This is my life as well. We use crockpot on activity nights. We reward finished homework at after school care with video game time. Then go over it when we get home. This saves us at least 30 minutes. We limit activities to 1 occurring during the week. Do grocery shopping and laundry on weekends.

Agree with the PPs.

1) stagger your hours - one of you goes in early and gets home early, the other goes in late and gets home late
2) only one activity/kid
3) shorten your meal times - (a) use an instant pot or convection oven to prepare foods quickly or (b) set a slow cooker before you leave home in the morning or (c) cook once over the weekend and have enough for the week (i.e., roast a turkey and have turkey stirfry on Monday, turkey fajitas on Tuesday, etc.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No second grader should be doing 40 minutes of homework.

If they really like their activities, they have to do HW at SACC. If they don’t like their activities, drop them.

You cook in batches on the weekend, so weekday dinners are reheating and salads.

Your kids do not go to bed at 8pm.

This is how it works.

20 minutes reading, 20 minutes math and writing

They are happy to do it in SACC, but between Snack and mandatory outside time, they lose almost half an hour before they can settle down to work, then we arrive and whisk them home — too many transitions.

It seems to me they have 30 minutes in SACC in which they could do homework or reading. If your child has an activity at 6:00, remind them they need to try to get their homework done in that 30 minutes. I feeling like you're kind of making excuses here. They also have a little time while you prep dinner. I get it -- you feel harried in the evenings. But I think it is less hectic for the kids. I sometimes considered the daily reading homework optional -- when it was just general guidance that kids should read something/anything for 20 minutes each day. If we had too much going on one day, I'd try to have them do extra reading on the weekends and they both tend to read at bedtime. I've found that managing the weekday evening activities gets easier at the kids get older (at least so far for me).

Anonymous wrote:Don't take all the kids for the other sibling's activities - then they can have some downtime on those evenings.

Our kids have to get most of their homework done at Extended Day. Do they not have time there? If not, definitely get a sitter if you can afford it so they can get some time at home.

I have one kid who is an early riser. She does some of her homework in the mornings.

I think 3X/ week for activities (total kids - not individually) is really all that a family should handle.

This is exactly what we do. 1 sport 1 music per kid per week. 3 nights out as family to get to siblings different activities.

Can’t leave kid at home alone during sibling stuff bc too young and DH works late.

Mornings are intriguing but hard for my late riser.

Cut down on activities! Pick one per kid. Activities cause so much stress and area. Huge time suck.

Agree about HW in morning.

Don't take all the kids for the other sibling's activities - then they can have some downtime on those evenings.

Our kids have to get most of their homework done at Extended Day. Do they not have time there? If not, definitely get a sitter if you can afford it so they can get some time at home.

I have one kid who is an early riser. She does some of her homework in the mornings.

I think 3X/ week for activities (total kids - not individually) is really all that a family should handle.