12 / BACK TO SCHOOL 2020
Tips for Balancing Remote Work and Parenting While the Family is at Home Written By Ryan Hoover Anyone with children knows that parenting is considered a full-time job. School registration, basketball practice, dentist appointments, and ensuring three healthy meals a day are just a fraction of the task’s parents are handling while raising their children. During the school year, schools help take on a lot of this responsibility through inviting kids to healthy learning environments that teach, feed, and care for K-12 students. Because their children are looked after during the day, many parents work full-time jobs as well. In a pre-coronavirus world, parents weren’t asked to be accountant’s and parents simultaneously, for the most part. While children were at school, parents could focus solely on their other job that helped support their family. But oh, how the tides have turned. If you already thought balancing a work schedule with being a parent was tough, try having to do both at the same time! It turns out many parents will be asked to do so this fall when school districts across the country will have some extent of remote learning.
The Bozeman Daily Chronicle is here to tell you that while this may be a challenging time, balancing remote work and parenting from home can be done! Simply put, parents are superheroes. The new parent-worker environment that will be a norm for many parents this fall is the perfect opportunity to earn your cape. Forbes came out with a brief list on how parents can balance work and family at home when the coronavirus first began to close schools last spring in the article titled, 5 Tips to Balance Remote Working While Your Family Is Also at Home. You can find a summary of their tips below!
1. Plan Early & Together
Taking an hour or two at the start of every week to sit down with your family and discuss everyone’s schedule will help make the week go more smoothly. Find out when your children’s online learning times are and plan your own work schedule accordingly. Assess whether they will need help getting set up with a learning space and operating the computer to ensure their success in the remote classroom. If classes are scheduled at 9 A.M., maybe use early mornings to complete your projects that require more attention and concentration.
Ask yourself the important questions. Do you have the time and space you need to focus on your work? Are you able to effectively answer emails while being “on call” for your children? Answering questions like these will help you construct the new environment at home and ensure its success. But, sitting down and communicating you and your family’s schedules will help get the entire family on the same page.
2. Be Transparent with Your Coworkers, Be Realistic with Yourself
Understand that your children are dealing with changes in their routines during these unprecedented times as well. Not having the social structure that school provides can be very discouraging for students. Many students that are now asked to sit at home and learn from their living rooms by themselves may be wondering what’s the point? With less opportunity for teachers to sit down 1-on1 with students, and no friends by their side, leaving your children to maneuver this new learning environment on their own is a big mistake. Make their concerns and worries just
