Family Archives - The Voice of Job Seekers

20 Ways Moms Save Time, Job Search, and Handle Back-To-School Activities

This special guest post was written by Nicole McCray.

Job searching can take time, and for moms with children (especially young children), you know that your kids’ needs always come first. Getting back into the job market can be challenging, and finding the time to do so is more of a challenge now, especially with so many children doing their schoolwork at home virtually.

Juggling administering school at home for your children while simultaneously looking for jobs can be done, and it doesn’t have to be complicated. Here are twenty excellent ways to find the time to search for your next position and jumpstart your career while making sure your child is engaged and learning and developing, instead of just watching TV or a movie when not doing schoolwork.

CREATE A SET SCHEDULE

Kids need routine, that’s the bottom line. So the first thing you should do is create a workable schedule for yourself and them so that they have designated slots of time where they are not asking you for constant help.

To take this a step further – create an actual vision board or put a large dry erase or chalkboard up somewhere in the house that outlines their day. Make sure their prioritized schoolwork and you can be available to help with their homework for a specific time later in the day as well.

You can easily pre-plan the night before if you can set aside some time after kids are in bed, and align your day with their activities so that you can fit in your job search time during their craft time, or quiet time, or whatever time you deem fit to keep them occupied. It may take you some time to develop as you get started, but soon you’ll be able to get a good routine set up.

The most important part of setting the schedule is to schedule yourself with time WITH them and without them. This way, your child won’t be a bother when they have something to do with you that they can look forward to doing.

STORYTIME

Children, mostly from Kindergarten age and older, should always be practicing reading. It’s good academically for their minds, and creatively for their imaginations. Have them spend at least one full hour of quiet time reading either in their rooms or outside so that you can utilize that time for your job searching.

GOOGLE SLIDESHOW

Free and fun – this is a great way for your children to put their minds to work. They can pull together some photos in Google slides, maybe from a vacation or a fun trip. You can even have them create one of having to stay at home during the pandemic, allowing them to make the real-life story to tell family and friends.

OUTSIDE IS FOR SCIENCE

Do you remember capturing caterpillars and watching them make their cocoons and then turn into butterflies? Well, this is a project for your little scientist. You can start your butterfly garden and let your children chart the development of the caterpillar. You can schedule in so that they spend some time researching, watching, and making updates to the chart as the caterpillar grows.

MATH AROUND THE HOUSE

Math can be fun for kids when they learn how to use mathematical tools like a ruler, calculator, or start working in the kitchen with measuring cups and spoons. They can easily do simple tasks that will take them some time, like measure how long the table is compared to each chair, or measure out the ingredients that you will need to make cookies together after completing your job search.

SCAVENGER HUNTS

Although prep time is needed, this can be an enjoyable activity inside or outside that will have your kids up and moving around. You can be creative and develop a theme surrounding the hunt that once they collect all of their objects, they can put together to solve the “big puzzle.” It will allow your children to exercise their energy while giving you time.

MUSIC LESSONS

Online courses and lessons have become huge during this pandemic. A great way to gain a scheduled time slot for job hunting is by keeping your kids engaged with online music lessons. While there are endless instructors out there to choose from, the music school Music To Your Home is one example of a program that offers both online lessons or socially distanced in-person lessons in your own home. No matter which lesson type works best for you, enrolling your child in music lessons will give you an excellent set time each week where you know they will be actively learning with a live instructor, allowing you to focus on applications. However, you may want to consider utilizing some noise-canceling headphones!

ARTS & CRAFTS

Like the scavenger hunts, this will require you to do some prepping ahead of time, but setting up washable paints, finger paints, coloring stations, or some creative arts and crafts on a table is going to be a great way to occupy your children.

ORIGAMI

Have your children sit down with colored paper and watch an online tutorial or video on folding computer or notebook papers into birds and making other origami figures.

PUZZLE TIME

Coordinate a set time every day where your children work on a puzzle. Depending on how big the mystery is, they can space it out to working on it all week, or even all month!

ONLINE APPLICATIONS

Even though you may want your child to have less screen time, there are specific applications you can find online that will aid your children’s learning. Apps like ABCMouse, Scholastic, or Udemy have courses and fun games for children that are also learning activities. You can always limit the screen time to just a particular hour or half-hour of the day.

LETTER WRITING

If you have old enough children, have them write some kind letters or make cards for their family and friends. They can include pictures, drawings, or even just some fun stickers to make it a little more creative.

HOUSEHOLD CHORES

Set a certain time every day, maybe in the morning or early afternoon, where your kids work on specific chores. Whether it’s picking up toys and returning them to a bin or getting out some rags and using cleaner to sanitize surfaces, this will engage your children and keep them well occupied while learning useful life skills.

