One of the biggest difficulties that parents of children who have special needs face has to do with employment. Parents who are called away from work too often, in order to tend to the needs of their child, can end up becoming unemployed. One solution to this problem might be to work from home.
Raising children is expensive. All children are going to require the basics: food, clothing, and shelter. There will be money spent on things like toys, games, and movies to provide entertainment to the child. You can count on there being fees required by schools, and medical bills for necessary health care.
Parents who have a child that has a special need face extra expenses. There are going to be more visits to doctors, as well as specialists. Some treatments and medications may not be covered by health insurance, which means you have to pay for them out of pocket.
The extra expenses often mean that both parents need to be working. The problem is that most workplaces are not very understanding towards parents who need to leave work early, or unexpectedly, in order to care for their child. This often leads to a situation where that parent ends up losing his or her job. In order to continue to be able to pay the bills, some parents of special needs children have decided to start working from home.
Working from home has a lot of advantages. If you are self employed, or doing some sort of freelancing work, then you can set your own hours. This can give you the flexibility that most employers cannot provide.
If your child has a medical emergency, or a problem at school, you can stop what you are doing and go take care of those situations. When the crisis is over, you can pick up your work where you left off, and continue it. You will not have to deal with a boss that is counting how many minutes you spent on your lunch break, or who is denying your request to leave work early so you can speak with your child’s teacher.
Starting your own business, or working as a freelancer, is something that will take time, which is something to consider. You might have an employment situation that will allow you to do your current job from home, and to send your completed work in to your office when it is due. Some people have a head for business and do really well with eBay, or a store on Etsy or Cafe Press. Working from home might be an idea for parents to give some thought to.
Image by Desi on Flickr