Working from home with kids is a constant balancing act for moms. There is no definition of leaving the office and coming home to the family. Everything tends to over-lap. Does this sound at all familiar to you: “Let me answer this email, honey, then I can help you.” Unfortunately, it is all too familiar to me. I do not know how many times I have caught myself telling one of my kids, “hold on, I will be there in a minute.” I often catch myself playing with the kids while glancing at my lap top thinking of the things I think I should be doing instead. Yet when I am pounding away on the keyboard, I will lose focus as my wanders to my kids,and what I should be doing with them instead of working
Can you relate? Please tell me I am not alone in feeling like a bad mommy half the time.
Sherry Turkle, Ph.D, and author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, says that our kids’ biggest competition for our time today are our laptops and cell phones. Turkle has a few suggestions to help moms keep families connected and happy.
First, keep family meals a no-tech zone. No laptops or phones at the table. No exceptions. Keep family meals a time for talking, sharing and laughing.
Turkle talked with 300 children when she was writing her book. She says the biggest complaint she heard from those children was that “Mom is always on her phone when she picks me up at school or comes home from work.”
“Kids crave eye contact and total focus at the end of the day, because it shows them they’re your priority. When kids come home from school, they should have us at hello.” Try to keep kid time kid time– and let them know they are number one. Kids should not have to compete for our attention, and it is up to us to define that time that is just for them, and only them.
This is not to say that answering one important phone call or email is always a no-no, adds Turkle. But it is very important that we stress to our kids they are our priority– that we are not going to answer every call or email anytime, anywhere. Maybe answer that one urgent call, but let children know that yes, while I need to answer this one call, other than that, I am all yours.
Then turn off the lap top and phone, and just be mom.
So while Turkle has some good advice, I would love to hear more ways moms find to handle working at home with kids. And what about moms that have little ones not in school yet? What things have you found to help you work from home and still be there for your kids?
