Home Based Business and Children
A Home Business Article Contributed by Jenni Mckinney
Avoiding Guilt in Your Home Based Business
If you are one of the thousands of people who own and operate a home based business, and if you have one or more children still living at home with you, the best piece of advice you can get is about your time management. Managing your time is difficult when your entire enterprise and source of income is the bedroom or the garage. It is easy to start feeling guilty anytime you are not working on your business, trying to grow it, and this nagging guilt can keep you working longer hours than a regular job.
Satisfying Your Children and Your Home Based Business Needs
Working longer hours can also result in unhappy children who feel that they have to compete with your home based business for your attention. The best cure to both the guilt and the dissatisfied offspring is to manage your time as regularly as possible. First, sit down with your children and your spouse and make a list of the time restraints immediately apparent -- for example, if you can only work a split shift because you have to take the kids to sports practices.
Once you know what hours you CANNOT work, invert that and decide, of all the open work hours available, how many of those will you dedicate to actual work, and how many will you dedicate to other pursuits, like spending time with your family. A good rule of thumb is to follow the example of the outside work force and spend no more than 7 hours a day locked away in your office.
If you plan to work on the weekends, then reduce the amount of time you work each day so that you do not exceed a 40-hour workweek. The next step is to post these hours on your office door so that they can be easily remembered and respected by your children. Finally, stick to your hours, and when you are off, do not let yourself feel guilty. Remember that one of the biggest benefits to operating a home based business is the ability to see more of your family.
Instilling Values Through Your Home Based Business
If your children are old enough to help you in your home based business, it could possibly be the best thing you ever teach them to do. Aside from the obvious fact that you are getting some help with the more menial tasks of the business, you will also benefit from being able to directly interact with your children on a more adult, mature level. This will greatly benefit the children, who need to be shown, not told, how to interact with adults in the real world.
In addition, children who start early and learn to work for a wage learn the value of a dollar in a way that kids who never work growing up completely miss out on. This is an excellent way to show your child the true meaning of making ends meet, of extending and receiving credit, of balancing a checkbook, of saving up to purchase seemingly wasted things like paper. In this way, your home based business becomes more than a way to make money -- it becomes a way to make better citizens.
