Part of Lesson Plan: Balancing work and Family Life

Activity Overview / Details

Teacher start with powerpoint presentation on the 7 ways you need to keep your life balanced.

(The powerpoint above)

1. Health, well being and fitness

2. Education

3.Career

4. Hobbies and leisure time and fun

5. Money management and consumerism

6. Spirituality

7. Relationships

 Summary review all aspects

Talk about each topic and how important they ALL are for EVERYONE in the family

We're going to talk about the different roles and responsibilities within a family, while making sure that all of the items from the powerpoint are in balance.  I am going to write two things on the board:  work and family life. I want you students to say anything that comes to mind on each topic as a potential stressor.

First we are going to start with family. Please raise your hand and share what is a stressor in your family or potentially in other families. (look at attachment)

Now, what stressors may come from work? (look at attachment)  

Teacher reads aloud all examples that students came up with and underline in a different color what your class thinks is the most important. (I like to share personal stories about my life and family and times that went smoothly and times that were more stressful to help the students realize what is most important)

Most classes come up with some combination of communication, routines, common goals and dreams, agreement on parenting styles, and spending fun family time together.

Usually there is a lot of discussion that goes with what works in families and what doesn't work.

Turn to a partner and talk about what things you and your family could do to reduce stress and live a more balanced life.

Day 2: Now let's talk about managing your time, money and energy.

I want you to make a daily calendar of what you do in a day.  Include what time you get up, get ready, travel to school, what you do while you are at school as well as after school activities until you go to sleep at night. 

Make sure you include typical times for each of these. Once that is complete, in a different color pen, I want you to write out the daily schedule of one of your guardians - mom/ dad or other.  Now evaluate who does more. For your guardian, did you include all of the things you listed as family stressers? Planning meals, grocery shopping, picking up and dropping off kids all day, paying the bills, cleaning, travel time to and from work, business meetings and travel, and whatever else they do in their day? If you forgot some of these please go back and add them to your list.  Now turn to a neighbor and compare what the two of you do versus your parents. Now in a separate color add your other parent or someone else in the house that helps out as well. 

For homework, I want you to take this paper home and show your parents. Have them add anything to the list that you may have forgotten or do not know about and sign the bottom and return to class tomorrow.

Questions when they walk in the following class period:

Did your parents agree with you?  What changes were made? Were you surprised by what else your family does in a day or week? why?

When you run a household the first thing that you need to have is a monthly budget. This is a simple way to manage your money. It tracks the money you have coming in (income) and the money you have going out (expenses) so that you have enough money to pay for things throughout the month.  There are two kinds of expenses - fixed and flexible. Fixed expenses are those that stay the same every month like your car payment or mortgage, and flexible expenses are those that vary from month to month like food and gasoline.  You must account for all expenses every month even the unplanned ones like your car breaking down. Here is an example of a budget which shows all of this household's expenses within one month. Everything that they spend money on is accounted for here.

Students will complete attached budget sheet for their families (or made up numbers if family information is unknown).

Who is surprised by all of the roles and responsibilities within a family? There is a lot of different things going on for every single member of a family to keep themselves and their families in balance.  Everyone has a little bit of a different opinion about what is most important in both relationships and families.

For your final assignment on this unit I want everyone to get into groups of 2-4 people and make a board game including all aspects of  balancing work and family managing your time, money and energy  .  Ther are al ot t        jfyjk   iui     mlbmsfmbgk;sfb; ksfj knlj