What Your Children Learn When They Watch You Work from Home

I grew up with a work-at-home mom, and now, I, too, am a work-at-home mom.  Many parents chose to take care of their children while simultaneously working from home.  While this may evoke stress because you feel like you are constantly juggling your time between caring for your children and completing your work, you’re actually teaching your children important lessons.

Time Management

When you have a very full schedule as most working moms do, you have to use your time wisely.  Your kids watch you delegate time to take care of them, spend time with them, and go to their extracurricular events as well as make time to complete your work. 

Motivation

When you work from home, you must be self-motivated to get your work done within the deadlines given.  Your children can watch and learn how you set up a schedule to get your work done every day.  Even if you don’t share the schedule with your children, they will get used to the rhythm of your days and how you break down your work duties each day.  As the kids get older and have increasingly demanding schedules themselves, they can think of your example and work ethic.

Problem Solving

Work at home parents aren’t immune to work difficulties.  You’ll need to handle problems as they crop up such as losing power during a storm or losing Internet on the eve of a big deadline. 

You may also talk shop with the family at meal time, and your children will learn how you solve problems you may have with clients.  As your children are exposed to this type of discussion, they learn how you solve problems, and how they might handle their own problems.

Negotiating

You will likely spend some of your time negotiating with clients, whether that be negotiating payment terms or work responsibilities.  This is not a skill that comes naturally to many people, so years of hearing how you negotiate can give your children the skills to negotiate themselves when they are employed.

The Opportunity to Work Alongside You

While this option doesn’t work for every job and every work at home mom, you may be able to give your children a ringside seat to what you do or even have them join you.  For instance, if you attend a conference for your work, you may be able to bring your children along to the conference.  They may even be able to attend a few sessions with you and meet others in your field.

Likewise, if your child is a responsible teen, you may hire him or her in some way to assist you.  A blogger might hire her teen to manage her Instagram page or to do SEO work.

Within the day to day life of a work at home mom, you may feel as if you’re short changing your children because you’re home with them but not interacting with them all the time due to your own work responsibilities.  Rather than thinking this way, recognize that you’re teaching them how to be successful adults when they have their own career whether that be working at home or working out of the house.

What skills do you think your children learn while watching you work from home?