Management tips and strategies for busy moms

Strategies for working and parenting

The school year is well on its way, which can only mean one thing for working parents: stress. Being a parent of any kind is hard, but the struggle of a working parent with school-aged children becomes frustrating in one particularly unique way: juggling work and school schedules. 

Any working parent will tell you the most difficult part of working and having school-aged children is the school schedules. Simply put: school schedules are designed for families with at least one parent at home, and always available.

 Be it the days off for miscellaneous holidays, in-service teacher days, and the ever-extending seasonal breaks; or, special events like school plays and Mom-and-Me coffee days that occur smack dab in the middle of the workday, school schedules are just not built for the average working parent. 

Luckily, there are several strategies that are easy to implement to conquer this hurdle of parenting school-aged children: 

1. Plan! Plan! Plan! 

The easiest and most obvious way to manage working outside of the home with school-aged children is to plan like it’s what you actually do for a living. 

Plan meals a week in advance, and spend a few hours on your days off preparing items that easily grab-and-go. Planning meals is a great way to stay on track with a healthy diet, and - more importantly - keep the time-consuming struggle of what to have for dinner after school and work at bay. 

Stock up on calendars and make sure every activity has its own to be plotted out on. Sports, school, appointments… make sure each is fully fleshed out, and you update them regularly as schedules become available. Combine them all into one, main family planner that outlines everyone’s days, who drives whom where, and what extra responsibilities may need to be fulfilled (and how those will be handled).

 2. Rely on your village. 

Do your kids play sports, and getting them to and from practices after school presents a major problem for you because of your work schedule? Organize a carpool, and make sure to sign up for the days that you are off work or have varied hours. 

If your child’s school doesn’t offer bus service, work out a shared driving schedule with friends or other kids in your neighborhood that works for you. Your boss won’t be able to side-eye you as you duck out every day at 3:00 to sit in the pick-up line if you manage the kids at the morning drop off, leaving one of the other parents with a different schedule to manage the afternoons.

 3. Embrace the chaos! 

It sounds cliche, but your kids are only young once. By embracing the chaos, and accepting that some days are just going to be a total disaster, you free yourself to let go of some of the things that really don’t matter. 

So you couldn’t make it to that Mom-and-me coffee morning…but you were there every day at 3:00 to pick your kids up, with a smile on your face. Which do you think your kids will remember the most? 

Being a parent is the toughest job there is. That doesn’t mean it is unmanageable, and the good news is that by juggling a busy life of work plus your children, you are raising them to see just what a Mom (or Dad) boss really is.

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