Working from home is a challenging task in itself. Throw parenting into the mix, and the stress level increases further.
With companies relying on work-from-home employees more than ever, parents are finding it difficult to juggle their parenting responsibilities with their careers.
However, do not lose hope! There are a few ways to work from home as a parent and fulfill responsibilities towards your career and your kids. Before we share these tips with you, we must dig deeper into parents’ challenges and stress while working remotely.
Why is parenting challenging while working from home?
The primary reasons why parenting becomes challenging while working from home include the following:
- Many parents find it challenging to have a work-life balance when working from home. The lack of distinction means they aren’t able to look after their children like they used to earlier. With the boundaries not being set, their personal life, including their relationship with children, suffers.
- Remote workers also find it challenging to resist distractions while working with kids. Falling into such distractions means they have to work longer hours to meet the deadlines, which adds to the stress.
- According to a report by Eurofound, 41% of the employees who worked from home claimed they were highly stressed. To look after your children, you need a lot of patience. Individuals always under severe stress will find it difficult to maintain the required patience to fulfill parental responsibilities.
The lack of boundaries, difficulty in unplugging from work, high stress, and long work hours while working from home are common obstacles when balancing parenting and work.
Tips to Handle the Stress of Work From Home As a Parent
Tips below can come to your rescue to help you handle stress better as a work-from-home parent and take care of your kids at the same time.
1. Create a Flexible Routine
With kids around, following a strict schedule is brutal. It will go haywire sooner than later if you try to maintain it. Kids might need your help, and sometimes you might need to feed them.
Creating a flexible schedule, however, can help you get enough work done without making your plan go haywire. To do so, follow the tips below:
- Try to work early morning, when kids nap, and late at night. During these times, you can devote your undivided attention to your work. Of course, since the nap time of children, their morning wake-up time, and night sleeping time might vary somewhat, you need to keep a flexible schedule.
- No matter how much you try, kids will spend some time in front of the screen. Utilize this time to work.
- Be ready to be interrupted. No matter how much you make kids understand, they might interrupt you. Plan your work so that your efforts don’t go in vain because of interruptions. Common examples include constantly saving files, working on the cloud for instant collaboration with co-workers, and regularly updating your co-workers.
2. Stay connected with your co-workers
While working from an office, communication is seamless. You can directly speak with your co-worker. Async communication is what happens when working from home. Lack of communication halts the projects. All this adds to the stress and increases your workload.
To reduce stress while working from home, staying connected with your co-workers is always essential. To do so:
- Always be aware of the working time of your co-workers.
- Communicate every small detail to your co-workers through company email, slack, etc.
- Ensure that the entire team knows the work they need to do, what needs to be achieved, and when.
- By maintaining this clarity in communication, it is possible to reduce stress and minimize your workload to a certain extent.
3. Create a Dedicated Workspace
Kids often assume that just because you are at home, you are accessible. Even though, as parents, you might convey to them that you are working, the proximity with the pattern certainly makes kids communicate and speak with you.
The best way to work from home with kids is to make them understand that you are working and cannot get up from your workstation. It will take a few weeks for kids to realize that you cannot get up at will, and once they do, they will stop disturbing you, and you will get time to focus on your work.
4. Set Boundaries to Reduce Distractions
With proper boundaries, it will be easier for you to work from home and manage your children as well as challenges of working remotely. You need to set strict limits regarding distractions like television, smartphones, and completing household chores.
A few examples of such rules include:
- Never watch television while you’re working.
- Keep your smartphone away from you unless you’re using it for work.
- Refrain from multitasking household chores while working.
- Such boundaries will help you reduce unnecessary distractions and get work done on time.
5. Share childcare responsibilities with your partner
Despite maintaining a flexible schedule, there will be times when your child will need undivided attention. However, it is not necessary to devote time to your child.
Firstly, list the instances when your child will likely need your undivided attention. After that, divide the responsibility between yourself and your spouse.
Once you do so, you can block out a dedicated slot for working from home while your partner looks after your child.
By doing so, you fulfill your parenting responsibility and have a dedicated time slot for your work.
6. Find Your Work-Life Balance
Achieving a work-life balance as a work-from-home parent is difficult. However, a few ground rules can help you achieve the same in your online job.
- Whenever spending time with your kids, ensure that it is quality time and you aren’t distracted. In this case, quality will triumph over quantity.
- Keep track of the special events and activities of your kids. Once you incorporate them into your schedule, you can attend them, fostering a strong bond among your child despite working from home.
- It is better to have a working time limit beyond which you won’t work in the evenings. That way, you can spend the rest of the time with your family while still being able to complete the work. If you cannot complete the work by that time, you can opt for a small working session once your children sleep.
7. Take outside help if required
Even with your best efforts, you might need additional help to look after your kids and manage your work. There are two options that you have in this regard.
- Childcare services: You can hire childcare professionals to look after your kids during the daytime. That will likely provide you with uninterrupted work time. Beyond your working hours, you can then spend time with your kids.
- Support from family and friends: We understand that childcare services can be expensive. If those aren’t feasible for you, request your family and friends to look after your kids at least on some days. That way, you will get uninterrupted working time.
8. Use Remote Tools Available
Even when you’re working from home, it is not possible to keep a physical watch over your kids. Maintaining an eye on your kids in the other room and attending a meeting simultaneously can be too much for many parents.
This is where; you have to take the help of technology including remote tools. There are many tools that you can use in this regard like:
- Baby Cam monitors
- CCTV cameras
- Smartphone monitor
Using these, even when your kids are in the other room or playing in the backyard, you can keep a watch on them consistently. You can attend your meetings and do your work while your kids play.
9. Practice Self-Care
The simple task of juggling your personal and professional life can be stressful for many individuals. Some stress is inevitable when you’re a work-at-home parent. When you have to look after your children, the stress gets compounded.
Under stress, you’re likely to make bad decisions that will worsen things. To avoid such a situation, indulge in some meditation and some downtime.
When you disconnect yourself from work and other gadgets, it is easy to calm yourself down and recharge your energy levels. Meditation also helps you here.
Keep in mind that until and unless you’re in the right frame of mind, you won’t be able to work or look after your kids. That is why some self-care is necessary.
10. Cut yourself some slack
Most parents are too harsh on themselves. Rather than getting angry or frustrated with yourself, try to detect the reasons for the same and avoid the same mistake. While following these few tips, you’re likely to drop the ball at least once or twice a month.
Remember that you are also a human being, after all, who has too much on your plate. Instead of blaming yourself or feeling guilty, take steps not to repeat the same mistake.
Conclusion
There are plenty of causes of stress for work-from-home parents. It is, however, possible to reduce stress and balance your personal and professional life while working from home. Stick to the ten tips above, and you shouldn’t have a problem doing so.
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