that you are going to be more relaxed and they are going to be more disciplined children as a result. 

It Instigates Self-Discipline

Healthy habits are something that we should all carry with us in life. A good example for your kids is homework; if your children sit down at the same time every day to do their homework, no matter how much they don’t want to do it, this will grow into a very long-lasting sense of self-discipline. It is so important to reiterate here that habits are not something that takes a week to embed.

It can take as little as a few weeks to form a habit but could take as long as 254 days. This may seem like a long time as a parent, but there will come a time when your children learn the benefits of their habits, and this will change who they are. 

Initially, they’ll be doing these things because you are telling them to, but after a while, they will realize that these habits become a part of who they are and they won’t feel right if they stray away from them.

Additionally, when children learn to manage themselves without us nagging, they will learn to deal with the unknown easier. Routines are so important because this means they won’t feel like there are seismic shocks when something new happens. Because learning to create healthy habits in life is not just a good thing for a family unit, but for our children, it helps them to develop coping skills and resilience. 

Structure is something that is vital, but it doesn’t have to be monotonous. You can use structure as a way to get the things done you want in life but you can also take the opportunity to build fun into it too. Start a structure and see the impacts!