“Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” for Freelancing Parents
Posted April 20, 2010 in Lifestyle
Don’t look now, but April 22, 2010 is “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” in the United States.
If you’ve never heard of it, “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” is a national program that encourages workplaces, parents, educators and mentors to give children the opportunity to see a parent or another adult at work.
This post will explain how you can participate in the program as a freelancer. We’ll also discuss some of the benefits the program offers to children.
About “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day”
The point of the “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” program is to:
- Show children the value of education
- Help them discover that it’s possible and desirable to balance work and family life
- Give children the chance to share their dreams for the future with their parents or other trusted adults, and see how they might move towards those goals
Beyond these objectives, it’s a good idea for freelancers to share our work day with our children.
Not only is it a good opportunity to bond with our children. It’s also a wonderful way to share and pass on our freelancing values and work ethic to our children. By celebrating “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day,” we can show them that they have options other than becoming employees.
If you’re interested in celebrating this day with your child, then read on.
How to Participate
The organizers of “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” have excellent suggestions for parents who work at home, such as:
- Plan your day. A freelancer’s work life can be pretty unstructured. However, for this day, plan your work so that your child will get a holistic view of exactly what your work entails.
- Show your child all the different tasks you perform in your home office. Have your child see you doing client work, of course. But on top of that, help your child realize that you also do sales and marketing, planning, bookkeeping, and office management. If you have passive income streams, such as affiliate marketing and information product marketing, then share those activities with your child as well. Your child will never think you’re slacking again, even if you never do get out of your pajamas!
- Explain the benefits and challenges of working at home. Show your child how you juggle doing housework with your home business. Also, explain how you deal with distractions, isolation, and lack of motivation–whichever challenges you do encounter in your work. Of course, don’t forget the share the fun parts of working at home, such as taking a nap midday or playing a videogame to recharge your creativity.
- Demonstrate how you communicate with clients, vendors and peers. Communication skills are essential in any job, including freelancing. Show your child how, even though you often work alone, you do need to communicate effectively with many people.
- Show how you juggle home life with work life. Don’t skip the laundry and vacuuming just because it’s “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day”! If doing household chores is what you do on your breaks, then let your child see that. It’s important for them to see how you balance work and home, even if you never have to leave home to go to work.
- Take child to outside tasks, if any, such as meetings with prospects. If you do some of your work outside, such as meeting prospects or making presentations to clients, then let your child tag along too. This will help you show a different dimension to your work.
- Have your child perform simple tasks. This may be difficult, but remember, it’s only for one day. Give your child simple tasks to do around your home office. This could include faxing, photocopying, doing Internet research, or proofreading. Make sure the task is appropriate to your child’s age and abilities. And if she makes a mistake, don’t sweat it. It’s part of the experience.
Interested? Your Next Steps
If you’d like to celebrate “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day,” I suggest you start by writing your child’s school to get him or her excused from school on April 22.
You can find a sample letter, background information, and plenty of suggestions for celebrating the day at the official site of the program.
After that, the next step is to plan what you’re going to do on that day, and choose tasks for your child. You may want to orient her so she knows what to expect. Entertain any questions your child may have beforehand.
Beyond the Day
At the end of the day, have a quick debriefing with your child. What does he think of your work? Address any questions, concerns and suggestions she may have. Does he see himself working at home too? If not, what are her goals for the future? This experience is a good way to get into a serious discussion about your child’s ambitions and dreams in life.
Even after the day, you can continue to reap the benefits of sharing your work life with your child. Have your child help you out on his spare time in exchange for additional pocket money.
Or, if you’re unable to celebrate the day for whatever reason, you can still do something similar on weekends or after school. You may both enjoy the arrangement so much that you decide to hire your child.
Your Thoughts?
Will you and your child participate in “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day?” If so, how do you plan to do it?
Related posts:
- 3 Lessons Children Can Learn From a Freelancing Parent
- 5 Bad Work at Home Habits: Are You Guilty?
- Seven Benefits of Hiring Your Children
- 6 Alternative Work Spaces to the Home Office – FreelancerMagazine.com
- How To Successfully Work With People Long Distance
About the author: Lexi Rodrigo is the creator of The Savvy Freelancer, a blog that's all about achieving creative and financial freedom through freelancing. Check out Lexi's free guide, 31 Days to Start Your Freelancing Business (or Make Yours A Better One).
