Organizing the ADHD family with weekly planning

Our family is ADHD multiple times over, which translates to lots of distraction and forgetfulness and miscommunication if we aren’t proactive. As our kids get older and add more to their schedules, it becomes increasingly difficult for my husband and I to keep track of everything we have going and everywhere we need to be, especially when one or more of us forgets to mention an activity or commitment until just before we need to be there. One of the ways we stay on the same page as a family and teach self-management skills for our kids is to have weekly family planning meetings as part of our regular routines. Organizing the ADHD family is not simple, but these weekly meetings have helped to simplify some of the chaos.

Organizing the ADHD family with weekly planning

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Sunday Family Planning Meeting

One of these meetings is our Family Planning Meeting on Sunday evenings. The purpose of the meeting is to coordinate everyone’s calendars and get the week on paper. 

Organizing the ADHD Family: What this looks like for us

1. We plan our meetings around food. Food is a natural “fidget” for distractible people; it keeps hands and mouths busy. It also brings us all together. Sunday night is typically our pizza night. When everyone sits down to pizza, we grab our Weekly Kickstart pad and get started.
2. We talk through a day at a time. One at a time, we talk through each day, everyone sharing what appointments or events or activities are scheduled for that day. I act as secretary and write it all down on the Weekly Kickstart pad that we use. Everything is included, and this is key for us. So the meeting that only my husband needs to attend, the job my son is working, the activity my daughter is going to, and the person we hope to invite for dinner—all of it goes on the plan.
3. We also talk about projects and goals. In addition to events and activities, we talk about any projects or goals we have that will affect the empty “margin” space not filled with activities. For instance, maybe my son wants to finish up a music collaboration or promotion, or my husband wants to finish up some coursework for a counseling certification; maybe I have a lot of homeschool prep or grading to catch up on. I write these down in the TOP 5 or the NOTES section of our planning pad.
4. We post the Weekly Plan on the fridge where everyone can see it. This answers so many of the “what do we have going today?” questions or “What time was this activity?” questions that my kids often have. They can easily see and plan their days and make decisions about their time based on what is going on. This is especially calming and therapeutic for my daughter, who takes comfort in being able to see ahead and plan her transitions with plenty of margin. 
5. We talk about the plan and remind each other. Because we’ve learned, no matter what we write down or plug into our Google calendars, we still may forget! The kids remind us of our meetings we need to get to, and we remind them of that evening karate class they said they wanted to attend. This is where all three of our safeguards come together: routine, communication, and healthy accountability. (Read more about our ADHD safeguards here.) The plan only works if we talk about it, make changes visibly for everyone to see, and remind each other kindly of what’s next.

We’ve been doing these Family Planning Meetings since the beginning of the year (Jan. 2022), and it’s been a very positive change for our family, something the kids look forward to, and something that we’ve seen really helps all of us to stay on the same page with goals and plans. It allows us to know ahead of time what someone’s week is going to be like, to accommodate each other, and to look for ways to help.

Organizing the ADHD Family: Tips for You

• Find a time in your weekly routine when everyone is already together. Especially when you are working against your ADHD, you don’t want to change too many things at once. Choose a time that’s already a semi-regular time together.
• Add food. Whether it’s a special meal or a special snack, adding food keeps the environment light and happy. Organizing is often something the ADHD brain dreads; some positive, tasty stimulation helps to counteract this, even if it’s as simple as popping popcorn.
• Keep it short. We run through this pretty quickly. ADHD likes quick. Everyone shouts out what they are doing when a specific day is announced. I usually tell everyone to “HANG ON!” while I quickly jot things down. But the whole meeting shouldn’t need to last longer than 15-20 min. (Rarely do we go 20 min. unless decisions have to be discussed and made about certain events.)
• Write it down. Don’t assume you will remember anything. That’s the fatal flaw at our house, thinking you will remember. Nope. Doesn’t happen. Write it down—all of it. You can use just about anything, but I really like my Weekly Kickstart pad. It has just enough room for us, without taking up my entire fridge.

Our Sunday Family Planning Meeting is only part of the equation though, because, of course, there’s also homeschool. During the school year, we also have a Monday Meeting. 

Monday Meeting

Monday Meeting is first thing Monday morning and is strictly homeschool-related. The kids sit down at the table with their planners and syllabi for each subject, and together we break down the week’s assignments into daily tasks. Here is where I’m trying to teach them the process of planning for themselves, scheduling a week of tasks, and breaking down larger assignments into smaller ones. It’s much different from Sunday’s meeting because here I’m supervising and mentoring. They are doing the planning. (Keep in mind, I have two teenagers and a ten-year-old, and we’ve been at this for a while. We didn’t start here; we’ve progressed to here.)

