Regardless of the difficulties, I am so grateful to be able to work from home with my kids!

 3 WFH parenting struggles & how to overcome them

1. Balancing Housework with “work” work 

If you’re like me, you really do enjoy being home with your kids every chance you get, and also have a job to do each day along with a household to maintain. It may seem easier to do all 3 as a work from home mom, but in my experience it is harder than having them in daycare and working a 9-5! Sometimes I get done from work at random hours or am just exhausted (due to random circumstances) like being inspired to work overnight.

As a work from home parent, the biggest struggle you may have is accessing time in which to be productive while you’re also feeling inspired and aren’t being distracted by your environment! Of course it’s nice to have the option of working late at night when everyone else is sleeping, but that doesn’t always help you get your projects done while they are due.  

The most important thing you can do to make this easy is find a hack that works for you. I like to use the Pomodoro technique to break down big tasks into short, defined work periods and then make myself work for those times! Using an app such as the Pomodoro timer will give you an allotted amount of time at which to work, and then it counts down from that point in time.

2. Safe Entertainment

Many parents working from home struggle to find ways to entertain their kids without them quickly becoming bored, resorting to only watching Netflix or playing games that aren’t safe for them. Not too mention the chance of them deciding to experiment in making crazy messes or getting into dangerous situations (cooking without supervision, for example!)

Especially with younger kids – they are entertained with one thing for an hour and then need something else! Anyone trying to keep their kids entertained while working from home without additional caregivers knows this is major. Undoubtedly it’s a constant battle to keep them safely entertained and simultaneously keep them from driving you nuts with their boredom.

We personally believe in exposing our kids to technology due to its integration into this world and their opportunities in the future. However, we do not like the idea of allowing them free rein to explore and discover anything online. That is just dangerous considering the amount of nonsense online, even on seemingly safe platforms there can be ads that the kids click on which lead them to danger zones.

These educational rainy day games for kids from plays.org are guaranteed to make any working from home parent’s life that much easier and more fun! Your children will be entertained, challenged, and not inundated with potentially dangerous ads. This site has NO ads on it and it is free – kind of hard to believe but it is legit. They have literally thousands of games too! We love the Educational Games section here, for finding games to play with the kids or allow them to play while we work. There are so many games to choose from though, even some nostalgic ones and adult ones too. It seems like they are always adding more too since we notice new ones almost each time we go on there. Our favorite is the Adventure Man series of games!

3. Healthy & Quick Options

Finding healthy options that your kids WANT to eat is a struggle as well! Sometimes I get off work from a crazy day and really just want to curl up in bed with my kids and eat delivery, but that is not something we can do all the time! Just because you’re working from home doesn’t mean you have it easy with healthy meals… Don’t let those mommy bloggers fool you, sometimes the work is so draining we HAVE to resort to easy options and not extravagant TikTok “kid food” every day!

We need to give my kids options for eating healthy enough so they know what’s acceptable and what isn’t. I always check out Pinterest for new and great tips for making easy changes you can incorporate into your daily life. Healthy options for kids don’t have to be hard, and you can find tons of recipes that are easy and fun to prepare. I love Instagram as well for getting some inspiration on this. I even let our kids look up ideas on Pinterest and put them on this board!