The One Mistake Most Work From Home Moms Make

The transition from stay at home mom to work at home mom can be a scary one.

Your decision to stop thinking about it and finally take the plunge into entrepreneurship brings with it a lot of excitement. 

But it also requires a number of adjustments for the entire family, which creates an uncomfortable uncertainty among everyone.

It can also create some significant anxiety within you, as doubts creep in about whether you’ll succeed and how you’ll look to your family if you don’t.

Every new business owner mom feels these emotions. 

And most make this costly if not fatal mistake: They view their new venture as “my business,” when in reality, it’s a “family business.”

You’ve probably had a regular job at some time in your life.

You go to work, conduct all your business there, have all your work equipment and papers there, and leave it all behind when your work hours are over and you return home.

As a work at home mom, your home is your office, which means you’re always at work, everything you need to do your work and all your work activities are done under the same roof that your family eats, sleeps, and lives in.

You can’t treat your business the same way you treated your job, it’s stressful to you and alienating to your family.

While you certainly don’t want to create an environment where your family always feels like everyone’s “at work” and your business is a 24 hour commitment, there are some ways that organizing your house around having a “family business” will help avoid this and make your business (and family!) run much smoother.

Get Everyone Involved in Your Business

Make sure everyone in the house who’s old enough to understand you run your own business from home is somehow involved in your business.

Your kids’ involvement could range from actually giving them a paying job, as we talked about yesterday, to simply having a weekly “business meeting” with them where (depending on their age) you share client stories, talk about your successes and challenges, share your social media, and/or give them lessons you’ve learned on entrepreneurship.

You have to decide what’s right for each child depending on her age, interests, strengths and weaknesses, but each child should have a role in your business that gives her an understanding of some aspect of your business.

This will make your children feel good and will cut out most of the resentment that comes at a time when your child wants your attention and you have to respond with “mommy’s working.”

If you have a spouse or partner make sure your kids see he is involved in and expressing interest in your business too. Again, this will increase their excitement and tolerance for what you do.

Establish Your Business Hours

Your entire family will resent your business if they feel like you’ve turned the home into nothing but your business.

They’ll become tired of seeing you work and tired of hearing about your work.

You can easily avoid this by establishing set business hours and physical business boundaries that everyone is aware of. 

You may even want to post these hours on the refrigerator or on the wall in your workspace so the kids don’t have to try to remember them.

If you don’t have an entire room devoted to your home office, have physical boundaries for your work, and make a rule that work doesn’t leave that space. Of course there can be the agreed upon exception that for example, if the kids want to play outside and it’s your work time you can move the work outside to supervise them.

If your work schedule varies because your kids’ schedules vary, post new hours each week and make sure your kids are aware of them.

Also talk to your family about the uncertainties of business at times, especially in the beginning.

Yes, you may have to work outside your set work hours on occasion. But when this happens, you’ll give them as much advance notice as possible, and will make up any lost time but doing something a little special such as taking a walk together or playing a family game.

Set a Family Goal

The finances of your business should be yours to deal with but you do want to have a common financial goal you all share so you can celebrate your successes with your kids.

The best way to do this is to make your goal a big family trip or big purchase for the house everyone can get excited about.

You may want to set a date for the goal, or leave it more open-ended and just have a big chart like you see on TV telethons where you can color spaces in with markers as you save money for your goal until the chart is full and all the money needed is in the bank.

This is fun for your kids and will turn them into your biggest cheerleaders.

If your business has times of struggle, and it will, this can also provide some valuable lessons to older kids as they learn about moving forward and overcoming in the face of apparent failures.

You’ll have to decide how specific to get with your kids when it comes to finances. The one thing you don’t want to do is create stress in them over money!

Want More Help?

We started off in this article talking about how scary it can be when you first dip your toe in the entrepreneurial waters.

If you haven’t started your first business, you’re obviously interested in doing so or you wouldn’t have read this far!

It’s likely fear of failure and of the unknown that’s holding you back.

Kids Party Characters founder Cheryl Jacobs knows exactly where you’re coming from. She’s walked in your shoes and navigated her way through that fear to become the owner of three successful businesses.

And now she’s here to help you shortcut your success by learning from hers.

Recognizing the time constraints moms work under when looking to start a business, Cheryl has developed a membership to KidsPartyCharacters.com that basically provides you with everything you need to push go and start making money right away.

Membership to KidsPartyCharacters.com gives you an exclusive territory in which to book parties, the right to use our 200+ unique costumes, access to our acting coach and casting director, and full training and support from Cheryl and the Kids Party Characters team.

If you think this opportunity might be a fit for you, or if you just have questions for Cheryl about starting your own business, schedule a free and friendly chat with her right here and she’ll get you headed down the right track.

Want to learn more about how fun and rewarding it is to have a Kids Party Characters business? Follow us on Facebook for daily updates.