Tips for Working From Home with Kids

Working from Home with Kids
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Being a parent in the modern-day working world can be challenging. These challenges can be increasingly more difficult if you are trying to work from home.

Instead of worrying about expensive childcare, you need to figure out a way to get your work done while also tending to your kid’s needs.

This is not always a straightforward task. To help, let me give you three ideas that will help to make working from home with kids a breeze.

Create a Schedule

If you are already working from home, then you should already be familiar with the need to create a daily work schedule. Equally as important is to create a schedule for your kids. This can help you plan your work tasks, so they mesh perfectly with your parenting duties. This way, there is no interference between the two essential functions you need as a parent.

Sometimes it can be a little difficult to develop a schedule for meeting all the complex needs of children. Here is a rough sample of what a schedule might contain.

  • 7:00 am – Wake Up and Breakfast
  • 8:00 am – Free Play Time
  • 9:00 am – Learning Activity
  • 10:00 am – Creative Exercises
  • 12:00 pm – Lunch
  • 1:00 pm – Outdoor Activity
  • 3:00 pm – TV or Tablet Time
  • 5:00 pm – Dinner and Family Time

This is not a complete schedule by any means and should be changed to meet your individual needs. This skeleton outline of a schedule should be enough to you on the right path to creating a schedule that works for you.

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Keep an Eye Out for Anxiety

Working from home can create an unintended coupling of personal and professional life. Sometimes this can lead to spending too much time on one or the other. Although this is not intentional when there are little ones running around, spending too much time focused on work instead of them can cause anxiousness.

It is essential to key an eye on your kids to make sure there are no unintended issues from working from home. Signs of anxiety could be things like acting out, restlessness, and a lack of focus. By always keeping an eye out for these side effects of anxiety, it becomes a simpler task to resolve them. This leads to happier kids, and ultimately a happier you. Ultimately these two things result in a much better environment for working from home.

Make a Focus List

Despite using the two preceding strategies for working from home with kids, there are always going to be issued. The potential for something to go wrong goes up when there are kids in the mix. To combat this, it is best to be prepared; one way to do this is to make a focus list.

A focus list is something that you make at the very end of finishing your work for the day or right before going to bed. This focus list contains no more than three of the biggest tasks that you need to get done the next day. Defining these goals will set the tone for your day and can help when you have to decide to cut something from your busy schedule to tend to a more critical issue with your kids.

Conclusion

The relationship between being a parent and working from home can be enriching. It can allow a more hands-on connection in your child’s development. Using these three strategies can make you a master of working from home while being a great parent.

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