How to deal with children in these times of confinement while working from home?
With most of the world’s population in confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home has now become business as usual. This, however, can prove very difficult for parents, who do have to look after their children as well.
For these people, it might be more, I quote, ‘staying at home trying to get work done’, rather than normal work from home.
Question is how to ensure that we get our work done as well as perform our duties as parents?
Here are some tips that may be useful for parents that I use on a daily basis to keep me getting my work done as well as keep the children busy or satisfied. The list is of course non-exhaustive.
Tip 1:
Being a scrum master, I am used to the concept of ‘Inspect and Adapt’. However, with 2 children of 5 and 3 years old, it is difficult to put that in place with them. So I tweaked it a little to ‘Invent and Adapt’. Keeping them busy and knowing that you are there for them is very important if you want to get work done.
What we do at home is basically co-invent games with the children and try it out and adapt as and when required. The one we are playing at the moment is, we call it, ‘Ball Throw’.
We simply divided all soft sponge balls we had at home and had the children throw it at each other. I keep the count and the winner gets a prize (I ensure that it always ends in draw so that both are happy :))
The good thing about this game is that it also tires them and they get early to bed (as opposed to 11pm ;))
This is only one of the games we co-invented. Go ahead and invent your own to keep them busy or you can use existing games.
Bottom line is you need to be with them so that they know you are there for them. In so doing, they will keep out of the way when you are working with the expectation that afterwards it would be play time.
Tip 2:
As rightly said by my agile coach (Harold Campbell) children can remain in one place or do something for 45 minutes maximum. After that they get bored and look for other things — one of them being disturbing you when you are in meetings or working.
Based on conversation I had with Harold Campbell, I experimented with giving them attention every 45 minutes or so for 5–10 minutes.
This creates an expectation for them and sets a cadence for them to see you after every 45 minutes or so. They know that if they do not disturb you for the next 45 minutes, they will be rewarded with your presence and even sometimes with a surprise.
Long story short, the experiment works. Even now, while writing this article am doing the same thing. Good thing about it is that you are not disturbed for 45 minutes and get basically get work done.
Tip 3
As I said at the start of this article, we are at home trying to get work done. The children are part of our day to day. Why not let them also have some camera time when you are in meetings — of course agree with the attendees first in case they are not comfortable.
It will make them feel involved and will be happy about it.
These are the things I am doing to keep the children and family happy as well as getting work done and it is working for me.
Of course, it will bring down your throughput at the end of the day, but it will ensure that everyone is happy at home as well.
Feel free to add any other tips that you may have in the comments section :).