The Unlimited Freelancer is Now Only $19
Unleash the true potential of your business. Get The Unlimited Freelancer and start transforming your freelance business,
now only $19.
Try searching "Getting Clients" or "Productivity"
Free Report
Sign up for our product discount list to get a free copy of Why Some Freelancers Thrive and Others Barely Survive. You can unsubscribe anytime.
Forum Discussions
- Fashionable Mulberry Handbags
Feb 13th, 2012 - 12:49 am - because their eyes Chinaman in the resistance
Feb 13th, 2012 - 12:38 am - Real Online Work
Feb 10th, 2012 - 4:30 am
Popular Articles
- SEO Techniques All Top Websites Should Use
- When a Client Can't Afford You: Why It's Still Better to Bid High
- How To Stop Scrambling For Clients And Get A Steady Stream Of Paying Gigs
- A Simple Way To Stop Clients From Rejecting Your Proposals
- 3 Reasons Your Rates Are Still Low (And How To Start Raising Them)
24 Comments
Jordan Walker
April 20th, 2010 at 8:43 amI do not have any children yet, but would love to introduce any future offspring to the inner workings of the web.
Lexi Rodrigo
April 20th, 2010 at 8:51 am@Jordan – Great idea! The Internet is full of opportunities, especially for freelancers. Our children should definitely be prepared to make the most of it.
Chris Mower
April 20th, 2010 at 9:33 amI remember going to work with my dad (and grandpa) on days like this. They were both school teachers. It was always a fun experience for me.
Although my kids aren’t old enough to understand this stuff yet, I’ll definitely be teaching them the ins and outs a life of freelance, entrepreneurship, and 9-5 jobs.
As long as they know what’s available, they can make better decisions down the road when opportunities or employers come knocking at the door.
Niubi
April 20th, 2010 at 9:46 amMeh, kids should be kids. Perhaps if you were working in a DubLi context it could work, but I’m not sure this is such a great idea otherwise.
Katie Geoffrion - greenerResume
April 20th, 2010 at 10:35 am@Niubi: I couldn’t agree more. I feel like as a freelancer your kids (for the most part) have a good idea of what you are doing at home as I’m sure you don’t stop work at 5:00PM as some may with a standard 9-5 job. If you want to do something special with your kids, why not let them explore something they are interested in doing when they grow up. For example, if your child is interested in becoming a doctor, set up a job shadow / hospital tour on April 22, 2010 for a learning adventure.
Katie Geoffrion - greenerResume
April 20th, 2010 at 10:36 amI feel like as a freelancer your kids (for the most part) have a good idea of what you are doing at home as I’m sure you don’t stop work at 5:00PM as some may with a standard 9-5 job. If you want to do something special with your kids, why not let them explore something they are interested in doing when they grow up. For example, if your child is interested in becoming a doctor, set up a job shadow / hospital tour on April 22, 2010 for a learning adventure.
Matt Pritchett
April 20th, 2010 at 10:44 amWhile I do not have children (yet), I can see the value of this “day.” My own father took me to work regularly (he owned an Engineering firm), and I saw just what happened behind the scenes that brought home the “bacon.” Perhaps it was this that gave me the entrepreneur spirit!
Lena Tailor
April 20th, 2010 at 10:47 amAwesome, Lexi, excellent article. Thanks for this URL daughtersandsonstowork.org. Its great resource
Lexi Rodrigo
April 20th, 2010 at 11:44 am@Katie Geoffrion – That’s a good idea, too. We should certainly encourage our children to explore their interests.
@Matt Pritchett – Yeah, it helps for our kids to know that money doesn’t just come out of ATM machines!
@Niubi & @Lena Tailor – Thank you for the comments!
Cook
April 20th, 2010 at 11:56 amvery well written article…..awesome stuff
Jason
April 20th, 2010 at 2:26 pmThey are supposed to get all of that out of one day? The bring your kids to work day is mainly a low productivity day for those that bring theirs in. Taking them on long lunches, finding something for them to do and constantly telling them to be quiet.
Not only does this not prepare children for what it’s like later in life, it is a distraction to those without kids.
If they were serious about the first three bullet points, they should make it weeks at a time.
“Now Billy, Daddy has to get this report into Mr. Smithers before noon so he doesn’t get fired.”
