Working from Home and Homeschooling during COVID-19
Just a few weeks ago you were a business owner and parent, but as of late you might have added "school teacher" to your resume.
It's a whole new world to juggle life, business, and the education of your children. I have great respect for our teachers and all those who homeschool. You all are heros.
Now that this is new norm for a bit, we have to figure out a plan with how we will make this work and keep everyone happy.
I am excited to have fellow Dubsado user, business owner, and homeschooler super mom share some of her tips that have worked for her and her family over the years. We hope that you can steal a tip or two if you're struggle in this area currently.
TIPS FOR PARENTS 👇
Schooling at Home While Working From Home:
Do not attempt to replicate a school day. Educating your child (ren) doesn’t take as many hours as a typical school day. On average homeschoolers only have about 3 hours of active learning time and even that’s more for high school age students. Quality learning over quantity of hours is the rule here!
One of the beauties of schooling at home is the flexibility to create your day around what works best for everyone involved. And in this case your workload. Take a few days and see what the natural flow is and use that as your lead. If your child (ren) are most mentally active in the AM and your workload is heavier at night go with a morning block or if not flip it. There’s no such thing as the wrong time of day to learn.
Set schedule or time blocks, it’s your choice. After trying lots of things, we found that keeping a routine of activities works better than an hourly schedule. As long as we stay in the routine of the day I know we get what needs to happen done.
Use the tools your school sent to keep the current pace. Or if your school district hasn’t gotten around to providing materials, find areas your child could use a review in and use those as starting points.
Learning is everywhere and can happen in the darndest ways. Board games reinforce reading, and the ability to follow directions, where games like Chess and Checkers improve critical thinking and problem solving. Even Fortnite dance offs can get the body moving for a little impromptu phys ed.
Working With Kids In House:
First, don’t be so hard on yourself, or them. It will be noisy, you will get interrupted more than you ever imagined, and you may lose it. It’s okay. Everyone will survive being so cozy (eventually).
Let your current and new clients know ahead of time what to expect while having kiddos in or near the boardroom. I personally have a short paragraph in my Dubsado lead form and scheduler email template that says: ** Disclaimer: I am truly a professional, but I'm also a mom with a young child that I homeschool while running my business from home. He may or may not pop up during our call needing my attention. I'll address him when necessary and then hone back into your needs cause that's what I do :)
Not only are clients understanding and unbothered, I’ve booked a few new leads because he’s so darn cute on Zoom :)
If you have a spouse, take shifts that allow you to have quiet time (hiding in the closet) to be creative, or focus on important details without distractions. If you don’t have inside help, do these things before your children wake up or after they head to bed.
Create a list of three things you want to complete each day for your life and your livelihood. Then create three things you want your child to complete each day.
For instance each day/week you may want your child to:
Get outdoors for at least 30 minutes
Read anything out loud to you
Clean/organize one thing each week
Each day/week you may want to:
Do something by yourself or for yourself a bath, an affirmation, eat your favorite snack in the dark ect.
Be marketing yourself in some way everyday in social posts, lives, stories or email daily. Even just to say hi to your community.
Try one new recipe a week.
About Sonja:
Sonja Thompkins is a business strategist and success coach that helps high achieving women amplify abundance in their personal & professional lives without the grind. She has been working from home while raising and homeschooling her seven year old son for 5 years. If you’d like more practical strategies to help you have a more fulfilled life & business Sonja is hosting a free masterclass on how to build your business and balance everything else. You can attend for free here.
