Balancing Your Business with Raising a Child
It can sometimes be tough to be in an important position as an entrepreneur and to be faced with the responsibility of raising a child at the same time. While family obviously comes first in any case, there are situations where abruptly leaving your position is simply not an option, as it would impact the livelihoods of hundreds or even thousands of people in a terrible manner. When you made the decision to set up a company and keep expanding it, you took up a responsibility to your employees and partners that should not be seen as unimportant.
Use Your Money to Buy Time Whenever It Makes Sense
If your business is already in a successful stage and it provides you with a nice income stream, use that wisely to supplement those time gaps that often come up in your daily life as a busy entrepreneur. Purchase express tickets and priority boarding whenever available, don’t wait in a queue if there’s an option to skip it, etc – there is no shortage of such options around us, and unfortunately, many people who earn nicely may still find themselves reluctant to take advantage of them properly.
If not for yourself, set things up in a convenient way for your kids and allow them to breeze through the more annoying parts of childhood and life in general. Giving them the opportunity to focus on their relationship with you – as well as on building their skills – is more important than you might think.
Let Them Fail
Another mistake commonly seen in families where one or both parents are relatively successful is that kids grow up with a perpetual safety net beneath them in every situation. You might think that it’s important to protect them against the world at every step, but this could end up harming them permanently. If you always step in to clean up every mess and to ward off every threat, your kids will likely not develop the skills necessary to solve those problems themselves, instead they’ll learn to rely on you; something which is clearly not ideal in the long run.
Of course, there are many cases where it’s appropriate to use your position to help them out, and you should make it clear that they can count on you for protection if they need it. But try to develop their problem-solving attitudes as early as possible.
Explore Additional Educational Paths
Sometimes traditional schooling may not work out too well for various reasons – families that travel a lot are a common example of that. Home tuition through an organisation with a proven track record like Teachers to Your Home is a great alternative that can help you fill the gaps and ensure that your kids are not left behind.
Of course, this is still no substitute for some additional aspects of regular education that might be missing in that environment, like regular social contact with other kids of a similar age. To that end, make sure that you provide plenty of alternative opportunities, and always pay attention to the way your children are developing socially. It’s not rare for kids growing up in influential families to have some issues developing relationships with their peers early on, but thankfully, those can usually be addressed if they are spotted in time.
Don’t Push Them into “Your” Field
Last but not least, remember that your children are people of their own, and they will likely have their own dreams and aspirations. However, they might not necessarily align with yours. In fact, the fact that they’ll likely have an opportunity to see and experience more of the world at an early age than most of their peers makes that even more likely. So, accept that fact now and come to terms with the idea that they might not want to walk in your footsteps.
If you see that this is the case, don’t approach this with a disappointed attitude or anything along those lines, as this can kill trust pretty quickly, and in a permanent manner. Instead, nurture every passion they develop and give them the best opportunity to explore it to its fullest, no matter how silly or pointless it might seem to you. Remember that you’ll probably not understand the full implications of something like that anyway.
Above all, remember that you’re a regular human family just like any other. The fact that you’re running an important business that takes away a large portion of your time shouldn’t mean that your kids end up growing any differently from their peers, at least not in any negative sense. If you play your cards right, you can end up with a family that’s much more compassionate and understanding towards the world around them than the majority of people out there, and that’s a responsibility we all have.
Poppy Watt