Tips for working parents
AccessEAP offers a Supporting Working Parents Workshop specifically designed to assist participants to address the challenges and benefits of being a working parent, understand the impact of high stress levels on parenting and to identify practical strategies and skills to manage these competing roles. The workshop can be organised by contacting your Relationship Manager and is ideal for upto 15 participants.
Here are some Tips for working parents that may help working parents manage their split responsibility more effectively.
Get a Team
You don’t have to do it alone. Think creatively about who may make up your team, it may include a partner, extended family, friends in a similar boat or paid support. Establish your team and then as with all teams, be clear about your goals and roles and work together to make it feel like you’ve shard the load.
A Flexible Parent Is a Resilient Parent
As a parent you will appreciate that eveything will not always go according to plan. When things happen that are unexpected or in a way that was not anticipated, adjust plans and deal with things as they are, don’t get hung up on how they “should” have been.
Focus on quality, not quantity, of time with kids
Kids are different, so ask your kids what’s most important to them when it comes to spending time with you. Listening to your kids will help you prioritise and improve your time with them. It’s also important that recreation activities with your kids include things you really like doing, this way you genuinely all have fun and enjoy your time together.
Make time for your spouse/ self—not just for your kids
A study by the UCLA Sloan Centre on Everyday Lives and Families, found that while parents were spending more time with kids, they were spending far less time with each other—three fewer hours per week since 1975, according to one survey. This trend impacts the parental relationship, which in turn has major implications on parenting. Book in a joint massage together, set a regular date night (and stick to it), schedule in exercise or a walk together. You may also need time in your own to reflect and recharge.
(Jeremy Adam Smith of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center)
Wherever you are, be there—be present
Practicing mindfulness doesn’t just lead to decreased stress and increased pleasure in parenting, but it also brings profound benefits to kids.
Simply put, this is about being at work when you’re at work and being at home when you’re at home—which breaks out into specific parenting skills, like listening with full attention; nonjudgmentally accepting yourself and the people in your life; and cultivating compassion for yourself, your partner, and your child.
Give yourself a little credit—and say “thanks” to your spouse/ supports
Parents need to appreciate and value what they are doing—not beat themselves up over what they can’t do! Also try giving other people some credit as well, especially your partner. Because it is very, very easy for working parents to take each other for granted.
