The Game of Parenting Tetris

…time in the day and money in the bank. A thought that crosses parents’ minds often. Have you ever played Tetris? (image below)

Imagine the playfield is 24 hours in a day and each color is a parenting objective -

1. purple for “I want to provide two nutritious meals a day”

2. green for “I want my child to get 10 hours of sleep a night”

3. orange for “I want my child to learn to swim”

I’m sure there are more than these 3 described. How do you get it done?

Parenting and implementing a work project with a team are no different in today’s times. It takes meticulous planning, task management, testing and experimenting, room for error (weren’t you going to pickup today!), continuous improvement and before you know it, there’s a new development and you’re back to planning.

Historically, this was a multiplayer game. We had grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors and friends helping with an objective. Now, some of us have these players while most of us are finding new kinds of players. We have nannies, babysitters, daycares, learning apps, TV shows, various products and services ranging from sleep systems to driving and delivery services.

Where do you begin? Here’s a framework to start that discussion:

• How much time do I/we have for parenting (taking away work hours) in a day?

  • This could range anywhere between 5-10 hours per parent depending on the age of your child

• How would I/we stack rank my parenting objectives in terms of priority? Lay out your reasoning to validate priorities. These are highly influenced by your family’s values.

  • As a parent of 2 kids I have found it very hard to stack some of these objectives, some of them are just equally important especially if they do not overlap in timings.

• How much time would it take my child to achieve this objective?

  • Let’s take the objective “I want my child to learn to swim”. This could be achieved by hiring a private swim coach offering 1 hour lessons 5 days a week or by joining a swim class for 30 mins once a week. Depends on how quickly you want to achieve the goal.

• How much time do I/we want to give this parenting objective? This is your time budget.

  • Think about your role in the achievement of the objective. Start with what gives you joy. Examples: do you enjoy swimming that you would like to join a parent/kid class? Do you enjoy cooking that you would like to plan and cook 2 meals a day? Do you enjoy reading bedtime stories to help your child relax and sleep through the night?

  • How much can you make the time for the things you enjoy? If you’re working till 5PM and dinner is at 5:30PM, is 30 mins enough to pull something together? Do you work across timezones that would make it hard to establish a bedtime routine?

• If you can give your time, great. If not, and it’s still important to you, how much would it cost to get it done?

  • This would take some research. For parents with newborns, I have launched a budgeting tool Estimate to make this super simplify this step. Estimate costs of recovering postpartum for free.

• Does that price point fit your family $ budget?

  • Make note of the costs and compare it with your total budget and see if it’s something you can afford without financial stress and is still high priority to achieve this objective at this time.

• If it aligns, great. If not, when would you like to revisit this objective?

  • This maybe driven by a critical project getting done, freeing up time or an upcoming promotion increasing cashflow.

• What’s the plan for contingencies?

  • Plan for whatever is in your control. Who is your backup if you’re running late? What happens during sickness?

In Adele’s Skyfall voice - this is the end… hold your breath and count to 10 is a strategy I use many times a day! Along those lines, here’s my parenting musing:

My 7yo, A and 3yo, V watched a movie about the arctic at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle on a big screen for the first time. They shared that walruses eat oysters whole in one gulp. No chewing. We asked the kids what they learnt from the movie. A told us she wants to visit the arctic to search walrus poop so she can find pearls. Visiting the arctic was always on my bucket list, but now?

Hit reply to let me know what resonated most for you? Are there other frameworks you apply?