It's National Family Week!
|
National Family Week is all about celebrating quality family time together. It can be difficult to do this when you still have to find the elusive balance between family and work life. Half term week makes child care even more challenging to sort out if you are planning on working, so maybe this is one of those times when it’s just a good idea to take a bit of time off?
|
 |
Making the transition between the working week and the family at home, however, isn’t always that easy. Consider the 2 worlds of work and family:
Life at work Life at home
- Scheduled - Unstructured
- Mentally stressful - Physically tiring
- Focused on yourself - Focused on your children first
- Fast-paced - Slow-paced, especially with babies and toddlers
- Monitored, under review - Parenting is largely a thankless task!
The worlds are clearly very different, so making that cultural shift from life at work to the dynamics of a family unit can be stressful sometimes. So how do you manage the transition to make sure you have an enjoyable family week?
- Consider the change in environments and recognise that you will need time to adjust. Start to wind down on the commute home and then do whatever you need to de-stress before you spend time with the family – take a bath, go to the gym, get some fresh air
- Children also need time to get used to their change in routine as half term commences. Change in routines from nursery, pre-school or school to daily home life need a little time to accommodate. Children can be over-whelmed and excited by both parents being around, or other family members, so keep the days simple and slow, don’t try to pack in too much and keep to the same eating and sleeping patterns where possible
- Switch off completely from work. Sneaky peeks at your Blackberry are really tempting, but you won’t achieve anything except reminding yourself of your work stresses
Enjoy your week, and for ideas of what to do, go to www.nationalfamilyweek.co.uk