BUILD IT UP

Your child can build things out of legos, blocks, Lincoln Logs, or even bigger things like cardboard boxes. They can have fun making blanket forts or even snow forts when the weather allows.

GO OUTSIDE

Children can help pick the ripe vegetables or fruits from the garden if you have one. Give them baskets and have them go out to do so, or if you don’t have a garden, you can have them pick some flowers or leaves to make something with, or have them start their garden at home.

HAVE THEM CREATE THE PLAN

Children like to come up with ideas on their own, too. So why not have them create the lunch and dinner menu for today? Or maybe they can write down a list of the foods they want to plant in the garden or pick out what groceries are needed.

DEVELOP THEIR OWN GAME

This is great for innovative and imaginative kids. Have them create something on their own to play later, like a quiz game, or make their own board game. It can even be that they write their book if they desire.

ACTIVITY BOOKS

Even though this may have you spending some money, there are tons of educational activity books for children that you can find, either in the store or online, to keep your children engaged.

MAKE DIY TOYS

Where To File Taxes Online For Free – Leave Debt Behind. https://www.leavedebtbehind.com/lifestyle/taxes/where-to-file-taxes-online-for-free/There are multiple resources you can utilize to have your children engage in making something with a purpose, rather than just a drawing. Have them make some dog or cat toys for the local animal shelter or make a simple bird feeder out of a pinecone.

LET THEM CONNECT WITH OTHERS

The hardest thing about the pandemic is that we miss connections and community. Set up a virtual “playdate” with a child’s friend to interact with one another or even multiple friends at a time.

DON’T FORGET TO SET THE TIMER

No matter what the project, activity, or lesson, set a timer for your child to only spend bits of time on certain things. This activity will keep them engaged during their time without getting bored if it gets too long and keeps them structured in their routine and schedule.

Take your notes from teachers – you can have them do a workbook activity for twenty to thirty minutes while you do some job searching. If they can move right to the craft table and work on a specific art project next, you can take a moment, reset the timer, and continue your search!

About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Simple Steps to Steer Your Child Toward Career Success

Put yourself in the shoes of a young mother, working hard to succeed in her corporate job. She dreams of a college education for her six-year-old son, a career with high earning potential and benefits. But then the little boy announces that he wants to be a garbage collector when he grows up.

What would you do? Would you say, “Don’t be silly” or “You can’t be that”? Would you laugh and shake your head? These reactions will communicate that there are right and wrong answers to the “What do you want to be?” question, and they can steer the children you love away from their talents and interests.

Study after study tells us that over 50% of Americans dislike or disengaged from their jobs. The knock-on effect is huge – stress related illness, high absenteeism, low morale, road rage, etc. And our kids are watching. When their career dreams fade, they’ll start to see work not as a way to share their gifts with the world, but as a necessary evil of life.

But certainly, you don’t want your children to grow up with a life motto of “T.G.I.F.” As a parent, you have the opportunity to see beyond the surface of their naïve career declarations. You can help your children decipher their career dreams effectively into something that’s a great match for their talents and skills.

First, watch your response

Since you’re actively pouring your life into your children, the thought of any of them in a career that doesn’t match your standards can understandably cause stress, usually resulting in a hasty response that shuts down the child’s dream. Take a step back and try to assess the child’s statement with less emotional attachment.

Second, take a few moments for discussion

Our potential garbage collector made his career announcement in the midst of busy family life. Despite that, try to respond more openly to the idea, asking questions like, “What part of being a garbage collector do you think you’d like?” That’s when you may discover the main attraction. Maybe it’s primarily the truck, an interest in the variety of things people throw away, the chance to travel around town, or the ability to provide a helpful service to people. From there, you can discuss other jobs that have similar aspects (minus the stench).

And finally, you have years of experience—life experience and career experience

You may have had a few years in a job that wasn’t a great fit for you. Maybe you can look back to your childhood and see where you made a wrong turn when you entered the job market. Or perhaps you’ve been fortunate to have years in a job that was a great fit for you. With your perspective, you can see the skills and interests of your kids. You can understand how much better it would be to apply those skills and interests in their day-to-day work as adults.

So be sure to keep your eyes open for the talents and areas of giftedness in each of your children. Encourage discussion when they share dreams of their future. And as they grow older, be sure to point out what you’ve seen over the years—their desires, their talents, their achievements, and the positive attributes they bring to the world. Your insight can help propel them into a career that’s a perfect match.

