We all experience stress in life that may impact our work. Parents and caregivers may experience additional stressors when raising children and working. These may include:
- Maintaining work-life balance, including when working from home
- Helping your child to thrive
- Supporting your child’s mental health
- Returning to work after parental leave
- Your own self-care
Your work-life balance
- Work-life balance tips. Balancing your work and personal life can be challenging and stressful at times. Use these tips and strategies and choose those that make the most sense for you.
- Working from home comes with some unique challenges when you also have children. See Working from home to learn strategies to support your well-being while balancing your personal and work life.
Helping your child thrive
- High School Resilience. Activities and strategies that take a strengths-based approach can help you build your teen’s resilience as they meet life challenges.
- From surviving to thriving | PDF. This resource can help your post-secondary student move from merely surviving academic life to actually thriving, by helping them build resilience and plan for stressful situations.
- ThriveLandia is an online resource filled with fun learning activities for your kids and teens (ages 10-17) to help them thrive at school and in life. It’s based on Dr. Diana Brecher’s Five Factor Model of Resilience, and is currently free. You can sign up by clicking on the link in the drop-down menu where you can access the parent resources to support your child.
Supporting your child’s mental health
- Your child’s mental health. From Caring for Kids has a variety of information and resources you can use to identify and support your child’s mental health.
- Manage anxious and depressive thoughts. The activities were created to help you when experiencing mild to moderate side-effects of stress, anxiety or depression. The goal is to take a break from a stressful situation and develop self-regulation techniques to observe and learn from negative or stressful thoughts.
- Resources for caring adults. This resource from Kids Help Phone includes tips for talking with young people about stress, sexuality, bullying, suicide and other challenging topics.
- Peer support for family members. A family peer support network for the entire family of someone with a mental health challenge and/or addiction. All IN Family peer support offers free one-on-one and online support groups, workshops, and navigation of resources assistance for families in an effort to build a community of understanding, acceptance and hope.
- Mental health awareness weekly emails. Increase mental health awareness in 5 minutes per week with this email series delivered to your inbox. These messages feature video clips and practical information about mental health issues.
Returning to work after parental leave
The transition from parental leave back to work can come with challenges and stress, like:
- Adjusting to a new routine of drop offs at childcare
- Commuting
- Settling back into a work environment
- Emotional strain of spending time away from your child
During this time most of us need support from friends, family, other parents, therapists or others.
These tips can aid with the transition:
Schedules
Many people – children and adults – find comfort in knowing what’s expected of them. Printing out a visual morning schedule for children can help ease the transition of leaving the house each morning. The schedule could include:
- Brush teeth
- Get dressed
- Have breakfast
- Pack your bag
- Space to add anything specific to the next day
Your children may be more inclined to stick to the schedule if they have input. You could make creating the schedule a fun activity, with space to colour or to add stickers when they complete each item on the list.
Of course, you don’t want to add this chore to your already busy morning routine. Whether the schedule is a simple printout or a work of art, update the list the night before and post it where you can’t miss it.
15 minutes the night before
Take time the night before to complete what you can do ahead of time to reduce the stress of looking for items in the morning:
- Put out clothes
- Make lunches
- Set out work and school bags by the door
This can give you much-needed time to get where you need to go without feeling rushed.
Create space for moments
After being home with your baby for 24 hours a day, you may miss having quality time with them. Creating space in your daily routine can help. Try these ideas:
- Pack favourite books to read with your child when you have to wait together during appointments or shopping trips.
- Bring bubbles and a wand to stop on the way home and burn some energy outdoors.
- Pack a picnic and blanket (leave it at daycare or with the caregivers) and enjoy a pre-made meal outdoors.
Make time for nothing
Moving to a scheduled workday can be overwhelming for everyone. Where possible, it can be helpful to leave at least part of a day off unscheduled. Take time for:
- Long walks
- Playing outside with your kids
- Spending time unrushed
Take a rain check on things that require you to be somewhere at a certain time – even if for a little while.
Partner with your care provider
Let your care provider, even if it’s family, know what you need. Many daycares and childcare providers offer a daily summary, photographs or updates to let you know about your child’s day. This helps you stay connected to how your child’s doing. If you have questions or concerns, write them down and book time to talk them through when the care provider has free time.
Time block
Day-to-day tasks in life, like the examples below, can feel overwhelming:
- Picking up a present for a party
- Filling prescriptions
- Shopping for groceries
- Housework
- Making doctors’ appointments
Often this can create a lot of stress. Having a running list reduces the mental energy required. And, by blocking time during the week – for example, during a coffee break or before or after work – you can cross these tasks off your list with less effort.
The information above is compliments of Allison Venditti, Career Strategist & Return to Work Specialist. Allison is the creator of the Ready to Return program, Canada's first online program to support mothers returning to work from maternity leave. For more information, check out Moms at Work.
Your self-care
- Caregiver resources. Tips and strategies to make it easier to advocate for the health and well-being of our loved ones. This includes information on government services, seniors, health, finances and self-care.
- Family issues. Resources to help cope with family issues such as divorce, separation, grief and loss that can result in family breakdown. Also find resources to help you manage stress.
- Prevent burnout. Try these strategies to help identify risks and to prevent burning out.
- Healthy break activities. These healthy break activities are no- to low-cost and are designed to encourage you to take regular breaks, even during the busiest workdays. The activities fall into one of three categories – calming, energizing or relaxing.
Share this with anyone who is a working parent.