Organizing the ADHD Family: What this looks like for us

1. We have cookies. Because, again, food is an important part of bringing everyone together and of making a difficult, sometimes overwhelming, task a little more pleasurable. I splurge for these meetings and, to make it easier for myself, I buy the gluten-free cookie dough squares that you just pop into the oven. That way, there’s no excuse or extra stress for me on a Monday morning. (Though I do have to plan ahead and be sure I have dough in the fridge.)
2. Everyone has their own planner. Though I’ve tried a number of different planners over the years for my kids, the ones they like best are the large 8×10 planners with lots of space for writing. For the older two, I find the Blue Sky planners or something similar at Target or Amazon, but for my youngest I’ve really liked a specific planner for him, that’s at this link. It has wide lines for easier writing and is colorful and age-appropriate.
3. Everyone writes in their own assignments. Because my kids are older, I have them write their own plans. Obviously, you could make adjustments if you have a younger child or one with writing struggles, but mine are past this and more than capable of writing for themselves. My youngest largely has assignments that repeat (“write ‘spelling’ for every day;” “Write ‘math’ for every day”) with 2-3 subjects that will have specific assignments (“Read ‘George Washington’ this week”; “read ‘Usborne Science’ pgs. 19-20”). I abbreviate everything, and I teach them to abbreviate in their planners as well. So after the first time of writing “George Washington” out completely, the rest of the week may simply say GW.
4. I plan out the week’s assignments; their job is to break them down for each day. Each week, they sit down on Monday with their planners and flip through their assignment sheets, looking at what’s assigned, breaking it down into smaller chunks, and deciding which days to assign those chunks. I supervise: answering questions, giving advice, reminding them of the activities on a certain day and how much time is available, approving their final plan (or making adjustments to it when I see something isn’t going to work or when something has been forgotten). Sometimes, I will let a plan move forward while cautioning them about the challenges of that plan. “You’ve got a lot scheduled for Friday. You might not like having such a long day at the end of the week.” Because in the end, we all learn better from experience. Also, as I mentioned above, my youngest is not breaking down most of his work; his are mostly repeating assignments. He is just starting the process of using a planner. At the most, I will assign a book and talk through with him how much of the book needs to be read each day for it to be finished on time. This is our baby step, and the baby step I’ve taken with all of my kids. Take one assignment, one book, and give them practice breaking that one thing down into smaller chunks. Eventually, they’ll be able to do the same process with all of their subjects.
5. I check in through the week to see how the plan is going. Sometimes, the plan needs to change, and I offer a few solutions for changing the plan. Maybe an assignment took longer than planned. Maybe someone was sick and didn’t get the work done. Plans change, and a good plan can flex. We look at where there is room in the week to make adjustments, and I coach them through making that change in their planner so that they don’t forget it. All deadlines are at the end of the week for my kids, that way they have the opportunity to learn how to flex and change as things come up.

Note: Our Monday Meeting is not a “one and done” operation. I still have to check in daily to be sure assignments get down, planners get checked off, and directions for assignments are remembered. But our Monday Meeting has been very helpful for me to feel that I’m equipping them with the skills to do this themselves and manage life, rather than doing it for all of them each week. Grant it, doing everything for them makes everyone’s life easier right now; but in the end, I’m not sure it helps them down the road. For what it’s worth, this has been our routine for all of last school year as well as this current school year, and it has been a really positive addition to our routine. The kids enjoy the independence and the grown-up responsible feeling of managing their own school deadlines, and they also really like the cookies.

Organizing the ADHD Family: Tips for You

• Add food, but keep it simple. I’m not kidding; food is magic. Choose something manageable for you and enjoyable for them. My initial idea was a big breakfast together, and I realized there would be plenty of Mondays that just couldn’t happen. I went for simple, and it worked.
• Choose supplies that are functional and fun. My youngest’s planner came with stickers. My older two have nice mechanical pencils. There are lots of planner options. Talk with your kids about what is important and most functional for them.
• Expect to “hand-hold” to a certain extent. You can’t just give a kid a planner and hope they figure it out. I walk around and do a lot of assisting and suggesting, especially at the beginning of the year. By the end of the year, there were far fewer questions. Instead, I used the time to remind them of upcoming projects (2-3 weeks away) that they might want to get a head start on, or gave advice on how to move certain tasks around to make more time for larger projects.
• Let them make decisions about their week. Especially if you have older kids, let them decide to do all their reading in one day and a bunch of math on the next day. Let them experiment. Not all experiments go well, but the process of trying to manage themselves and learning what works and doesn’t work for them is an important part of this whole process. However, those decisions are made in consultation with me so that I know what their plan is and can check up later in the week to assist if things are crashing and burning.

We are constantly making adjustments and working to improve our existing systems. But for right now, weekly family meetings have made a big difference in our ADHD family and help us function together with a little less chaos. Organizing the ADHD family is not for the faint of heart, but planning weekly together helps us to work from our collective strengths rather than our individual weakness.