Could your children help you work?

Sleep deprivation has long been recognised as a form of torture, with effects including memory lapses, lack of alertness and difficulty concentrating.

Yet every day, bleary-eyed parents stagger into work, dazed and starved of sleep.

New parents are very much at risk, with most babies waking intermittently through the night. But older children also create a multitude of tasks that add to the everyday demands of parents’ careers and lives.

‘I have endless lists of what I need to do every day and week and try to stick to these,’ says Sara Conroy, practice development physio for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

‘I have no scope to work much past finishing time, so I have to be productive. I do take work home but my other “jobs” as taxi driver, cook, cleaner and homework supervisor mean I have little time.’

The pressures of parenthood can also produce mental and emotional strain for employees. Working relationships may suffer and levels of productivity can fall. Financial worries frequently arise and - in the current climate of NHS changes and government cuts - state support is uncertain, especially for pregnant women and single mothers.

The coalition government has scrapped universal child benefit and lone mothers are expected to lose up to 8.5% of their annual income by 2015. Other family benefits facing cuts include the Health in Pregnancy grant, child benefit and the baby and toddler elements of tax credits.

Adding to this pressure is the closure of many after-school clubs and Sure Start centres, the challenge of gaining access to desirable schools and the provision of adequate child care. Even the daily act of entrusting a child’s safety to a ‘stranger’ can create anxiety.

Recent figures from the Office of National Statistics reveal that working mothers are far more likely to lose their jobs than men, in redundancies caused by the recession.

And women taking maternity leave may find that their posts remain unfilled, fuelling guilt that their colleagues will shoulder an extra workload.

Many mothers are being refused the opportunity to return to their posts in a part-time capacity, and flexible and part time working arrangements are increasingly under threat.

Transferable skills

Working parents require vast reserves of stamina and determination. But parenting can also hone some very transferable skills.

Research from Clark University and the Centre for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, USA, suggests that becoming a parent could actually make you a more efficient employee.

Researchers found that parents who were committed to family life actually performed better at work than childless colleagues.

The study concluded that this was because parents learn to multitask and become better at handling stress and negotiating.

This has certainly been the experience of Jan McMorran, a highly specialist community/neuro physio who works at Castle Douglas Hospital for NHS Dumfries and Galloway.

‘I am certain, without a shadow of doubt, that I am a more effective clinician because I am a parent,’ she says.

If nothing else, it imbues you with empathy for other parents. Birgit Mueller Winkler, a paediatric physio who works in a private clinic in Clapham, finds that her parental experience has helped in this way.

‘Being a parent myself gives me more credibility, especially when I give parents a list of exercises or activities their child should do on a daily basis – because I know what life with children is like, but I can stress that there is always time for a few exercises,’ she says.

‘By being a parent I can support first-time parents without labelling them as “difficult” for not adhering to the physio regime.’

Claire Strickland, CSP unit head of practice and mother of two, found parenthood made her more aware of the pressures other parents face.

‘It gave me an understanding of childcare issues, both for patients and when managing staff,’ she says. ‘It also gave me a better understanding of competing priorities.’

So the pressures of parenthood may have unexpected benefits. Learning to juggle multiple family responsibilities may enable you to manage equally complex situations at work.

Negotiating when a child goes to bed or how much of their meal they finish might just help to hone your communication skills and improve your professional negotiations.

Handling a kicking-screaming-back-arching toddler tantrum could enable you to manage everyday office politics with a far greater degree of patience and understanding.

Even having to deal with unexpected spillages and mishaps has the potential to make you a more valuable asset when it comes to crisis management at work. fl

 A copy of the prompts is available in CSP’s CPD webfolio for you to complete online and save into your CSP ePortfolio account, or to download as a Word.doc and save on your computer or as a printed copy.

Please visit www.csp.org.uk/webfolio.

How to use this article for your CPD – CSP adviser Gwyn Owen’s tips

Taking responsibility to care for someone else, whether a child or adult, requires numerous skills.

This activity focuses on those that sit in the ‘managing self and others’ domain of the physiotherapy framework.      

This activity has three parts: to help you evaluate and record your skills; to look at how they apply to your current/future physiotherapy practice; and to help you think about future CPD opportunities.

Read through the list, following, and rate your ability for each behaviour/skill, from 0 = not developed to 5=well developed.

Note any evidence of what each looks like in practice, such as feedback from someone you delegated a task to, or an annotated plan.

I can...

• Independently plan a set of activities to meet a specified outcome.

• Co-ordinate the people and things required to reach a goal.

• Delegate tasks to other people as appropriate.

• Recognise when the situation calls for my plan to be amended.

• Collect information to inform what actions I should prioritise.

• Adjust my plan to accommodate changing demands.  

• Adapt my behaviour in response to the situation.

• Evaluate the effectiveness of my performance.

• Take a lead role in planning, co-ordinating activities to meet a goal.

• Evaluate the effectiveness of the planning and implementation.

Look at the statements with a score of 3 or more. Make a note of how those behaviours/skills transfer into your physiotherapy practice.
Now look at those with lower scores. Are there opportunities coming up that you could use to develop those behaviours/skills?
Use this analysis to help you plan how you could use those opportunities to support your CPD.
 Please store this activity safely for your CPD record.  

A copy of the prompts is available in CSP’s CPD webfolio – see http://www.csp.org.uk/professional-union/careers-development/cpd/csp-eportfolio/cpd-webfolio.