European schools have direct tie-ins to corperations so they can get a good idea of what is out there and what they want or do not want to do with their lives. Americans, unfortunately, throw a dart at something they think they want to do and either end up job hopping until they can find something they can live with or fall into something they love. Very little actual choice.
Dr. Freelance
April 20th, 2010 at 2:55 pmOne of the things I used to do when my two kids were in grade school is take them around to all of my local clients’ offices when I would deliver my annual Christmas gifts. (They were off school and bored anyway, so it was two birds with one stone.)
We’d plot everything on a map to make it an efficient route, and make 20 or so stops to my “best” clients. (They’re all great, of course, but you have to draw the line somewhere!) My daughter liked wearing a Santa hat and the clients thought that was cute as heck.
More important, it also gave us an opportunity to talk about how these were the people that made our wonderful lifestyle possible. We’d talk about each one of the clients, what their businesses did, and what types of projects I did for them. They learned the importance of looking an adult in the eye and giving a firm handshake. All good stuff.
In addition to being instructive for them, the act of explaining about how different businesses work made me appreciate how fortunate I am to do what I do, and to do it for such great folks!
Baltimore pi lawyer
April 20th, 2010 at 3:30 pmInteresting take on the traditional “Take Your Child to Work Day” paradigm. Letting your child know what you do for a living even if it is out of the home.
Robin
April 20th, 2010 at 4:50 pmPretty much every day during summer vacation, Christmas vacation and spring break count as take your children to work day in my home. Of course, I could take advantage of #5. “In between writing, I throw in loads of laundry, unload the dishwasher, vacuum the house – those will be your work tasks for today!”
Seriously, this would not work for me, but if someone can figure out how to make it a useful day for her child, I applaud her.
Dr. Freelance
April 20th, 2010 at 5:50 pmRobin, I’m cracking up—too true. Around here, summertime is also “Take the kids to camp day,” EVERY DAY. Not that I’m complaining about the hour subtracted from my productive time or anything….
Laura Spencer
April 20th, 2010 at 6:35 pmWhile I agree that this may not work for everyone, I do think that it is important if you are a freelancing parent (or even if you are not) that you take the time to explain what it is you do for a living to your child.
Far too often, our families take our work for granted without ever really knowing or understanding what it is that we really do.
Even without the educational benefits, something like this would be worthwhile just to help build the bond between freelancer and child.
Tehillah Hessler
April 21st, 2010 at 9:31 am@ Lexi – great article!
@ Jason and Robin – completely agree with you
I have been freelancing full time (this time) for 2 years. Prior to that I worked from home 80% of the time for an employer for 4 years (while freelancing part-time). And before that 4 years of 100% freelancing… (the pattern repeats itself back to 1984…)
While working as an employee, I’ve taken one child or the other to participate in the “Take your ___ to work day” and have found that upon arrival the office has been transformed into a fairy tale world of company sponsored coloring books & crayons/markers, various silliness between co-workers and managment in the form of unrehearsed plays (meant to make the adults look foolish), and staged meetings to make the children feel important. Completely unproductive and didn’t provide the child with a realistic experience; resulting in “Mom, this is so cool – you get donuts and ice cream every day, stand around telling jokes, get to go to meetings and watch videos, decorate bulletin boards, and you get paid lots of money! I want to be a technical writer when I grow up too!”
During my freelance years, my children have experienced on a daily basis what work is really like…
“Honey, I’m expecting a call from a client. Please put on the headphones while you’re:
– watching that movie
– listening to that music
– playing that Internet game.”
“Hey honey, how was school? Great, can you please:
– enter these details and hours into the invoicing program (results: 12-year-old child feels important, becomes a team player, learns a valuable skill and maybe even gets some extra allowance)
– see what you can find online about this topic for a project I’m working on and send me the links (results: 7-year-old child obtains critical research skills, has fun, and feels like an important member of the bread-winning team”)
– click through this web site to make sure I don’t have any broken links (results: children fight over who gets to do it, they feel important and needed, I gain increased respect as they experience first hand something I poured myself into.)
while mommy is:
– doing some research
– creating an online help system
– marketing for her next client?”
My kids don’t need a special day to experience what my work is like. I need a special day off to remember what it’s like to be a kid! Maybe we could start a “Take your parents to school day” and we could learn something new that they weren’t teaching back in our day when people weren’t as smart as they are :-)
Trackbacks