Tackling the challenges of learning around your kids

Tackling the challenges of learning around your kids

Education is a lifelong process that doesn’t stop after high school or college. Opportunities for learning are always available, adding value to everything that has been learned before. Passing an exam and getting a diploma or certificate is gratifying, and can certainly lead to improved opportunities for employment. Besides that, a successful learning process brings with it a great feeling of personal achievement and increased self-esteem.

Family matters

Pursuing additional opportunities for education is all very well, but how does a busy person embark on a new
learning or training commitment when there’s already a full-time or part-time job to do? Perhaps there’s also
a family to take care of? Being a parent is very demanding, and it would be easy to think that taking on extra
challenges is just not feasible when they have to be organized around work commitments and family life.

Key family life issues

Parents with very young children often suffer from sleep deprivation as a result of broken nights, and may
struggle to keep on top of household chores. This can make it difficult to concentrate on a variety of tasks,
whether at work or at home.

Toddlers can be demanding as tantrums tend to surface at this age, and problems can arise with things like
potty training if a toddler has a number of different caregivers at different times – such as individual parents or
grandparents – or if the toddler has to be moved to and from childcare facilities.

Slightly older children may need regular encouragement to eat the right foods, clean their teeth properly and do
homework when due, and parents often have to monitor the amount of time spent on TV viewing and electronic
gaming. Bullying at school can also place serious pressure on children, and parents need to remain vigilant
about this and similar peer-related issues.

Finally, there are the glorious teenage years; brief interludes of petulant dialogue punctuated by moody
silences, when communicating with offspring can be infuriatingly and worryingly problematic. At this time,
additional tasks such as teaching teens how to manage both money and their behavior can be particularly
challenging.

Finding solutions

With so many distractions and reasons for parents to give up on their own learning opportunities, thank
goodness for technology. Beyond electronic games, technology provides ways to learn flexibly that don’t
involve night school or going back to college, both of which can cause hardships of one kind or another.

Online learning is a superb way to work around family and work commitments, and it’s possible to achieve
a great qualification, such as an online IT degree, at a pace that suits the individual through a variety of
courses at IT networking training. Flexible learning means that students who are parents can take time out
when suffering from sleep deprivation or toddler overload; it also means they can do their own homework
alongside the kids, and still find the time to converse with the sulky teenager when important matters have to be
discussed, adult to adult.

There is no better way for busy parents to learn than via an online course – it is tailor made for moms and pops
who are keen to enhance their personal and professional skills.