Managing Kids in the Home Office
Mon, Nov 5, 2007
That’s what it’s all about, right?
I’ve been working at home since 2001, my youngest daughter hadn’t started school yet and the work at home craze hadn’t hit yet, or at least I wasn’t aware of it. In fact, I remember searching for help, but because we where still in the “magic” era where you could work at home in your pajama’s, work when you wanted and everything was so easy and perfect, I couldn’t find it. But I knew better because I was having a very hard time managing everything and I made some mistakes.
I wish that I had seen more articles like this and known of the vast online support networks for working at home. Read this article from a work at home father of 6!
http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/01/18/how-to-manage-kids-in-the-home-office/
Do you have any suggestions or real life tips that work for you?
My biggest tip would be to make sure that you are balancing your work and family time. This is a bigger challenge when your children are young because it is much harder to separate the two, so it is easy to find yourself trying to do both at all times. That
was my biggest mistake, because looking back, I believe that my children suffered as I was in the home, but I was not entirely there far too often.
I can tell you a story that breaks my heart even now, I’ve often thought of it as my shameful secret,it was quite a long time ago, my daughter turned 10 this year. It represents a big reason that I started my Queen of KAOS website, to help other women to keep it all together and raise a happy and healthy family. It isn’t easy.
Anyway, the story. One day my daughter came into my office and was dropping things on the floor on her way out the door.
I asked her what she was doing and she said that she was making a trail so that I wouldn’t forget her.
It still makes me sad just thinking about it.
The good news is that there are things you can do to make it easier and to make sure that YOUR child never feels this way.
I’ll have more on it myself, meantime, check out Mike Gunderloy’s article.
http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/01/18/how-to-manage-kids-in-the-home-office/
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Thanks so much for your site, and link to the article. It’s wonderful to know that there are other WAHM’s out there that are experiencing the same KAOS! Sometimes you have to sit back and re-evalutate what is working, or not working and shift things around. As kids get older, their focus changes and your focus as a mom has to change with them. When my daughter stopped napping in the afternoon, I really missed that quiet time and needed to find that extra work time. She now ‘works’ with me on HER own computer for about an hour so we can be together and content.
Hi Jenn, thank YOU for letting me know that I’m not the only one! My kids are older now, so it is easier, but it’s still a big challenge.
As you mentioned, the focus is different. I don’t have to amuse them or give them things to do etc, now they give me things to do! There is always something going on to coordinate or remember or pay for :0)
My daughter set up her own desk in my office too, I gave her old forms etc so that she could work too, she loved it. And of all of my kids, I think she is the most enterprising, so she may have learned a thing or two as well.
One of the lessons in the WAHM in Focus ecourse deals with this as well. http://www.queenofkaos.com/WAHMINFOCUS/subscribe.shtml
Another thing that I have learned is at some point it often becomes necessary to let go, it’s so easy to get too much on your plate, and then things start to slide, including your undivided attention and patience with your kids.
The problem is often, what to let go. I wrote an personal essay called Running Out of Time that touches on this here http://www.queenofkaos.com/articles-WAHM/balancing-work-and-family.shtml.
It’s tough but if you can figure it out, it’s so worth it.
Keep in touch!