The New Corner Office: Put your kids to work

How to involve kids in your work life

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the New Corner Office,
the podcast where we share strategies for thriving in the
new world of work, where location and hours are more
flexible than in the past. Today's tip is to put
your kids to work. If you're working at home, the
lines between work and home can be blurred. There are

(00:27):
downsides to this, as anyone who spent an evening half
checking email and half puttering around the house knows. But
if your teen and preteen kids are around the house
a lot more this summer because of canceled camps or
summer jobs, then you might be able to put them
on your team, so to speak, so you can be
at least a little more productive. One obvious approach specialize

(00:52):
Mom and dad specialize in their paid work. The kids
can specialize in more of the home tasks so you
can focus on your job. Kids who are older than
about ten or so can learn to make simple meals
like pasta with jarred sauce and a bagged salad or
scrambled eggs with cut up fruit. Teenagers might enjoy cooking
from meal kits like those from sun Basket or Hello Fresh.

(01:16):
There's nothing quite like hanging up from your last client
call at six pm to emerge to dinner on the table. Hey,
it could work in any case. They can definitely help
with laundry and keeping the house tidy so you don't
have to do these things. Older children can also entertain
younger children if you have a call during a time

(01:37):
that you don't normally have childcare all day. Childcare is
more in the realm of actual adults, like if you're
nineteen year old is home from college, but an eleven
year old could build block towers for a three year
old to knock down for thirty minutes or so in
a pinch. I have strongly encouraged my older children to
play Minecraft with the five year old when I need

(01:58):
to knock a few things out. If you work for yourself,
you can use your kids for various clerical tasks. They
can help stuff and stamp envelopes, or scan or make copies.
A teenager might be able to bike to the post
office for you. He or she might be able to
proof free documents. Your kids might have ideas for social
media posts or campaigns. My thirteen year old has written

(02:21):
blog posts for me. If your kids are crack googlers,
you can send them hunting for specific statistics or research studies,
or possibly have them read and summarize books for you.
Mine sometimes come up with podcast ideas for me. In
any case, the whole concept of take our Sons and
Daughters to Work Day is that the world of work

(02:42):
seems very remote to the average child. It's this mysterious
place that mom and dad go and that you don't
really know what's going on. But if you work from home,
they can know pretty much exactly what's going on, and
sometimes they can even be part of it. That's work
life integration and I think it's a lot of fun.

(03:06):
In the meantime. This is Laura, Thanks for listening, and
here's the succeeding in the New Corner Office. The New
Corner Office is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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or wherever you get your favorite shows.