Guest Blog by Shona Chambers, Founder of the Self Employed Club
They say never work with animals or children. However if you are a parent, and work for yourself, then you’ll have to embrace at least one of those on occasions.
If you are a small business owner, home worker, freelancer, or any other role that is, let’s say a bit more flexible than working for a corporation, I’m sure you’ve had times when you've been forced to juggle childcare and work.
The times when a child has been sick on a monday at 7am, and your partner is racing off to a meeting in the city as you stare at the inbox of doom.
Maybe you are a single parent and then you have a lot less scope in any case.
Perhaps it’s managing with half term now that Covid 19 has reduced the availability of Grandparents that can pitch in when the kids are off.
In any case, I thought as a veteran parent (eldest is 12) and self employed mad woman since 2011. I would try and share a few tips on how to keep the kids entertained when you are absolutely up against it and just need an hour to concentrate.
5 tips for getting an hour's work done, with children in the house
1. Depending on the age of your children this one has saved my bacon with under 5s. Create a ‘fake’ birthday party. Wrap up toys or books that they already own, and let them loose to spend a fun hour ripping off paper ( I keep recycled old paper for this kind of thing) it’s amazing how wrapping up a familiar item makes it fun again.
2. Create some themed trays in advance, and put them out one at a time. All you need is a cheap plastic tray with deep enough sides to keep whatever is to be contained, contained. A couple of themes to try:
Jurassic Park , just need play sand, plastic dinosaurs, a few lego people to be eaten of course.
Farm - Fill tray with plastic farm animals, small buildings, or maybe a tea box to make a farm house, possibly grass depending on how much you trust your small children.
3. Let them loose on your clothing and jewellery. Nothing dangerous of course but scarves, bangles, fake plastic sunglasses, handbags and other costume jewellery can keep little ones happy for ages.
4. For older children, get them to research a topic for a purpose. For example if you have online shopping to do, why not let them create your food shopping list on a supermarket website? Obviously make sure you aren’t logged into purchase mode. This also works for getting them to plan a travel route to see family using the internet to research good stopping points.
5. My eldest has a casio keyboard that we gave him aged 5, when he is bored he is quite happy to go and hammer out a few tunes. There are websites that you can try that will teach children songs for free. It really is amazing the value you can get out of some presents!
Thanks for reading and I hope you get your 5 minutes peace.
About the author
Shona Chambers is a Marketing Consultant and founder of Self Employed Club, a networking group for anyone who works for themselves. She recently wrote her first book 100 Marketing Tips for Small Business Owners, available on Amazon as an Ebook.
She lives with her husband, son and daughter in south east London.
Find her online at www.shonachambersmarketing.co.uk
@shonachambersmarketing on Instagram/Facebook & Twitter
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