Working from home has so many benefits, especially if you’re a mom. You get to spend more time at home, organize your work hours better, and keep your children on your sight. Still, as much as it sounds great to be able to spend more time with the kids, they can sometimes stand in the way of your professional productivity.
Keeping Children Busy When Working at Home
To make sure you’re doing your job correctly, you’ll have to find a way to keep your children busy while you’re working. Luckily, we found seven ways. Here are our ideas on keeping children occupied and away from your home office.
Let’s take a closer look.
1. Schedule Playtime
When it comes to keeping your children busy during your work hours at home, the key is organization. It would be best if you could have their playtime scheduled when you plan on starting to work.
Therefore, try combining the two at the same time.
You could:
- arrange a play date
- have them play at a friend’s house
- play their favorite games in their rooms
If you manage to combine your schedules to fit like this, you’ll have a couple of hours to work carefree.
2. Encourage Outdoor Activities
Regardless of the time of year, it’s always a good idea to have your children play outside. It’s good for their mental and physical health.
Also, they’ll clear out the house and ensure you have some quiet time to work.
So, teach your children how to play outside and encourage them to practice it while you’re working. Suggest activities such as:
- collecting different types of leaves and flowers
- making a snowman
- playing catch, hide and seek, and other outdoors activities
- building mud castles
- playing with the dog
- playing a sport
If you show them how much fun it can be to play outside, they’ll soon think of their own games and continue to play them without you having to push them into it.
3. Work Together
If you have children who are students, you can combine their “work” obligations with yours. In other words, you can work together.
So, while you’re working on a project for work, the kids can join you and:
- do their homework
- read mandatory school literature
- work on their science or art project
- study
“In most cases, the kids will find it interesting to share an office with you. They’ll feel important, and they’ll do their school tasks with more motivation and vigor,” says Miranda Faber, a counseling psychologist, and writer at Studyker.
4.Use Videos or Audio Books
There’s nothing wrong with letting your children spend some time watching videos or listening to audiobooks.
Naturally, you must limit their screen time and choose what to play to them. But, this can be highly beneficial and educational for them if you find the right materials.
So, if your kids are bored from playing and need to change their activity, play them a video or an audiobook. Choose materials such as:
- educational materials for kids
- high-quality cartoons with a moral message
- funny and children-appropriate movies
- fairytales and children’s stories
Make sure the kids are spending their time watching or listening to films and stories that are suitable for their age and possibly even educational in some sense. This will ensure your kids stay tech-healthy.
5. Assign Chores
“It’s essential to teach your children discipline and self-organization from the earliest age. They need to understand they have tasks and obligations around the house, just like the rest of the family. Assigning them a chore or two will help the message sink in,” says Daniel Diaz, a family psychologist and editor at Write Scout.
So, to keep your kids busy while you’re working, you can get them to do things around the house. Of course, focus on the tasks they can easily do, based on their age.
Most children are capable of doing these chores:
- clean their room
- make their beds
- tidy their toys
- organize their clothes
If you’ve got children who are ten or older, you can ask them to vacuum, wipe the dust, or do the laundry.
This will keep them busy, and it will be beneficial for them, teaching them to be hard-working and helpful.
6. Have Fun Activities Ready
No matter how much you plan, organize, and schedule, it’s most likely that things aren’t going to run as smoothly as you’ve imagined. Your children aren’t going to stick to your plan blindly.
They can get bored, the weather can change, or they might finish their chores sooner than you expected.
That means that you’ll have to use your creativity and come up with solutions on the go.
The best way to handle this is to have several interesting activities ready as a backup:
- coloring books
- puzzles
- board games
- Legos
- playdough and clay
Make sure you have plenty going on as a backup, and your kids will certainly want to do some of your suggestions.
So, have them play with whatever they’ve chosen and headed back to your home office to finish up.
7. Have Them Build A Fort
Most kids enjoy this activity, which is why we found it essential to suggest it to you.
You can have your kids build an indoor tent or a fort to play in. This will keep them busy for hours.
Suggest that they use:
- a couch or their bed
- old blankets and sheets
- pillows
- whatever they find handy
They’ll spend time building the fort and find it super interesting to play inside it. It’s a great activity that most kids will want to play for days.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, keeping your kids busy while you’re working is challenging but doable. The important thing to remember is that your children don’t need you to act as the house clown and entertain them.
Instead, teach them to evoke their creativity and play with each other, alone, or with their play date. Suggest the activities, provide the toys, and leave them to explore and experiment.
