As the new school year approaches, anxiety is growing, and parents are conflicted. While we all accept the need for a return to school or college, it does mean that we must trust the plans and safeguards in place will work. Most children and teens are looking forward to returning to the classroom, however, the classroom will be very different, so as parents it is important to speak to your son/daughter before the term starts and ensure they are equipped and ready to adapt to the new ‘norm’ in school. You can support your child/teen through this transition back to school life. Here we have some top tips to guide these conversations: Ask how do they feel about going back to school? Listen carefully to the answer they may say what they think you want to hear. It is likely they will have mixed emotions, while they are eager to get back to the classroom, they have been safe at home with you or a trusted person for a long time now. Let them know that these feelings are ok and that everyone will most probably be feeling something similar. Set the scene. Give them as much information as possible. Most schools have been in contact with parents regarding the plans for re-opening and advised what is expected. The best thing you can do is make sure your son/daughter is informed, even if they are very young. Younger children can be assisted if they can see what is planned, so source photos or draw with them. Reassurance is key. Children are resilient, but they will need lots of re-assurance that returning to school is in their best interest. Their safety is a priority for their teachers, but they need to be aware of their own safety too. Let them know and understand how to stay safe in school e.g. washing their hands, not touching their face, listening to the teacher, and following the new rules. Keep the pressure off. Most children can adapt easily, but it will be a tricky time as a new routine needs to be established at home and in school, so be kind to yourself and don’t expect it all to happen overnight. Offer support, reassurance, and comfort, but don’t add any additional pressure, everyone will adapt at their own pace. Look forward. Much has changed since March and some of the changes in school will not be welcome. It is important to try and remain positive. This is not permanent and will end and we will be able to look forward and our feelings will change. Seek support. The transition may be more challenging to some children and they could find it difficult to adapt. If this happens speak to the school, they will be happy to help, remember they are doing everything they can so support students. If the difficulties persist and anxiety is becoming an issue seek support from your GP. Talk openly to teenagers they may be nervous about returning to school too, a lot has changed, including them and they could have worries you may not have considered. Teenagers still look to their parents for re-assurance and so it will be important that parents demonstrate confidence with the planed return to school. They learn essential social skills and how to interact with others, so encouragement is critical. You could also view handling the uncertainty and change   which was held by our Cork District Society recently. Teachers and school staff fully appreciate the apprehension and anxiety and want this transition back to school to work for everyone. They want to support students, ensure they are comfortable in school, and can continue to learn and move forward. By working together this can be achieved, with everyone playing their part.

By Moira Dunne Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, many people are still working from home over the summer months. Staying focused can be difficult, as home working presents many distractions. In last month’s article, I gave some tips for managing distractions at home. The summer introduces a new set of distractions, however, such as good weather and school holidays. In this article, I will outline some strategies to help maintain motivation and productivity in the months ahead. The challenge is to stay focused so you can get your work done. There are two things you can do: manage yourself and manage others. Manage yourself Managing yourself means understanding what impacts on your productivity while placing a high value on your time. Think of your workday as a simple equation: you have X amount of work to do in Y amount of time. Be clear about the work you should prioritise each week and each day. Then, protect your time for those priorities by negotiating when asked to do additional pieces of work and saying no to non-essential activities. This can be hard to do, but it is essential to stay on track. If you find that summer weather affects your productivity, turn this distraction into a motivator. By setting a goal to finish on time, you will be more inclined to stay on track during the day. You will procrastinate less and not be as distracted by time-wasting activities. Instead, you will be focused on the prize of getting out into that good weather. Be strategic and adjust your plan if you know the forecast is good, for example, starting earlier than usual so you can get through all your work to finish early. Manage others Working at home while minding children is hard. Now that the school term is finished, your homework routine is probably gone. Is it time for a new plan? Involve your kids in coming up with ideas and create a summer routine together. Design the plan to incorporate your work hours. One approach is to work in time blocks to take advantage of the quiet times in your house. To optimise your productivity, plan to work on your priority tasks during these high-focus time blocks. Save your low-level, administrative tasks for periods when there will be more noise and distraction. Here is a sample schedule that may help you plan your alternative workday: 6am to 8am: high-focus work. 8am to 8:30am: breakfast with the kids. 8:30am to 10am: kids’ activities while you do low-focus tasks like email responses or attend an online meeting. 10am to 12pm: outdoor activity with the kids. 12 noon to 2pm: high-focus work while your kids have some downtime and a lunch picnic. 2pm to 3pm: time away from work for an activity with the kids. 3pm to 5pm: low-focus tasks like email responses or online meetings. If necessary, do a short time block later to complete some administrative tasks. Design a plan that suits your parenting and working responsibilities. Perhaps you can avail of a summer camp or childminding by a relative to increase your options and flexibility. Be productive To be productive, you must be pragmatic about your circumstances and do what you can to optimise your working time. By using a well-planned routine, you can give yourself a higher chance of managing your time and productivity. Have a great summer! Moira Dunne is a productivity consultant and Founder and Director at BeProductive.ie.

