How To Work From Home While in Quarantine With Kids
The question of the day is: How to survive the global pandemic and keep your sanity? The situation with the coronavirus is getting more serious every day and people have many concerns. Most schools and daycare institutions are closed at the moment, so working parents have to figure out how to handle their parenting responsibilities as well as the professional ones. If you are in a situation to work from home while in quarantine with the kids, you might be stressing out, but there are at least two facts you should be thankful for – you and your family are healthy and you still have a job! Unfortunately, those are the privileges that fewer people will have as the pandemic spreads across the World. These tips will help you balance working from home while the kids are at home.
Make a Daily Schedule
Take a deep breath and try to make your daily schedule. Having a plan does not guarantee that you’ll be able to keep up with it, but it will help you navigate. You have probably seen tons of examples online. Even though they might be helpful, you should know that every family is different, so don’t expect them to work in your particular case. At the end of the day, take a look at your timeline and reassess it if necessary. Being productive at work and being there for your children at all times is exhausting and you won’t have the same amounts of energy day after day. So, even if you don’t cross out everything that is on your list, that’s fine. Taking it one day at the time might be good advice. It is important that you set aside those office hours and see what all you have to tackle and how many hours would it take. Organize that with what your child needs. It is all about creating a schedule and trying to balance as much as you can.
Separate Your Roles
Being a businesswoman/businessman when working from home with your kids around is difficult. The quarantine situation is not helping either. If you are trying to juggle it all at the same time, you will probably end up failing both of your roles and being miserable about it. That is why it is important to have a certain amount of time dedicated to working and some reserved only for your family. Not easy – we know, but that should be the goal. A great way to do that is setting up a home office to work from. Your dining room table is probably not so comfortable to spend hours at, your kid’s desk is not really the most professional of places to have a conference meeting from and it can be distracting. Use a spare room or a corner to turn into your working area. You can have professionals pack your items before transporting them to your storage unit, which will give you some extra space and save you some time you would spend on decluttering.
Screen Time For Kids
Desperate times call for desperate measures – remember this next time you feel guilty for allowing your kids to have a bit too much time in front of a screen. Children need to have a routine in their lives and they usually respond well to it. Now their schools are closed and they cannot hang out with their friends nor go out and play sports, we should go easy on them. We are just figuring this out, but we often forget that they are even more confused than us and this is affecting them too. As long as they are doing their at-home education assignments, they should be given some more free time and freedom to choose what to do with it. Of course, you shouldn’t let them spend the entire day holding their Ipads and playing video games, but some time over the usual limits won’t kill them (nor you).
Get All The Help You Can(If possible)
If you have a partner who is at home and working too, the best thing you can do is to split up the responsibilities. While one is in charge of kids and house chores, the other one can work and vice versa. This is where that creating of the schedule comes in too. This is the time when we should be tolerant and help each other as much as we can. Remember, our kids are learning so much from our actions in stressful situations. They need to see that everything is under control (even though it might not be). At the same time, they have to understand that you are only human. The day is not long enough for you to have enough time for your full-time job and full-time parenting (not to mention cooking, cleaning, and all other chores that you cannot get help for when in quarantine).
Keep Your Kids Busy + Entertained
Younger kids will probably require more of your attention than older ones. On the other hand, the little ones have their naptimes that you can use to get some work done while that is not the case with the older ones. Luckily, there are many activities that can keep them busy for a longer or shorter period of time. Nobody knows your child better than you do, so you probably know their preferences when it comes to playing, reading, or watching.
Since we are advised to stay in our homes to protect ourselves and others from the coronavirus, you might think that the number of activities that kids can indulge in is somewhat limited. But, you are wrong – there are countless things you can do with your kids at home. From arts and crafts, experimenting, cooking, and reading, to improvised theatre shows – there are plenty of games that can occupy your kids while you do something else. The internet is a great source of ideas!
Working from home while in quarantine with the kids is difficult, but at the moment that is the only way to keep a roof over your head and your family safe and sound. The least we can do is stay at home and follow the experts’ advice about coronavirus and hopefully, the pandemic will soon pass.
Author Bio: Angie Sims
Angie Sims used to work in the traveling industry for 6 years, and now she works in the relocation industry. For the last 3 years, she has been specializing in helping people with their domestic and international relocation. She is also a full-time mom and a part-time blog writer. From her own experiences, she writes about traveling and moving with children on her blog
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