Working From Home

A Guide for Working (From Home) Parents

1. Maintain routines.

The first step is to keep the structure of the day the same as it has typically been. Beyond the benefits of familiarity, maintaining a regular schedule will give you firm guideposts for building your work and childcare schedules.

For one family we work with, their daily routine used to include breakfast at 8:15am for the kids and then a day of activities with the nanny once the parents left for work: an hour of free-play time, an outdoor adventure, lunch at home, and then a mix of educational and craft activities before one more outdoor time. They ate dinner at 5pm before the parents came home at 6pm. In the evening they read books and played before bedtime at 7:30 or 8pm.

2. Create modified schedules.

Next, build a schedule for each week that incorporates these routines at a high level but is modified to account for your work blocks and other new responsibilities meals, chores, childcare.

In your planning make sure you’ve covered:

• What is your kids’ schedule?
• What will you have for each meal?
• When will you do chores?  (laundry, dishes, tidying, cleaning)
• When are your key work meetings or times it’s critical you have someone to cover your work while you handle a household task?

Take this info and put it into a calendar and start assigning shifts and duties to specific family members

Finally, create work blocks. Depending on your childcare, community, and quarantine situation, here are three ways to make this work:

A partner swap: 4-hour shifts in which one partner works and the other cares for kids.

Short shifts: 30-minute to 2-hour shifts that rotate among some number of adults.

Video shifts: While you’ll still need to be paying some attention, it’s possible, especially with older kids, to organize virtual playdates (more on this below) or calls with grandparents that will keep them entertained while you’re getting in a phone call or doing some heads-down work.

It will feel like you need to squeeze every ounce of productivity out of every minute in the day. It’s a reality that many of us will have to find time to work early in the morning or after the kids are in bed. But be sure to schedule in breaks and unstructured times to unwind and connect with your partner and kids. This is going to be a marathon and it’s important we find ways not to burn out.

3. Swap in new ways to do old things.

Finally, if your kids are used to having playdates or weekly activities, find ways to keep those events on the calendar, just in a new form. Everyone will appreciate the social time and, as a bonus, it also can buy you 30 minutes of uninterrupted work time. Some options to consider:

Virtual playdates: Choose Google Hangouts (or Zoom if you prefer) and then send invites to your kids’ friends’ parents. For the playdate itself, have a station set up in your house with a tablet, laptop, or Alexa Show/Facebook Portal ready to go. During the playdate, it can be as simple as the kids catching up and coloring together or one of the parents leading an activity or reading books. 

Creative athletic activities for the kids. Register your kids for free online classes 

Schedule these during the times they might otherwise be doing after-school activities. They should get some exercise every day — this could even be just going into the backyard and do some soccer drills or play catch.

Parent pods: Find a group of 3-4 other families you’re close with and create a shared pool of resources, whether it’s meal plans, activity schedules, or lesson plans.

Book club or sports viewing nights for you. Staying social, active, and connected is just as important for the adults. If you don’t already have one, create a book club or a sport/TV show viewing club. Get it into people’s calendars and set up a video call so everyone can watch together. Make sure to still get your workouts in with a run outside, an indoor circuit, or using  online options. Even a family walk around the block will do wonders.

We need to lean on our village now, more than ever. The nature of this crisis requires that we find safe and responsible ways to help each other out while upholding our responsibilities at work and at home. Lean on your village — the other parents in your community — to share responsibility, looking out especially for those that might need extra help, such as healthcare or hourly workers left without childcare. Accept that things are not going to run completely smoothly and we aren’t going to all be our 100% productive selves. But with tempered expectations, a flexible approach and resourcefulness, you’ll be amazed at how we can all adapt. With any luck, we’ll emerge from this crisis even stronger and more collaborative: a modern take on an age-old approach to parenting.