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Home › Articles › Parenting Preschoolers › Balancing Work and Play at Home

Balancing Work and Play at Home

Single Mothers and the Art of Five-Minute Parenting

By Katerie Prior

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Even if parents sit down to play, many find it difficult to focus on cars, dolls or blocks when a deadline looms. As a work-at-home mom, Deborah Shelton juggled her writing career with raising a child. One afternoon when she was working, her son, Kizer, kept asking her to play. "Out of nowhere, he asked if we could go camping," she says. When she told him "maybe this weekend," he began to cry. "There was no way I could stop working and whisk him away to a campground. But I definitely had time to take a short break."

Within minutes, Shelton and her son transformed their living room into an indoor campsite. "It was exactly what he wanted," she explains. "A couple of sheets, sofa cushions, a flashlight and some time with Mom was all he needed."

While Kizer got his mother to play, Shelton had the impetus for The Five Minute Parent: Fun & Fast Activities for You and Your Little Ones (Bayou Publishing, 2002). In this book, she compiles short activities for parents and kids to do together. While many are designed to teach as well as entertain, all help parents find meaningful ways to play with their kids. "Playtime with our children shouldn't be something that gets put off until later," says Shelton. "Once I realized that, I knew that other parents would need help taking advantage of small blocks of time with their little ones."

Making Time for Play
Balancing work and play isn't hard if you follow a few guidelines. Whenever possible, try to separate work from play. This may mean working, like Watson, while your child is in school, or asleep at night or naptime. This may be inconvenient to arrange, but it helps your child in the long run.

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