Helping Parents Shift from Work to Home

By Marilyn Suttle

Your workday is over. It's time to go home. Shifting your energies from work to home is challenging. Work issues can distract you from being fully present with your family. Unfinished business, problems with co-workers, upcoming deadlines, dissatisfactions with the job, or elevated expectations are just a few of the pressures that, left un managed, spill over into your family time. So, how do you close the door on one part of your life and enter the other?

Without addressing the shift from work to home, the whole family suffers. If the work day was great, you come home feeling good, but when things don't go well, the tension follows you home. Often negative feelings aren't safe to let out at work so the family gets the emotional dump from the day. Here are some tools to calm your nerves and help you leave the worry's and concerns of work where they belong.

Before leaving work, take a few minutes to bring closure to your day. It's hard to let go of unfinished business, but you can do it by focusing on your feelings. Before leaving work, look over your day. Do you have any feelings of frustration, anger, or resentment toward anyone? Do you feel disappointed, satisfied, or overwhelmed by the day's events? By acknowledging the feelings that come up, you are in a better position to see your situation clearly. Tuning into the areas of concern helps to address the needs of the next work day, and brings resolution and closure to your day. When feelings are identified, they are more easily released.

When leaving work, set up some symbolic rituals to transition out of the workday and into your family time. As you close the door to your office, the building you work at, or your car door, let it represent closing off that part of your life. Each time you hear that door close, it sets up a trigger. Triggers really work. A dental hygienist once told me that if I tied a piece of dental floss to my toothbrush, I wouldn't forget to floss my teeth. After taking her advice, I may choose not to floss, but it's awfully hard to forget to floss with that darn string dangling from my brush. Why not apply the same idea by putting a note in your car that says, "Transition time has begun."

The car ride home is a great block of time to release and refocus. Be sure to bring enjoyable books on tape, play your favorite music and sing, or place a fragrant potpourri in the car to pamper yourself a bit. If you need more time to unwind, consider making regular stops at the gym for exercise. Stop at a book store or coffee shop for some quiet time to enjoy a magazine or newspaper on the way home. For many parents, the ride home from work includes picking up the kids from school or day care. If so, use your car time to reconnect with them. Often when you ask them, "What did you do today?" all you get back is, "Nothing." Instead of throwing a steady stream of questions at them, simply say, "It's so good to see you." Without the pressure of interrogation, the kids are more likely to open up and share their day with you. Kids respond well to, "Tell me about the best part of your day and the worst part." You may start out by telling the kids about the best part of your day. Children don't enjoy dealing with stressed out parents. By focusing on what you enjoyed about your job, the kids get the idea that a career can be a fulfilling part of life and your pleasant mood will be contagious. If your focus is always negative, children will see a career as something undesirable and to be avoided. Remember, you are modeling for your children what it means to be a responsible adult.

Changing your clothes after work physically symbolizes removing work and slipping into family time. Water is a relaxer. Washing up can represent washing away the tensions of work. Listen to the sound of the water going down the drain and picture the demands of your workday draining away with it. Do something physical. Stress can be released through physical activity. If you don't have time to take a walk or go to the gym, engage the family in a race against the clock to clean up or complete chores together. Sometimes the exhaustion of the day leaves you with no energy at home. Turn off the television, set the timer and take a fifteen minute power nap.

Are you making a successful transition from work to home? Are you tasting your food? Do you tune out of conversations? Does your family complain that they only get the worst of you? When you catch workplace issues mentally spilling over into your family time, give yourself a phrase that will bring you back. Phrases like, "no worries," "tomorrow's soon enough," or "family time," are quick and easy reminders to stay present in the moment.

If you insist on relaxing only when all your work is complete, you have to wait till the last day of your life for relief. There will always be that ongoing project, meetings to prepare for, problems to resolve. Give yourself permission to let go of the work day issues during family time. Set up time chunks that belong only to family time. Put away the brief case, stay away from the email, let the answering machine pick up your calls while you nurture your loved ones and yourself. If work must be focused on after hours, then set up a specific time frame for it. Do not let it interfere with your three year old's tea party, or a heart to heart talk with your teen.

At the end of the day, be sure to stop and appreciate yourself. Parents deserve a great deal of respect. Without your countless efforts to care for and support your family, both emotionally and financially, everything would fall apart. By setting up blocks of time to focus fully on your family, you won't miss the most rewarding part of life. Your children's childhood. Children go from 2 to 20 in the blink of an eye. Before you know it, they'll be off on their own. Allow yourself to experience it, before you wonder where it went.

Marilyn Suttle provides personal and professional life-skills presentations, including parenting, work/life balance, and self esteem. Email her at MsSuttle@aol.com or visit her web site: www.SuttleOnline.NET