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Tipping the Scales on Both Sides: Balancing Work and Life Tips for Work at Home Moms

Written by: Cesar Campos

Article Overview: Working at home is difficult enough without having to raise a family and keep your house clean. Being a work at home mom is certainly an experience not for the faint-hearted, but if you have a lot of mettle and good sense, you can pull through it. All you need to do is keep your head straight and your senses intact.

Tipping the Scales on Both Sides: Balancing Work and Life Tips for Work at Home Moms

How is this possible? You need to balance your work and family life. You need to know when to stop working and start living – and when to set your family aside and start earning money again. Here are a few tips that you, as work at home mom, might want to follow as you try to balance everything on your strong shoulders.

- Always have some quality and alone time for yourself. Stress is not going to do you any good, no matter how long you stay in the kitchen to make the perfect meal, no matter how long you sit in front of your computer to finish a hundred short articles, and no matter how many days you spend locked up in your study so you can do some reviews or schoolwork (if you are also studying part time). Mommy and Honey are needed in the house, and Mommy and Honey don’t appear when you’re under stress.

So how can you be a good mom and wife and still be sane enough to work at home and earn some money? The key is to stay away from stress and to pamper yourself. You don’t have to go to the spa every day, or get a massage, nor have a few hours wasted lounging at the salon. But you can sit for an hour just listening to your favorite music, or you can set aside some time to read a book or watch movies that you love. There are many different possibilities, but the key is to simply set time aside and to be very strict with that time.

Alone and quality time with self can be difficult for kids to understand – they don’t know why mommy has to be alone, but they just want to be with mommy. So instead of sitting down and explaining all the intricacies of psychology to them, teach them to have their own alone time. Tell them to have an hour each day for something that they want to do on their own, like play in your backyard, read a book, or watch TV. Let this alone time hour be important to them, and they can eventually pick up on the idea that sometimes, you have to be left alone.

- Consistency is the key: if you change your schedule from day to day, your kids can have a hard time understanding why you are under stress, or why you are sometimes at their side and sometimes you have to be alone. Have a schedule and stick to it: try an hour of being by yourself each day, a time to be with the kids, another time to do work, and time with your husband. A schedule will help you organize your work too, so that you can learn to say no, and you can learn to delegate duties when your schedule is too packed.

- Another way to get your life in order while working at home is to find a support group of working moms. By all being in the same boat, you all can understand each other, help each other out, and yes, bond. With these new-found sisters, you can have companions in raising and disciplining children, cooking better meals and improving on your kitchen skills, and sharing your expertise.

- Where’s the hubby? Always working, you say, and uninvolved with the household. However, you are in the position to involve him, so do so! In fact, your husband does want to be involved! Ask him to help you with a few things, such as cleaning up, taking out the garbage, even cooking. This can be a great way for you two to cooperate, to know each other even better, and to bond. Remember, marriage is a two-way street, and you two have to be partners. What better way to reinforce this than by asking him to help you finish your work?

- Let your kids help you out, too, and teach them life skills in the process. Your kids want to be part of the household: they want to make decisions, be important, and feel like grownups. Why not start by letting them wash dishes, help out in the house, or even stack books and papers for mommy? There are many ways that your kids can participate in making your house better, and they not only help you maintain a better home, they learn their own strengths along the way.

Just be patient. Not all kids are easy to train in carrying breakable things, or in helping clean up when they want to paint your walls with their crayons. So go slow as you teach them, and reward them for a job well done.

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  Home Based Business on the Internet - The Perfect Choice for Moms

Article Tags: balancing work and life, work at home mom, work at home moms, working at home



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