Amid COVID19 crisis, parents find themselves in unusual circumstances, working remotely, home-schooling children, and juggling many more balls in the air than normal.  It is a time when parents of children of all ages need extra advice and guidance.  Fellow member, Sheelagh O’Grady, having retrained as a Parent and Relationship Mentor in UCC now operates a joint private practice with her colleague Aoife Ryan.  Since the crisis unfolded, they have seen a significant increase in the number of parents who are feeling stressed and worried and are now seeking help and support. In response to this, they have launched a free telephone support service for parents. As a member of the Chartered Accountant community, she would like to offer this free service to members, as a source of support and compassion in these challenging times.     Available 10am-11am and 7pm-8pm Monday-Friday. Simply text Aoife or Sheelagh, stating whether you would like a morning or evening appointment. Sheelagh O’Grady 089 4081313, Aoife Ryan 089 2349339. In the meantime, see below some tips for keeping the kids content while working from home Establish a routine. Children, young and old, thrive on routine.  It gives their day a structure and helps keep boundaries in check.  Let young kids co-create a wall chart that details the daily schedules for all the family. This will help maintain quiet times, family mealtimes, and rest times. It might take a day or two to establish these new routines, but it will be well worth the effort. Keeping them occupied. Small children like to feel useful so giving them simple tasks to carry out will keep them happy.  Empty out a kitchen or bedroom drawer and ask them to “sort” the contents out. Setting up treasure hunts in the garden or the local green spaces can help with fitting in exercise and fresh air into the day while using up all their excess energy. Making a den with old sheets and chairs can create a new magical space for them to play. They can hide out here with their toys and their imagination for hours. There are lots of great websites to help with keeping toddlers and kids of all ages educated and occupied: GoNoodle designed to get kids exercising at home. A good way to explain the virus and the importance of hand washing is to show them this video clip or better still re-create it as an experiment and let them try it out. Marvel artist from Cork, Will Sliney, who has drawn Spider-Man and now works on Star Wars comics set up a new challenge each day on his YouTube channel at 2.00pm WeWilldraw. There are great learning platforms online and one of the biggest is Kahoot which is free to use and gives access to millions of free learning games for the entire family Learning a new skill or language on Youtube is a great way to spend an hour a day for all ages. Lots of museums now offer online tours – what a great way to while away some time while broadening their education. See this one that covers twelve world class museum visits. Is your local library closed? No problem, here’s a great elibrary resource which will provide hours of reading and entertainment to kids of all ages. Be sure to check out the full list of resources at the end of the article.  Connectivity Connecting with grandparents and other family members, as well as friends, using online technology has never been more important.  Setting up regular “Skype” or “Facetime” chats will benefit all of us and ensure we reduce the feelings of isolation and loneliness communities are facing.  Perhaps grandparents can “Skype” at bedtimes and read goodnight stories each night?  Getting groups of young children to connect with their best friends and peers regularly will help maintain the fun elements of each day and has never been easier to set up.   Family time Creating an hour or two per day for family activities will be a necessary part of any new routine.  Here are some easy ways to have together as a family: Preparing the family meal – getting everyone involved from the choosing of the meal/recipe, chopping the veg, laying the table, and clearing away. Capitalise on the extra time at home to make meal-times count.  Movie night – have regular movie nights and allow each member of the family to pick their favourite.  Board games – now is the time to dust off the Monopoly and Pictionary. Kids love this time with their parents when everyone comes together, and all devices are turned off and put away. The first few days of this schedule may seem a little awkward as we all get used to our new “normal”, but children are so adaptable and will follow our lead.  Before long, when they see us relax into the new schedule, they will too. This structure of activities and routines will help keep us all productive and appropriately challenged. We may even find we all benefit considerably from this extra time together. Here at CA Support we are here to support our members and students.  Feel free to get in touch if you need support during this time. We can be contacted by email or call us on (353) 86 024 3294.  

