Superb Suggestions On Juggling Work And Family Over School Holidays

For working parents and working mums, who tend to be the primary organisers, school holidays can represent a planning nightmare! On your agenda will be six weeks of available time, during which you have to focus on the irreplaceable value represented by this quality family time together, full of bonding opportunities. Doesn’t it seem that the months and years just fly by and you are all too aware how, before you turn around, the kids will be adults and on their way into the future. In an ideal world, you would want to spend the entire summer holiday with the children as well, taking time to soak in the summer. In this respect, wouldn’t it be great if you could take a six-week vacation as well?

But reality bites! If you are self-employed, you realise that holidays are few and far between anyway as you work to develop your business.

If you are employed, you understand that your boss cannot afford to be without you for the entire period of time either, but hopefully he or she is understanding and at least a little bit flexible, as this will make all the difference.

Thankfully, professional coaching may well be able to help you to unravel all of your problems and make those critical decisions.

This will be the time to explore just how flexible your respective employers are, as mum and dad do their best to rearrange their time to accommodate all the demands. Some might suggest that mum takes her two weeks first and dad takes his when she gets back to work. While this might “cover” for four weeks, it is hardly an ideal situation. For the younger children, this could be simply confusing and if you learn anything from online coaching advice, you know that you need to try and bring together that all important family fabric as much as possible.

Telecommuting is really taking hold and this might be the time to schedule a test run. Talk with your supervisor and see if it might be possible for you to operate from home over the summer holidays, or at least during part of this vacation, so that you can be much more flexible and allocate some of those precious hours to the children. If you are thinking along these lines, you should try and introduce this concept slowly before the holidays arrive, to show just how well it could work.

If your children are a little older, why not consider enrolling them in holiday clubs, maybe a dance club, drama club or to play football? You need to make sure that they are in the better clubs, though, which means that you have to plan early to account for the demand.

The summer holidays call for a great deal of creativity on your part, when you have to fit in all your work duties and demands and make sure that you plan accordingly to make this time as smooth as possible. Seek professional coaching to help you with this planning, as there’s no reason for you to be floundering around in the dark these days, with so many online coaching resources to help!

Amanda Alexander is Director of Coaching Mums and a highly acclaimed ICF-accredited coach who delivers professional coaching programmes to working mums who yearn for success, balance and fulfilment. Are you a juggling mom? Download our free eBook for working moms that will give you 5 simple and instant ways to balance your life right now!