Being a stay-at-home parent and working from home offers the best of both worlds for many parents with young children. However, it’s often necessary to separate work and kids in order to do a good job and be a good parent.
It’s not always easy. Baskets of laundry and toddlers wanting to color will call out to you while you’re writing a proposal; and the company’s financial report will try to rope you in while you’re playing tag in the back yard.
There are some solutions for the work-at-home parent wishing to separate children from their working world.
Getting Help With the Kids
Short of hiring a babysitter or sending the kids to day care, there are ways a work-at-home parent can chisel out a little time and space to get some work done. Mothers’ helpers are often much more affordable than regular babysitters. A neighborhood pre-teen might be willing to play with the children while a working mom is in the study or behind closed bedroom doors getting some work done.
Babysitting trades are the most convenient and least costly of babysitting arrangements. Part-time work-at-home parents can arrange to watch a friend’s children one day a week in exchange for a return favor, so she can have the house to herself another day to work.
Plan High Demand Tasks for Nap and Movie Times
Working from home requires careful and methodical planning of tasks that, if done in an office, could be done any time. The work-at-home parent will need to set a fairly strict schedule for her children, as well as her own work day.
Phone calls to clients, conference calls and other aspects of a job that simply can’t be interrupted by crying infants and whining toddlers should be scheduled for the children’s naptime or a time that you designate as quiet time, movie time or TV time.
Keeping Work and Children Physically Separate
“Your business depends on you being organized and keeping your personal and business lives separate, even though they co-exist under the same roof,” says business coach and speaker Robert Imbriale on HomeBusiness.com. He suggests work-at-home parents maintain a separate business telephone line, keep work files separate from newspapers, school papers and other home life items, and making a clear break between parenting and working by keeping regular office hours.
Childproofing a home office can be as simple as keeping a door closed. Without a separate office for work at home, papers and other work items can be stored in bins and other containers and kept out of children’s reach.
Office supplies such as printer ink and toner, correction fluid, glue, staplers, scissors, X-Acto knives, push pins and electronics should be kept out of reach from children.
Tips to Stay Involved But Separate Work and Family
Tricia Ares, blogger at Modern Matriarch suggests six things to keep a home worker focuses on work while working, and focused on family when not working.
- Set a schedule and stay on task with a day planner or calendar.
- Keep a notebook handy to jot down ideas while away from work.
- Build in some wiggle room for working overtime after the kids are in bed.
- Make time for play and substitute playing with children for exercising and working out.
- Change the routine occasionally to ward off boredom and keep things interesting.
- Take a vacation. Work at home is still work, and work-at-home moms need time off, too.
Keeping kids and work at home separate takes some organization and planning. But if done right, working from home allows the stay-at-home parent to spend time with her children and still earn an income.
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