Time alone with each child

The sheet

A box for each of your children: when their time is, how long it lasts, what they have chosen, and the new time if you have to move it.

For the fridge · A4 · One page · PDF, 40 KB

How it helps

In a busy house, each child can feel that the others get more of you. A regular time that is each child’s alone, which they choose how to spend and which is never cancelled as a punishment, tells them they matter to you as themselves, and often eases the rivalry between brothers and sisters.

How to use it

1. With each child, choose a time you can keep every week, short enough to manage, and put it in your diary.
2. Write each child’s time in their box on the sheet, and let them write what they have chosen and their ideas for next time.
3. Keep your phone away and the others out of it. If you have to move a time, write the new one in the child’s box and tell them.
4. Don’t use the time to go over problems; if your child brings something up themselves, listen. Never cancel it as a punishment.

How to get this sheet

This sheet comes with a subscription. It is also yours with its chapter, if that is the chapter you read free, or if a teacher or therapist sends it to you. School staff and therapists signed in to their shelf can print it too.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full, with its sheets. This one goes with Siblings and the Fights That Aren’t Fair and When They Stop Talking to You.

Free to print

These are free to anyone, with nothing to sign up for.

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• Before the SENCo meetingFor a meeting · A4
• Three reports, side by sideFor a meeting · A4 landscape
• The return-to-school meetingFor a meeting · A4
• The move to secondary school, for a parents’ eveningFor a parents’ evening · A4, five pages
• The last half-hour before bedFor the fridge · A4
• The worry ladderTo fill in together · A4
• Before you see the GP about your childFor an appointment · A4, two sides
• A record of what happenedFor a call or a meeting · A4, two pages
• The people I can tellTo make together · A4, two pages

Every sheet, marked free or with a subscription, is at theparentbook.com/printables.