Many working parents dread the work week. Doing nine to five, Monday to Friday, makes it difficult to schedule the kids’ health appointments and creates hassles with getting them to after-school activities, among other problems. For these reasons, working parents often seek more flexible work weeks. In response, accommodating employers have developed several common mechanisms [...]
Working From Home to Parent Too
Working from home can seem like an incredibly tempting prospect. Many new working parents catch themselves thinking things like, “If I worked from home, I could take care of my kids at work and have the best of both worlds!” There are important realities about the work-at-home life that you need to understand before you [...]
When One Parent Works: Negotiating With Your Family
Few situations are prone to causing more family and marital stress than when one parent works and the other stays at home. Both parents feel like they are under greater pressure, and both voice this out… which leads to conflict. Is this avoidable? The answer is a resounding “yes!”, luckily for all the single-income families [...]
When Maternity Leave is Over
The prospect of returning from weeks, months, or sometimes years of maternity leave can be overwhelming! You might begin wondering about reconnecting with your former coworkers, business contacts, and boss, the company policies related to kids that you didn’t have to worry about before, and how your child will handle the transition.
Finding a good daycare [...]
Take Your Kids to Work Day
When you’re a working parent and your child has never even visited your office or place of work, it’s hard to communicate to them what exactly you do and why you are never home during the day. One of the best ways for your child to understand what you do all day is to actually [...]
Running a Family When Both Parents Work
This economy demands a two-income family, and for many families across the nation, that’s exactly what they have to do to run the family. Unfortunately, parenting when both adults in the household have careers can also be a challenge.
1. Encourage communication
When both parents work, a child can begin to feel like he isn’t worthy of [...]
Parenting as a Business Traveler
Many working parents are required to travel for business, forcing them to make a choice between working and parenting. When this happens to you, there are two main options: leave the kids behind and parent long-distance, or bring them along. Each choice has pros and cons, and no answer is right for every family.
Long-Distance Parenting
If [...]
How to Stay in Touch With Your Child’s Teacher
For a busy working parent, the prospect of staying in touch with your child’s teacher can seem terrifying and perhaps impossible. It’s true that it’s probably impossible to keep track of every little detail and piece of homework, but it’s important to keep in touch with your kid’s teacher, who know how he acts out [...]
After Five PM: Parenting Tips
Any working parent knows that free time is a precious commodity. You want as much of it as possible, and balancing the demands of a job and a family can be exhausting. Some parents cope by hiring a host of nannies and babysitters, dropping their kids off at daycare, and ignoring their offspring whenever possible. [...]
How to Avoid Guilt as a Working Parent
Working parents’ guilt, both for mothers and father, can be hard to deal with. No matter how hard you work to secure your family’s future and keep it running in the present, it can feel impossible to rid yourself of those little pangs of guilt that keep trying to insist to you that you could [...]