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| Tips for Employees and Working Parents |
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Alternatives to the Nine-to-Five Grind Navigating the Transition from Home to Work and From Work to Home Excerpted from Ask the Children: The Breakthrough Study that Reveals How to Succeed at Work and Parenting By Ellen Galinsky, President and Co-founder, Families and Work Institute Successfully navigating the transition from home to work and back again can help minimize negative spillover while maximizing the chances of positive spillover that will help you and your children thrive when you are apart and when you are together. From home to work Get as organized as you can the night before. Getting clothes set out, lunches made, and homework or work ready to go the night before can prevent the very familiar last-minute crises: “Where is my blue shirt? I need to wear it today.” “I can’t find the permission slip I’m supposed to bring to school.” “Why do we only have peanut butter for lunch? I’m sick of peanut butter.” “Where did I put those papers that I need to bring to work?” Get up in time so that you aren’t rushed. A mother of two school-age children advises: “This may not work for non-morning people, but I always feel so much better if I can have some time to myself before everyone else in the household gets up.” Another says: “I trained myself in 15-minute increments to get up one hour earlier. Now I have time for a leisurely shower, coffee, and time with a good book before the morning madness begins. I firmly resist the temptation to do work or chores during this time. My rule is ‘What can I do that is fun?’” Set up rituals for saying good-bye. A father who drops off his children at child care before he heads for work says: “We would have terrible struggles in the morning until I set up a game we do every morning. We play Simon Says: Simon Says get your coat. Simon Says get your lunch. Go out the door. Whoops—I caught you because I didn’t say Simon Says so you can’t go out the door until I say Simon Says.” Change your perspective on good-bye. My perspective on good-bye is that we are teaching our children how to venture out. So rather than seeing good-bye as a loss, a rupture, something we are inflicting on our kids, I saw it as an opportunity to teach my children how to approach the world with enthusiasm and anticipation of what the new day can bring! Have a backup plan for emergencies. Don’t wait until your child is slightly sick, it’s a snow day, or your child care falls apart to make a back up plan. Find people or a place in your community for backup care. Create a going-to-work transition for yourself. When a parent with older children was going through a tough divorce, she found the drive to work helped her relax, let go of her home problems, and focus on the workday ahead: “Driving in the car is wonderful therapy because I can turn on music. I can put in a classical tape if I want. Or I can just have quiet. There is a point on the interstate and when I drive over it in the morning, I realize this issue [of the divorce] is gone, because I can’t fix it right now. That part of my day I’ll take care of when I get back home. There’s a line—I don’t know where it is, but I can feel it. When I drive to work in that car and I’m by myself, I can feel the tension leave and I’m okay.” From Work to Home Phase out work at the end of the workday. Some parents use their last moments at work to “switch out of the work mode”: “I meditate at my desk for a few minutes before I leave.” Another describes the technique that a friend uses: “I have a friend who freshens her makeup and spritzes on perfume as a closure to her day before she leaves the office. It’s a way to affirm herself as a person and a woman, not just a worker or a parent.” Develop rituals to help you make the transition. It is fascinating how many parents change their clothes as a symbolic act of shifting from their work selves to their parent selves. A father takes off his uniform before he leaves work: “Maybe it’s the act of changing in the locker room [that helps me], putting my street clothes back on, my Levi’s and T-shirt.” A mother describes this process as transforming her sense of self: “As soon as I get home, I take those work clothes off, the pantyhose come off and the sweat pants go on. There definitely is a transition in the person you become because at work you’re a professional and you’re all dressed up. As soon as I take those work clothes off, I feel like I can relax and the environment is much more homey. It’s two different people, two different types of individuals, and sometimes it’s hard to shut one off.” I have always though of changing clothes as the Mister Rogers technique. Remember how Fred Rogers always takes off his jacket and puts on his sweater and sneakers at the beginning of his television show, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood? For one mother, it goes beyond changing clothes. The transition into her “home” versus her “work” sense involves changing her tone of voice, her demeanor, everything: “Some times when I answer the phone at home I answer it ‘May I help you?’ because I just can’t get out of the work mode. I definitely try to transition into a different person because my son knows. He’ll ask me why [I answer the phone the way I do]? Funny, but until he says something like that, you don’t even know you’re doing it.” It’s her son’s reactions, more than her own needs, that have triggered this mother to shed her work demeanor. Her son has made it clear that he wants a “mother, not an employee” to be at home. Make sure your children’s needs are met when you see them. If the children are tired or hungry, there is a greater chance that “arsenic hour” (my term, because when things get crazy you want to give it to them or take it yourself) will erupt in full force. I always had a snack with me when I picked up my children or tried to have a healthy snack already prepared in the refrigerator. Rather than seeing this snack as spoiling dinner, I treated cut-up vegetables or fruit, for example, as one of the courses of dinner. Develop “hello” rituals for you children. Hello rituals make it easier to reconnect with your children. In our family, I always sang a song to them: “What did you do in school today, what did you do in school today, what did you do in school today, dear little boy—or girl—of mine?” Although they wouldn’t always answer a straight question about what happened in school, this song was so embedded as a family that they would usually sing their response back to me. Expect your children to save their troubles for you. Children typically save their pent-up feelings from the day for the people they feel most comfortable with—their parents. Although it doesn’t seem fair that they are on their best behavior with others and not us, the fact that they can share their feelings is an indication that they feel safer and more supported by us than by others. Rather than resist “arsenic hour,” it is better to accept it and plan for it, as this mother does.: “When I pick [my children] up from their after school program, they’re pretty exhausted and grumpy and tired of negotiating with people. So the car ride home is often sort of a blowing off steam time.” Another parent checks in with her children before the end of the day to assess their level of tension: “ I call home in the afternoon, after school, and I can get a sense of how things have gone, what the noise level is, and whether they’re fighting.” Her response depends on how her own day has gone: “When I have the energy, I can engage and set up something. When I don’t have the energy, when I’m physically exhausted it’s harder. Sometimes I can think of something for them to do that I don’t have to be involved in.” Knowing what to expect helps her prepare. If you have had “one of those days,” take care of yourself if you can and be straight with your children about it. On tough days, some mothers and fathers often say they walk in the door and head for a quiet room, where they rest or compose themselves. Even 5 minutes alone can help. When children are very young, you obviously need someone to supervise them while you take some time for yourself. Perhaps your child care provider or spouse can take care of the children for a few extra minutes while you shower and change, have a snack, open up the mail, or otherwise decompress behind closed doors. It is important to be honest with your children, saying that you are tired, you need some time to recover, and when you’re in a better mood you can have a better time together. If children have waited for you for a long time, they may find this additional wait difficult so provide a realistic answer to how long you need “time out.” If it’s hard for them to gauge time, set a kitchen timer so they can watch the numbers. Some children think it is their fault that you’re upset or that you’re rejecting them, so it is important to dispel these feelings: “You didn’t do anything to upset me. I just had a tough day at work.” |
