Tips on Working Around Your Kids’ Schedules

As a parent, you want to be there for your kids as much as you can. You enjoy driving them to school and accompanying their classes on field trips, and you like helping them with homework, taking them to and from extracurriculars, and tucking them into bed at night.

At the same time, you also have plenty of bills to pay, including your rent or mortgage, groceries for those growing kids of yours, utilities and a host of other expenses. While you’d like to be a stay at home parent, realistically, you need to work.

Fortunately, there are a number of ways that you can continue to work, or enter the job market, while keeping your kids’ needs and schedules in mind, and still having plenty of time for family. Here's how:

Part-Time Work

If your kids are in school, you can try to find a job with hours that match up with their schedules. One way to do this is to look for part-time work. There are a number of part-time jobs that are perfect for parents—for example, you could look for work at an elementary school or preschool. In a perfect world, a job would open up at your kids’ school and you would be on exactly the same schedule including breaks. Possibilities include working in the library or as a playground assistant, lunchroom helper, student aide or crossing guard. 

Other jobs that can be part-time include working for a cleaning service company, as a delivery driver, sales associate or a server in a restaurant or coffee shop. If you adore caffeine, and let’s face it, many parents love a good cup o’ joe to get them through the day, you could look into being a barista at a café during the mornings and early afternoons and be back at the parent pick up line after school.

Flexible Work

Jobs that do not have set schedules are also ideal for parents who want to work around their kids’ lives. A good example of this is working for a company that offers a direct-selling business model; you can typically work as many or as few hours as you wish and whenever you can fit them into your day. For instance, Amway enables people to make extra money while setting their own hours by selling a variety of products to people; if you would like to learn more about this company, this YouTube video explains what the Amway business is about and how its direct sales model works. 

There are a number of other jobs that offer flexible hours, including working as a sales manager, actuary, web developer, dietician and home health aide. Many employers are recognizing the importance of offering flexible schedules to their valued employees and may offer weekend shifts when your spouse can be home with the kids, early morning or evening hours and/or the opportunity to telecommute.

Freelance Jobs

If you like the idea of testing the entrepreneurial waters, you might give freelance work a try. In many cases, most of the work can be done from home and it can also be juggled in and around your kids’ schedules. One idea is working as a niche freelance writer. In addition to crafting articles and white papers, you could get into a more specific area as a greeting card writer, creating custom party invitations or thank you notes. If you have a keen eye for photography you could set up shop as a freelance photographer, or you could teach music lessons from your own home, tutor kids in a number of subjects after school and on weekends or set up an eBay store and sell treasures you find at local estate sales online.

You’ve Got the Will—Now Find the Way

It is good to know that your dream of working around your kids’ schedules can also become a reality. Start by thinking about what you might want to do and what skills you already have and go from there. With a part-time job, a flexible work opportunity or freelance job, or maybe even a combo of a couple of these options, you should find you are bringing in an income while also being there for your kids.