“I love my kids and they deserve my time,” says Toni K, a woman who is studying online to become a medical biller and coder. “But I feel like I never get any uninterrupted time to sit down and concentrate on my lessons. The kids are always banging on my door, and then I feel guilty if I get irritated at them. Does anyone out there have any suggestions?”

We posed this question to Dr. Kenneth Ruge, a therapist who has written several books, including Where Do I Go from Here?

“Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem,” Ruge states. “Overall, I would say that it is best to get out of the house, if you can. Get to Starbucks, for example. However, when kids reach age seven or eight, they might enjoy doing their own homework while a parent is studying – it can become a family study period that kids will actually enjoy. And kids can feel good if they know they are helping a parent reach important goals.”

Here are more ideas we gathered from people who have learned how to juggle studying with parenting duties:

Make sure your technology is not limiting you. If your only computer is a desktop at home, maybe a laptop would let you study over lunch hours at work. And laptops can now be bought for $400 or even less. Another solution? Print out your online lessons and carry them with you. Remember, paper is portable.

Look for uninterrupted time. Many home learners report that it can be better to get up an hour earlier in the day – or stay up after kids have gone to bed – than to try to keep kids from interrupting during early evening hours. “It might not be easy to get up an hour before your kids on a weekday, but it can be worth it,” Ruge suggests.

Utilize small blocks of time. “Find a few minutes of free time here, and a few minutes of free time there,” suggests Barry Lenson, author of Good Stress, Bad Stress. The result can be up to an hour of “found” time that can depressurize evenings at home.

Have you found ways to keep your kids from ruining your study time? If so, please share your ideas here, by responding to this post.

Tags: billers and coders, billing and coding, billing and coding jobs, career advice, jobs in healthcare, Kenneth Ruge, time management, working from home
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