Working from Home during the Coronavirus

Being in lock-down means working from home and juggling more balls than usual, including supporting your children's online learning and schoolwork. Here are few tips to help you in balancing work, home and caring for your children.

Decades of experience as an early childhood educator working with young and very young children have taught me a very important lesson. Children derive a great amount of security and calm from consistency and structure. They look to the adults in their life to provide this and they pick up from the emotions we role model.

Children derive a great amount of security and calm from consistency and structure. They look to the adults in their life to provide this and they pick up from the emotions we role model.

Here are few tips that would support you in balancing your work and caring for your children:

Set expectations at work: Be upfront about your personal situation with your boss and colleagues. Let them know that you have to care for your children and there may be times when you need to calm a screaming child or break up a fight. Inform at the start if you have a hard stop at the end of a meeting. Do not feel embarrassed or stressed if your child interrupts a call. There will be situations that spill over from home into work. Hold steady, mama. Inhale, exhale, keep your calm and handle the situation with presence and grace, throw in a bit of wry, confident humor.

Have a family meeting: Have an agenda for the meeting and discuss why the situation is different from normal, how it is different from a holiday or extended weekend. Explain that 'a schedule needs to be created and followed so that the family functions smoothly and that everyone has an important role to play in this'. Even if your child is a toddler involve him/her in this conversation. Work out a schedule around the children's home learning and the adults' work. Mark out time for exercise, snacks, lunch, play time, screen time and family fun time. Ask for inputs on how the children can support the adults during their work? How will they keep the noise levels low in the house? What activities would they like to do? What can you do to help them with these activities? What are the general rules of behaviour in this situation?

Sign and display a family agreement: Once it's all worked out, create an agreement to be signed by all the members of the family. Display this family agreement prominently. (Trust me - an agreement, co-created and signed by young children, works astonishingly well. When the agreement is not adhered to, take them to the displayed paper and and remind them of what they promised to do. Keep doing it, you will see results! And who knows, it might come in handy with the adults in the house too!)

Carve out some "me" time and some "fun" time: Get up early in the morning before the children are up - plan your day out. Most importantly carve out some “me" time - to read, workout, listen to music or have your coffee in peace. If the day is going to be particularly busy, get through some of your work. Maybe answer the emails or sort out the day's meetings and schedule before the start of the day's commotion. Plan "wine and chat" video calls with your friends, game nights and movie evenings with the family and date nights with your partner.

Carve out some “me" time - to read, workout, listen to music or have your coffee in peace.

Jobshare home and childcare with your partner: If you have a partner, then it is a good idea to allocate time for work depending on each of your schedules. Divide home and childcare tasks between the two of you. If you need to swap tasks or need additional support on a particular day, have that conversation early. It might be a good idea to get a coffee together, early in the morning, and discuss the day ahead. If you are a single parent, you will have to create a space and time for working, and highlight to your child that you need their support to ensure you can work smoothly (use that family agreement, keep going back to it and over time it will take root).

Support your children to be independent: Create boxes/baskets of activities which children can access to keep themselves engaged as you work. Keep boxes of snacks, juice boxes and water bottles handy and accessible. Organise a space for the children too with a cozy reading corner, Lego corner, art space, activity corner etc. Involve the children in setting these spaces up. They will have a dozen exciting ideas and this will help them take ownership of these spaces.

Above all, be kind to yourself: Define your boundaries, communicate them and do not feel embarrassed to hold on to them. If you don't set boundaries, you will burn out. Go easy on yourself. It's OK if you discard your superwoman role for a day or two or more. It's OK if the house looks like a tornado tore through it. It's OK if the family eats junk food for awhile. It's OK if school work is not done, the children will catch up later.

Define your boundaries, communicate them and do not feel embarrassed to hold on to them. Prioritise mental health for you and your family.

These are unprecedented times and we are all doing the best we can. We all know the precision and prioritising it takes to meet all the usual demands on our time. And now with the lock-down, the usual balancing act needs a huge dose of pragmatism and delegation. Don't try to accomplish it all on your own, mama. You need to put your BOSS cap on and call for all hands on deck. You got this!

We have a post and templates here to help you create a family agreement.