Ask HN: How do you work at home with at-home children?
As a side-effect of the current coronavirus precautions, I was recently faced with a one week stretch of working from home while taking care alone of a young child who found themself unexpectedly on holiday/homeschooled.
This is a situation in which no grandparent or nanny could intervene and getting out of the house is severely limited by the current situationn. Needless to say, my productivity was suboptimal and the week was quite stressful for both parent (trying to work) and child (parent is here, but won't play).
Does anyone have experience that could help? I'd very much like to avoid putting my kid in front of the TV or a game console for one entire week.
6 comments
[ 14.0 ms ] story [ 449 ms ] threadUnfortunately, as far as I can tell, they cover only half of the problem: I'm not a stay-at-home parent, I'm a work-from-home parent, which means that I have to spend slots of at least one hour concentrating on my work if I want to have any chance of getting anything done!
Some painting books may help. There are versions for different levels, from small kids to the Brain/Neuroscience painting book.
There are also some nice educative apps. (But many are boring, with bright color to compensate.) Perhaps you can program one.
Can you lock yourself in a room for a "teleconference"? Perhaps your kid can understand that.
Can the grandparents play with the kid by Skype?
Expect to have less working hours than usual. Can your S.O. help here? Can you take turns to care the kid and work?
It will be a long "week" anyway, get a Netflix subscription.
Precocious kid, needs to be stimulated permanently.
No S.O. in the picture.