This latest ProZ.com podcast covered working from home and parenting with ProZ.com director of platform Lu Leszinsky. ProZ.com head of training Paul Urwin chats with Lu about how to manage being a parent and working from home with your family. Leszinsky shares some great, practical tips for reducing stress and helping your kids get more involved, while still working effectively.
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When Leszinsky was preparing for a ProZ.com TV event in the early stages of COVID-19 pandemic, she had the feeling there was something not being talked about and could be explored as an interesting topic.
During her brainstorming of different ideas, she kept being interrupted by her 3-year old.
That was it! Many are going through a new reality of sharing working days at home with their families and that would be something important to discuss with the ProZ.com community.
She thought for a bit about the challenges that she and many of her friends were facing. This challenge of parenting, staying at home and working all at the same time was new to just about everyone. Even those looking to hire help couldn't do it - because most regulations meant keeping others from entering your home.
To find out the challenges and how others were learning to cope with work and home lives, Leszinsky ran a survey to collect data worldwide from the ProZ.com community. This survey went to many - not just moms but dads, grandparents and anyone working with the kids at home. On the podcast, she relates how answers from many different countries in different situations helped provide ideas for her personally and members of the freelancer community.
From this survey, some discussions and her own experience, some of her recommendations include:
- Communicate with your kids. Let them know what to expect of the day. Is there a play break?
- Give them opportunities to ask questions about the pandemic. I don't know is an acceptable answer, and sometimes magic.
- Be flexible. Your kids may have bad days, just like we do.
- Parents who are acting as teachers should teach what you do know. If you don't know about a subject, trying to explain when you don't know simply won't work.
- Keep your children safe online
Listen to the podcast for these tips and more.
By the way, my own kids (15 and 12-year old boys) were home on a remote learning day from school, needing help getting online, remaining focused and food to eat while this blog post was being written.
To join Paul on a future episode, send him an email at training@proz.com.
