Brilliant ideas for effectively juggling remote work and kids

Working from home with our kids nearby can seem like an appealing way to balance family and professional life, but it's no walk in the park, and above all it takes good organization.

To juggle all your responsibilities, I recommend planning a schedule that isn't rigid, that leaves room for more flexibility and that offers directions to follow each day and each week.

How to keep the kids busy

Over the course of a week, think about setting up activities planned in advance to give the kids a routine that includes special time with you, in which you offer them different ways to stimulate themselves across different dimensions. These moments will keep your child busy and not asking for your attention, letting you get your work tasks done.

Here are a few ideas:

Physical development:

• Prepare a sheet of guided exercises to copy so they can move to music.
• Ask the kids to set up an obstacle course with outdoor equipment and time themselves to set the best score.
• Suggest that the kids lay dish towels, washcloths and pieces of fabric on the floor; they can then leap from one to the next like a frog. 
• Ask the kids to hold various (safe) objects of different sizes between their knees and try to cross a room or the backyard without dropping the object.
• Give the little ones something to blow bubbles with, which they then have to chase and pop.
• Give the kids brooms or mops and invite them to pass a sock ball back and forth across the floor.
• Set up targets (hoops, baskets, large jars) at different distances for the kids to throw various objects into.

Cognitive development:

• Ask the kids to go find flat rocks in the yard, then suggest they paint them with gouache and fine brushes.
• Cover a wall at the kids' height with paper and give them different kinds of pencils so they can draw a mural.
• Scatter odd socks on the floor and ask the kids to match them up.
• Fill one bucket with water and leave another empty. Ask the kids to transfer the water from one bucket to the other with sponges.
• Give the kids brushes of all sizes, a water spray bottle and a bucket of water, then suggest they “paint” the walls of the house.

Social-emotional development (if you have several children at home):

• Suggest that the kids gather different objects on a table. Each child takes the time to look at them carefully, then closes their eyes. The game leader makes one of them disappear. The others have to figure out which one is missing as quickly as possible.
• A child secretly chooses an object and, without being seen by the others, makes noises with it: by tapping or rubbing, scraping, pinching, blowing, etc. The others then have to guess which object was used.
• Prepare different themes in advance for the kids to improvise a play around. Here are some suggested situations, found on the site www.pommedapi.com: you arrive at school and realize you're still in your pyjamas / you're waiting for the bus and it starts pouring rain / the heating stops and it gets very cold in the house / at the restaurant, instead of the appetizer, they bring you dessert…

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