"When is practice." "Is it this Friday." "Who's picking me up." A family calendar is supposed to answer those, but most end up as one crowded screen nobody reads. Here's a setup that stays readable, uses the calendar already on your phone, and keeps itself up to date.
Keep the family calendar for the things everyone is doing together, like the day school's out, a family night at the pumpkin patch, or your weekly family meeting. Because it only holds shared plans, it stays short enough to read.
Everything else goes on the calendar of the person it belongs to. Give each person their own color and share their calendar with whoever needs to see it. Then anyone can look at a day and see who has what.
How to set it up on iPhone: How to share an iPhone calendar with your family.
If a team or school posts its schedule as a calendar link, subscribe to it. When the coach adds a practice or moves a game, it changes on your calendar too. One person sets up the subscription, and everyone who shares that calendar sees the change.
If a kid is on more than one team, ask the program to put the team name in each event. Whatever they type is what shows up on your calendar, and "Practice" four times in one week doesn't tell anyone which practice.
A form due Friday, snacks for the team, a registration deadline. These aren't appointments, so they belong on a shared Reminders list with a date, where everyone who shares it can see it and check it off. How to share a Reminders list on iPhone.
A calendar only works if what's on it is right. A short weekly family meeting is where the week gets checked: who's driving whom, who's home which nights, what's for dinner on the busy ones. Put the meeting itself on the family calendar.
The Automation Kit reads these calendars every morning and sends each person in your house a text with their own day in it. Nobody has to open the calendar to know what's happening.
See the Automation Kit