At Dale Carnegie, the majority of our team are used to being in the classroom, training our clients. Not surprisingly, it turns out that changing the behaviours of a Senior Leadership Team is easier than home schooling and developing our own children.
The challenges of trying to remain professional at work whilst feeding and educating our offspring are not to be underestimated! I’m sure that you, like us, now have a lot more respect than ever for teachers!
Across the UK our wonderful work family have children of all ages, so from our team to yours, here are some quick tips to try and help you survive the next few weeks.
- If you have younger children, don’t feel pressurised into mirroring the school day. Check your own emails first, plan and prioritise your day and then get the kids started.
- Let them choose what work they do first. Not only will it make them feel important and in control, it also lessens the likelihood of a disagreement at the beginning of the day.
- Prepare some healthy snacks (chopped carrots, celery, grapes, etc) the night before. Even if throughout the day they are snacking on treats because you are tied up in meetings, you can at least leave some within their reach.
- Label your chargers with the name of which device and who owns them. This cuts down on search time and arguments.
- Block out time each day to spend some quality time with your child, no matter what their age. There is nothing more guilt inducing than the words, ‘Are you working all day again?’. Even if it is only 15-minute blocks to eat lunch, watch a you tube clip they find funny or kick a ball – you will feel better and so will they.
- Do not feel guilty about blocking time out each day to home school. Explain the situation to your boss and colleagues – the majority of us are in the same situation and research shows that home workers are more productive than they are in an office. So, give yourself a break.
- If your child is going to the shop with you, get them to count out the coins to pay. It is more fun; it is maths and more often than not they’ll be getting rewarded with sweets at the end.
- Trade tasks for treats or v-bucks, whatever motivates them. Print out a spreadsheet they can tick off and come up with a reward system to get your kids motivated and to remove some jobs off your list.
- Set up a tuck shop – this is a great idea for younger children, especially for developing math capabilities and budgeting; it is learning with no pressure. Create a price list of the snacks you are happy for them to have. Make the healthy stuff cheaper than the crisps and chocolate. Set a minimum daily budget and then they work out what they can have. Money cannot be carried over until the next day .
- Fed-up of your calls being interrupted? Tell the little interrupters that they will be seen on screen if they come in. This works particularly well with teenagers!
- Can’t help them with their work – ask Alexa or Google.
- Alternatively, don’t be afraid to ask their teacher to help you too. Teachers are fully aware of what a challenge this is for us all, so reach out. Ask for help with something you or child don’t understand or on days you’re overwhelmed, tell them that today you’ve too much on with work so not everything will be done.
- If your child/children are old enough, get them to help you cooking your evening meal. It’s an opportunity to catch up on their day.
- Have a daily review over your dinner. Go round the table and get everyone to say one good thing that happened that day (we know some days you’ll need to dig deep!) and one thing that you could do better tomorrow.
- Get fresh air every day.
- Try and make some time for yourself – even if it means sitting with a cuppa in your car on your own for 10 minutes.
- Remember you are not a teacher, but you are awesome and your only real job is to get you and your family through this, happy and healthy.
- And finally, there’s only 25 school/teaching days until the end of February half term! We can do this!
If you need more tips on managing stress and worry download The Golden Book, it’s not as big as it sounds – just a few pages of quick tips taken from the books, ‘How to Stop Worrying & Start Living’ and ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.’
We also have a Time Management Guide that you may find useful.