Yes, you made the decision to work from home so you could spend more time with your kids and raise them yourself instead of letting the daycare do it. And while you love being at home with your sweet young things and you cherish every milestone you get to be a part of, the reality is you also need to make a living.
I’m not going to lie to you; it’s hard to work at home when you have kids at home. They want your attention, they don’t understand that it’s not always all about them, and to compound it, they have short attention spans.
Here are a few suggestions you can try when you absolutely need to get some work done.
Wherever you are doing your work tasks, make sure there is enough room for your children to join you. Maybe this means you should bring your laptop to the kitchen table so they can be at the table too.
Have activities available that they can do on their own:
- puzzles
- crayons and coloring book
- Play-Doh
- follow along books on tape
- building blocks
A good idea is to save some toys that are “special” and are only available to play with while you work. Don’t bring out the same ones each time. Have a special stash to rotate so that they’re always fresh and exciting toys.
Give them assignments:
It depends on what your child is interested in, but think ahead to come up with some important tasks for them to do. They appreciate feeling needed and helpful.
- write and color a story for daddy
- draw a picture of everyone in our family
- make a phone book with your friend’s and family’s phone numbers
- build a town with Legos
- arrange all your playing cards by numbers, type, color, etc
- organise the Tupperware
- cut out any pictures of shoes from these magazines and paste them in a notebook
- write out ideas of things to do when you’re bored and create a bored jar to put them in
- do some worksheets (they think of this as their “work”)
Arrange play dates:
Organise with a friend/s on a regular basis. Perhaps on Mondays all the kids are at your house for two hours and on Thursdays they’re at your friend’s house. The kids enjoy playing with each other and get to work on their social skills, and you get some work done.
Invite a mother’s helper to come and play with your kids:
If you have a trustworthy pre teen in the neighbourhood who is not quite babysitting age, you can ask them to come over for an afternoon once a week to play with your kids. You’re still in the house if something goes wrong, but they get to practice babysitting and earning a little money.
Nap time:
It goes without saying that you can get a lot done when and if the kids nap. Sometimes you get stressed because you know you only have an hour and so much to do. Try not to do household tasks during this time. Sorting laundry and folding clothes is a project for you and your kids to do together. So do it with them, not during your golden hour of work productivity. Also, before nap time starts figure out what you’re going to do and write out a “to do” list. This helps you keep on track and maximize your short window of time.
It’s not always easy to get much work accomplished when the kids are around, but hopefully you’ve come away with a few helpful ideas here.
