During the pandemic’s onset, remote work’s popularity went through the roof. Many individuals tried working from home for the first time, and the majority seemed to love it. Who wouldn’t want to make money doing their job without ever leaving the house?
Those who liked remote work pointed to not spending money on gas or commuting via public transportation. Some of them enjoyed spending more time with family members. Spouses and partners could meet in the dining room and have a lunch date every day if they both worked remotely.
Now, a couple of years into this pandemic, some people continue working from home, including parents. If that’s your situation, maybe you’re trying to figure out how to balance remote work and your child-rearing responsibilities. We’ll talk about trying to find the balance between those two pursuits right now.
3 Effective Ways to Balance Parenting and Remote Work
Create an Office and Set Up Some Ground Rules
In most cases, setting up remote offices that promote productivity isn’t as challenging as you might think. If you have a spare bedroom, you can install a desk, chair, and desktop or laptop. For most remote employees, that’s the ideal space to do their work and meet daily or weekly deadlines that arise.
You might even set up a large closet and use that as your office. Whatever space you pick for the purpose, though, you need to have a door on it you can close to indicate you’re working, and you don’t want anyone disturbing you.
If you have a spouse or partner who is helping you with the child-rearing duties, you can let them know that when you close your office door, you’re at work, and they should try not to disturb you unless it’s an emergency. However, if they do need to talk to you, you should try not to feel irritated.
Even if you are a person who goes into “work mode” and doesn’t like anyone interrupting you at those times, remember that you and your partner or spouse comprise a family unit. You’re both working toward the same goals, and that should matter more to you than your means of bringing in money.
Remote Workers with Older Kids
If you have older kids, you probably rely on them to do their homework, fix themselves an after-school snack, and do similar activities. You can set up the same rules for them you’d have with your spouse or partner. When you go into your office and shut the door, you’ve activated work mode, and they should know to only interrupt you if something urgent comes up.
You can talk to them about that to ensure you’re on the same page. They should quickly learn that just because you’re at home, it doesn’t mean they have automatic access to you.
Remote Workers with Younger Children
If you have younger kids who do not have much or any autonomy yet, you probably can’t take care of them very well while trying to work at the same time. If you do, you will likely experience stress and anxiety before too long. You’re trying to have multiple mindsets at once, and that’s seldom a productive or workable situation.
These parents need to sit down with their spouse or partner to talk to them about expectations. Often, one partner will need to watch the younger kid or kids while the other goes into the office to work.
You should work out an amenable situation where both partners know what the other expects. If the situation doesn’t work for one or both of you, you need to talk about it again until you’ve ironed out the details.
You might assign your older kids babysitting duty if you work from home and the parent usually watches the younger ones needs a break. You may pay your older kids for watching their younger siblings if you can afford to do so. This teaches them responsibility, and they can always come to knock on your office door if an emergency occurs.
If you’re a single parent or don’t have older kids who can help watch the younger ones sometimes, you might hire a babysitter or ask a retired neighbour to come over and keep their eyes on the little ones while you work. You may ask a relative to help you if that’s an option.
You might need some trial and error before you get to a situation where you’re productive working from home while you’re still taking care of all your familial responsibilities.
