If you work from home and you have children, you may often find yourself torn between spending time with the kids and working alone while the kids entertain themselves. Depending upon what your work consists of and the ages of your children, you may be able to combine working time and family time some of the time by involving your kids in your work activities. Kids often enjoy helping out, and it may help them to feel good about your work instead of viewing it as something that always takes you away from them.
I only have one child, and he’s nine months old, so my experience with this is somewhat limited. Over the past few months, the type of work that I could do during his waking hours has varied dramatically. When he was younger, I could lay him on the floor on a play mat with some toys and work on writing assignments on my laptop while sitting in a chair right next to where he was laying. As time passed, he grew more interested in exploring the world around him and developed the physical capabilities that allowed him to do that. He was less content to lay in one area and play, so I relegated my computer time to naptime and after he went to sleep at night so that we could spend more time exploring things and playing together.
When I started my baking business, my son was about six months old. Since it’s not really safe to wear him in a sling while I bake, I do that part of it after he goes to bed. On the days that I am selling the baked goods at farmers’ markets, he comes with me. When he was smaller I would wear him in a sling the whole time and he loved that. Now that he’s older and “busier” he prefers to sit on a blanket next to me and play. I enjoy having him there with me, and he loves to interact with the customers. They love seeing him, too. In fact, sometimes people that do not eat sweets will come and visit us just to see the baby. That’s fine with us, we like making new friends wherever we go.
It is my hope that as he grows, my son will still enjoy helping me with my work. Of course, I still prefer play time to work time and I’m sure he does too, so in reality we spend much more time playing than working. In the coming days, I plan to post about other ways that people have found to get their kids involved in their home based businesses. How do your kids “help” you with your work?