Becoming a parent involves significant personal and professional change, but a little planning can go a long way.   Becoming a parent and taking time out of the workplace involves a significant, complex professional and personal transition, and often comes during a crucial time in your career trajectory. Take a moment to think about it. The psychological reorganisation required for healthy adaptation to parenthood is enormous – we have to learn to adapt to the physical, psychological, emotional and relationship changes that occur. It is one of the most challenging transitions that can occur in our lives. From a career perspective, employees in Ireland are lucky to have access to generous maternity leave with many women opting to take upwards of nine months’ leave. Increasingly, partners are also able to avail of a number of months’ leave. This is fantastic for adapting, and bonding with your new baby, but it involves the added transition of stepping away from work and back into it after a period of extended leave. If you have a baby on the way, the chances are that right now you are spending the vast majority of your week going to your place of work and hopefully doing a job you enjoy. This is about to change, suddenly and quite significantly. So much will happen in your life while you are away that the transition back to work will be a big one, despite what it might feel like now. Let us look at what you can do to make life easier on yourself and thrive through the changes ahead. Before leave Once baby is on the way, it can be so easy to be pulled into the craziness of preparing your home for a baby and gathering the baby ‘essentials’. It can often be a bit of a rush to get everything finished up in work, but it is well worth taking the time to put a plan in place for looking after yourself, helping your employer to help you, and managing your career in the run-up to your maternity or paternity leave. Make a plan with your manager Many employers can be reticent about getting in touch while you are on family leave. This is often well-intended but can leave you feeling a bit lost. The best way to counter this is to sit down with your manager before you go on leave and agree a communication plan. This can be as basic as agreeing that you will text them when baby comes, that you want to be notified of any major changes in your absence, and planning to meet for a coffee a few months before your return – whatever feels right and works for you both. Get in touch with human resources On a similar note, if you want to be kept in the loop about company goings-on, internal vacancies and so forth, get in touch with human resources (HR). Although some companies are fantastic at this, others can tend to forget about you altogether! So, make a point of contacting them (or raising the same points with your manager if your company has no dedicated HR function) and asking them to stay in touch.  Work and performance summary I highly recommend pulling together a brief summary of what you have been working on and your achievements in the run-up to your leave. You absolutely will forget! This can be very useful in getting your head back into the game when you return and act as a little confidence boost when looking back at your achievements. Invest in your well-being Make a commitment to prioritise your own well-being, as well as that of your family. Be kind to yourself and remember that there will be many changes ahead; and if things don’t go to plan, tomorrow is a new day. Ask your company to invest in your attendance at a workshop for planning your return to work or for some personalised one-to-one coaching. This is extremely beneficial in helping you get into a positive head-space and assisting with planning when the time comes. And of course, if you are back on top form quickly on your return, this will benefit your employer so it is a ‘win-win’ scenario. Planning your return Link in with work before you return  Keeping in touch with key contacts in work can be very beneficial while you are on leave. In the weeks before you return, arrange a coffee or call with your boss, work friends or network to get the lay of the land and reassure yourself that the landscape has not changed as drastically as you might imagine. Consider what supports would be helpful for you as you return and discuss these with your manager. Know your worth As you start to plan your return, take time to reflect on your worth. List the skills and experience you have gained through your career and also, during your time away from work. If you have trouble doing this, or feel you are losing your confidence, enlist someone who can help you. If you are taking an extended career break, it is important that you maintain professional development through volunteering, reading, attending relevant events and keeping up with industry developments. Make a plan with your partner to manage the household The chances are that you will be doing most of the household ‘stuff’ while on leave. While this makes sense when one partner is at home, this isn’t sustainable when both partners are working. Don’t expect your partner to just know this; it is hard to know what needs to be done when you are not the person doing it. Take time to sit down in advance and agree how you are going to manage the various tasks and downsize or outsource what needs to be done. Plan to get up and out in the morning This depends on your work and childcare circumstances (for example, if you all need to leave together in the morning, if your baby needs breakfast before you leave etc.) Take time to plan everything that needs to happen to get you out of the house, and find a system that works best for you. Most parents I have worked with find it beneficial to get as much done the night before as possible. As you settle back in Things will invariably change for you in the months and years ahead. Your priorities may change, perhaps temporarily and perhaps for the long-term. The sleepless nights don’t go away just because you are back at work and little ones often get sick at the worst possible time. Parenting through the early years can be tough, but they are fleeting in the grand scheme of things. Keep open lines of communication at work and note these wise words from Alan Sroufe: “The best thing parents can do is guard against their own stress levels”. TOP TIPS FOR MANAGING THE TRANSITION TO PARENTHOOD The prospect of parenthood beings with it many competing demands which, when taken as a whole, can be overwhelming. To avoid the common but counterproductive practice of retreating into panic mode, follow Claire’s four simple steps below... Plan, plan, plan Before leave, think about what will make you feel confident and supported as you return to work. Think about what will help you when you have a new-born baby at home and what will make your life as easy as possible. Communication is key If you don’t tell people at work and at home what is going on for you and what support you need, they will not be able to help you. It is so important to do this, even if this means pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. Prioritise your well-being Ensuring that you are healthy and well, both physically and mentally, is what will ultimately help you weather any tough times and manage the changes ahead. Know your worth Take stock of your skills, experience and achievements before your leave and as you plan your return. And yes, anticipating the ever-changing needs of your new mini-stakeholder is a skill! Claire Flannery is a business psychologist and executive coach at Strength Within, and mum to two small boys.