When you have kids, working from home isn’t always easy. But what if you’re also dealing with behavioral issues, including tantrums and defiance? Navigating children’s behavior issues while trying to get work done from home often feels like a juggling act. Your attention is constantly bouncing between your kids and your work, and this back-and-forth can easily leave you feeling burnt out at the end of the day. Thankfully, Kanika Chadda-Gupta has some great survival tips to make your life easier!
Get Help from a Professional
If you’re dealing with some difficult behaviors, you may benefit from professional guidance. Smart Parenting Solutions offers informative resources and coaching plans to help parents manage specific behavioral issues and develop key parenting skills. Learning about your child’s particular behavior issues can help you better understand their behaviors and find methods to manage these issues effectively.
Make Time for Your Children
Spending quality time with your children will relieve some pressure on yourself and make it easier to focus on work when you’re on the clock. Plus, your kids will be less likely to demand your attention if they know you’ll be able to spend time with them when you’re done working. Prioritize your children when mapping out your schedule for the week, let your kids help with household chores and errands, read together in the evenings, and plan special experiences you can enjoy together. Make sure your kids feel special and important, even if you can’t dedicate all of your attention to them.
Set Up a Dedicated Workspace
Setting up a dedicated workspace in your home is vital to staying productive when you’ve got young kids around. Merry for Money suggests setting up a workstation where your kids spend their time so you can supervise them while you work. If you don’t have a spare room that you can turn into an office, an empty corner or closet could work well. Keep your desk clear to minimize your distractions as much as possible. Clutter can hog your mental bandwidth, even if you don’t notice it!
On a related note, you can save time and further streamline your workspace by using tools to make your work easier. For instance, you can use this invoice maker free of charge to facilitate more rapid repayment from your clients. You can even add your company name and logo to the invoices!
Give Your Kids Things to Do
To prevent your kids from distracting you during work, give them fun and engaging things to do. This is also a good time to sit them down with educational activities. Active for Life suggests several indoor activity ideas, including dress-up, scavenger hunts, rock painting, and coin sorting. Keep your kids on task by creating an optimal environment for them to play or learn. Create a homework station or a creative corner in your office where your kids can plug away at their own activities while you work.
Let Them Be Bored
If your kids get bored while you’re working, resist the urge to jump in and find something for them to do. Boredom can be healthy for children! Boredom fosters creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. Letting your kids experience boredom will help them learn how to entertain themselves and come up with fun things to do on their own.
Practice Self-Care
Self-care is important for maintaining your mental, emotional, and physical health. But when you have kids with behavior problems, it’s hard to find time for yourself. Try to fit self-care into your existing schedule. Get moving for whatever amount of time you have, even if it’s just 10 minutes to stretch in the living room. Avoid the temptation to binge-watch TV at the end of the day after your kids have gone to bed and try to get a good night’s sleep instead. Most importantly, remember to treat yourself once in a while! Scheduling some time just for you can do wonders for your mental wellbeing.
If you’re a remote working parent to children with some behavioral challenges, you already know how hard it can be to stay on task and meet deadlines. Try to develop systems and routines so your children know what to expect. Eventually, you and your kids will fall into a rhythm that works best for everyone!
Kanika Chadda-Gupta is a wife, mom of three and CEO of Kronologie Agency, a full-service digital marketing firm specializing in branding and web design. She’d love to hear from you!
Guest post by Karen Weeks
