How Staying at Home with Preschoolers Changes Your Perspective on Life

Many career oriented moms, and dads for that matter, look forward to the time when they can put their career on hold to begin having a family. They work hard in the early days to become financially stable and when they’ve a bit of stability with a home and a decent car, it’s time to think about that family they’ve been longing for. Needless to say, once baby arrives, things aren’t quite what you expected. Have you ever stopped to think about how staying at home with preschoolers changes your perspective on life?

 There Has to Be More to Childrearing than Dirty Diapers and Runny Noses!

For many parents who waited to have children, parenting probably isn’t what they’d expected. Those 2 AM feedings you hear of are more realistically 10 PM, Midnight, 2 AM, 4 AM and so forth around the clock for the first several months. Finally, baby sleeps three or four hours at a time and just when you think you are going to lose your mind from lack of sleep, you ‘might’ get five or six hours occasionally. Then comes the terrible twos with its broken vases, runny noses, dirty diapers and toys scattered everywhere underfoot. This isn’t at all what you’d expected! Where is that cute little cuddly bundle of joy? This is a monster child and couldn’t possibly be yours!

 Not What You’d Expected yet So Much More

No, it’s not all that you’d expected yet it really is so much more. Even through the stress, the 2 AM feedings, the runny noses and perpetually dirty diaper, you wouldn’t miss a moment of it to save your life. However, it does tend to change one’s perspective on life, on what’s really important to you.

This is a time when you can look at schools like Rutgers Online where you can use those random quiet moments to pursue an advanced degree that will automatically qualify you for a higher income when you go back to work. This is a time when you can begin assessing where you are now and where you’d like to be in a few years when the kids begin their first day of kindergarten.

 Have You Learned What It Means to Have a Career to Look Forward To?

Why not consider working towards that online MEAD degree. You are beginning to understand just how important adult and continuing education is for the majority of young parents out there. They know they are not qualified for high paying jobs but also know they need to make changes or their children are often doomed to live in poverty. Being at home with your children gives you a chance to see what life on the other side is like, without that extra paycheck. If you are an educator, use this time to advance your own career so that you have skills (and credentials) to help other parents rise above these trying times.

When your monster goes to school you have a life ahead of you. What do underprivileged and undereducated parents have but more of the same? A master of education in adult and continuing education program helps you to do something meaningful as a result of your new perspective on life. Now you can help other parents who may be overwhelmed and not having any hope for their future. You can be that help. That’s an amazing thought – so go for it!

Training and Development's Role in Your Personal Life

Learning is a continuous process. Our parents, elders and educators have constantly drilled us on that aspect - to keep learning. Learning comes in many forms. You can learn thru schooling, by researching, by coaching and being a mentee, by reading, hearing and observation, by traveling and by attending workshops and trainings geared for development.

Many may think that training and development is merely for those in the workforce, academe, students and the military. It is actually for everyone who aims to develop their professional and/or personal life.

The role of training and development can be classified into 2 aspects:

1. Professional

Professional training and development entail teachings about how one can incorporate the soft skills (eg., leadership, diplomacy, communication, problem solving and decision making skills, emotional quotient in the workplace) and other skills set learned in the workplace.  Professional training and development works for both the employees and employer as they all benefit from what result of the training and development. This is crucial for both as what skills and theories learned by the staff will be transferred and applied to the day-to-day functions required in the workplace.

2. Personal

Even if you have taken a training for professional purposes, most of these trainings and workshops are actually applicable to your personal life. For example, I have gone through series of trainings from our company's leadership programme for a year. I know what I have learned is mainly beneficial to being applied in my work area but the plus factor is that, I have tapped my inner leadership abilities and honed my soft skills like communicating with influence, applying the theories I have learned in problem solving and decision making even in personal matters.  I have also been able to practice the art of diplomacy by being more patient and understanding when to shift my role from being a "child" to a "nurturing parent" to an "adult" thru all the things I have learned in all the training and development workshops I have attended in the past.

So, the role of training and development in both our professional and personal life cannot be denied. In fact, it is really a boon to nominate ourselves to these kinds of trainings so we can evaluate ourselves more and see where we can enhance further. And you will see how doing this can be both beneficial to your career and personal life.