Brinley Preteen Summary: 9 Years Old

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Daily life and schedule for a 9 year old tween who was raised on Babywise. See her daily life, activities she is involved in, and her daily schedule.

Brinley 9 years old

This is a summary for Brinley from 8.75 years old to 9 years old.

Brinley is my youngest child, and I kid you not, I picture her as a first grader still. My brain cannot grasp her being one of the older grades at the elementary school this year.

When Brayden was this age, I thought of him as so old. He was an old kid. Brinley is still my baby.

EATING

Eating is all normal and as to be expected. Something related to eating is me having her learn to make more things independently.

She loves macaroni and cheese and has been learning to make that independently. There are a lot of little skills picked up, like being confident turning the stovetop off and on.

Not all meals have to be fully taught. Kids can just help.

Something I have grown to appreciate as I have become a more seasoned mom is the power of a child simply helping you with meals.

I have always tried to have kids help out to make dinner and bake with me.

I have often focused on trying to teach the child to make the dish we are making.

But that gets overwhelming. There can be value there, but I think so much is learned just by being a helper. So my current approach is to have them just help me. I give them jobs. I teach a new skill if needed.

SLEEPING

Sleeping is great. Most of this time period was the summer. I let her bedtime be a little later in the summer. Brinley started to be someone who will sleep in this summer, also. She has never been one to sleep in past 7:30 (other than periods as a baby when her start time was around 8).

But she started to sleep in until about 8:30 many days this summer.

NEW PET

We have traditionally allowed a pet at 9 years old. Kaitlyn got guinea pigs and McKenna got a bunny.

Brinley wanted a cat.

We already have three cats.

I told her we could set things up in her room so she could have a cat sleep with her (one we already own) if she would like. She has tried it a few times, but always ends up kicking the cat out at some point, so it isn’t all she dreamed it would be.

SCHOOL

A little period of this time was during school. Brinley loved school and finished off third grade well.

READING

Reading has been great. She has been reading more and more traditional novels (she had been really into graphic novels).

A cute series someone recommended to me on Instagram is the Heartwood Hotel series. It is for ages 7-10. It is about animals, and Brinley loves animals.

SUMMER

Summer has been great! There has been a lot of fun with going to Colorado and visiting cousins and grandparents. We have had some family fun visiting amusement parks, swimming, soccer tournaments, and some lake time.

As I mentioned above, she had a later bedtime (9 instead of 8:30) and she slept in most days.

I created a Note in my phone that I shared with all of the kids. The note had required daily tasks they could check off along with a daily task that changed each day.

Daily tasks included:

  • Get ready
  • Check sheet in cabinet (this is a place we track who helps with dinner, who gets to choose the family game…lots of things)
  • Clean room
  • Study scriptures
  • Practice piano
  • Physical item (exercise, soccer juggles…)
  • Take care of animal (Brinley takes care our cats)

Then they each have an extra daily item. They do one of these things each day:

  • Their laundry (Brinley still does her laundry with my husband and me. She folds a load of laundry and sorts her own laundry. She also puts her laundry away independently).
  • Do a yard work chore
  • Do a chore for mom
  • Unload the dishwasher
  • Typical weekly chores

EXTRA CURRICULAR

During this time, Brinley had soccer, piano, and swimming lessons.

Her soccer season ended. She ended up trying out for her current team as well as another team. Her current team did not keep enough players, so she went with the new team. She actually has Kaitlyn’s coaches as her coaches now.

Piano has not been super solid or consistent, but it happens every once in a while and she does practice consistently.

She has loved swimming lessons. She loves her teacher. She had lessons each week throughout the summer. We do private lessons and find them super effective. At this point, she has passed off all strokes and flip turns. She is working on dives, but her fear of heights often gets in the way. She also needs to work on endurance.

She tells me sometimes she wants to do the swim team. I am not sure if she would really enjoy it. She loves swimming, but I wonder if she says she wants to do swim team simply because she adores Brayden and wants to be like him.

Daily Schedule

I will do a summer schedule since most of this time was summer. You can see her school day schedule in her summary just before this one.

8:30 AM – Wake up, eat, and get chores done (includes getting ready)
Free play until lunch
Noon – Lunch
1:00 PM – Electronics time. This includes video games and shows. I increase time allowed for this in the summer to two hours per day (we do three hours per week in the school year)
3:00 PM – Free play
5:00 PM – Dinner. Then free play/family time/perhaps soccer practice
9:00 PM – Bedtime

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