Help! My child is poorly

It's 7:30am, your household is busy with everyone getting ready for work and school when your five year old suddenly announces that he doesn't feel well and is promptly sick. He can't go to school today...

It's mid-morning, you're covering a client meeting for a colleague who's on holiday when the nursery calls to say your daughter has fallen off the slide and banged her head. She needs to be collected now...

These are familiar scenarios to many working parents and dreaded ones for others. In most cases it is still usually mum who will step in. Two-thirds of working mums and mums-to-be are concerned about what they would do if their child was ill. In our survey (Being a Mum and Having a Career WIKI/WILTKI) concerns around such situations were mentioned by over 60% of mums.

​As we know, young children in nursery and school environments pick up all the bugs and viruses going. Just when new working parents are hoping to settle back into their careers and boost their confidence, so this issue becomes most prevalent. (Typically, when we're more established and perhaps better equipped to address these situations our children are usually older and less frequently poorly...).

For some of the women we work with, the anxiety this leads to causes acute stress such that they feel it impacts both on their enjoyment of being a mum and their work performance. In extreme cases, some mums simply leave their careers to become stay-at-home mums or switch to less demanding careers.

Whilst we can't guarantee that children won't get sick or that accidents won't happen, we can make contingency plans for these kind of scenarios. These are best developed before the maternity leave period begins by thinking through likely situations and defining plans and responses. Our Think-Plan-Action-Review (c) approach takes mums-to-be through a framework of considerations (including such contingency plans) to ensure that all aspects of job, family/self and career are thought through and planned for. This helps to leave mum feeling more in control of her situation and more confident about the return to work.

​Let's remember, this has all been done before. ​Tapping into other women's experiences and advice can be hugely valuable. We regularly ask working mums and mums-to-be to share their experiences, concerns and advice and they generously do. We are keen to share their comments both within our maternity coaching programmes, and more widely.

We particularly liked this, "Recognise that it's difficult. Let go of tidy, perfect and neat as much as you feel you can. Don't compare yourself to other people. Spend your time with people who are boosters not drainers" Survey respondent

If you would like to share your experiences, concerns and advice on combining motherhood and a career do take our confidential survey. Thanks to all the lovely mums who have shared their experiences, we'll continue to share the findings. For details of our maternity coaching programmes see here or get in touch, e: enquiries@managingchange.org.uk or t: 017711 503382