Karleen Tauszik is the author of eleven books for children, ages 8 to 12. The goal of her latest book, the career possibility journal titled When I Grow Up, I Want To Be… is to change the current dismal job satisfaction statistics for the next generation. The goal of her fiction books is to get kids to LOVE reading. Learn more at KarleenT.com.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Two Conversations Parents Must Have: The Sex and Career Talk

My original article was first published on the Good Men Project!

Most of us dads jack up the sex talk and never have the career talk. That’s right. We concentrate on just talking about sex without helping them to have good sex. Or even, to perform like we’ve been there before. I mean to do all the right things to do before sex includes having the right kind of relationship, treating his partner the right way, being optimally considerate throughout. This means many things to many men, and although the means to an end is targeted towards marriage in my household, you can find multiple applications in this discussion.

Now, you’re thinking that the career talk is sending them to college or trade school, and telling them to find a job is the career talk. My argument is you couldn’t be farther from reality than our dads were with us. Today’s job search is complex, and many of the old rules don’t exist. The sex and career talk are complicated and requires an ongoing discussion with both parents whenever possible.

As the parental units, we need to stop the madness our parents passed on to us:

Telling them the world is theirs, but limiting “acceptable” career choices
Living our career aspirations vicariously through our children (it should be a sin)
Not know their heart’s desire but only know what you want
Lacking the tolerance of them changing their minds even if it’s 20 times between high school and college
College is not for everybody and anybody. We can argue the worth of a college degree later. It’s not a bad idea to explore organizations to get your son career ready
There’s no sin in your son to major in film school, liberal arts, or classical music majors

The career talk is as complicated as the sex talk. Although, with our son, it’s the relationship talk and both are related in this way: The better the relationship optimizes the physical engagement. Yet, as a family, we want to emphasize the results when the relationship building is the most critical. As fathers, we have an ugly assignment when talking about sex. As a teen, I grew up with my Aunt, she explained how beautiful sex is but I was so lost because I didn’t know how to get there or recognize it when I got there.

In the same spirit we need to change the dialogue about careers need to apply to the sex talk:

Relationship and sex are not synonymous
Sex is just an act
We never talk about sex (I don’t want to know)

Hopefully, you started early with the sex talk in talking about good touches and bad touches. Why not have the talk about doing work and getting a job? In my opinion, it is an entirely different discussion than “chores.”

Careers are talked about in the same way. We’re told the world is ours, and we can be anything but we were lost in conducting a fruitful job search. It’s difficult for young people to connect to how disconnected employers are intentional with job seekers. Employers set-up this wall of security for them (not for you) called the Automated Tracking System (ATS) to filter out the unqualified human beings. Many large companies are using computers and robots to do the work for them. Relationships are the best chance to reach and engage humans:

1) Both require sustaining relationships

Relationships are required for the long path of support and renewed faith of who are? When we lose jobs, or a relationship we wonder are we the same person or have we lost our way. Assessment tests don’t read our eyes, listen to our tones, or judge our behavior. Nor can they put a reassuring hand on our shoulder, tell us it’s alright, or reignite the faith we lose. I was a slow learner when it came to relationships, obtuse in my understanding of them, but thrived when I valued them both professionally and personally.

2) Both talks keep them accountable in ways that matter most

If you are just teaching them about sex, as you are teaching how to get a job, where are you leading them? A great career as in a great relationship is a continued learning. Much of the best lessons are from failure. As a parent, you can’t protect them all of the time. You can manage his expectations through helping them value relationships. The best talks with my first son and I had with his first job were immediately when he came home from work. We focused on his working relationships, not the work incidents. This made a difference in how he has navigated his search for other opportunities.

3) Both talks deepes our relationship with our sons

Our sons will feel weird about talking about either sex or career. Once my oldest (and now my youngest son) starts to trust because of his experiences, triumphs, errors and even failure, he is more open to deepen any part of the ongoing dialogue. We need patience in order for them to absorb all we say contrary to their peers, but he will rebound and adapt parts if not all we share. If he rejects it, don’t worry, he will grow into what makes sense for them. In most cases, the bonding will infuse your world with his, which will mean much to both of you.

4) It’s the catalyst for healthy relationships and life

Since there are many definitions of what a healthy relationship looks like, there is no argument of what it means to our life experiences. It also builds a sustainable careers path and also creates depth in romance.

Getting a job, or just having sex solely for the act has a long-term low expectation of meaningful success (if that’s your definition). The sex talk these days about sustaining the right relationship, education, and respect. The career talk today is not just getting a job, but navigating and building a meaningful career throughout several opportunities, not one long stand with one company (that’s not bad, it is rare for an individual to do so).