Monday, March 29, 2010

Have you brought your child to work yet?

A couple weeks ago, you may have read about that well-intentioned, but seriously misguided air traffic controller at JFK International Airport who brought his elementary school-aged child to work with him and actually let him bark out landing and take-off instructions (the dad claims the son just said what the dad told him to say). Okay, that’s probably a “worst case” example of the concept known as “Bring your child to work” Day.  Outside of my work at NetSpeed Learning Solutions, on weekends I write a weekly humor blog, and recently I wrote about this news story, and then shared a few hypothetical stories about how other misguided parents might follow this dad’s lead by taking their sons and daughters to work in situations that were not the least bit kid-friendly or kid-appropriate.

All joking aside, I am curious – when was the last time you took your child to work with you? We all can come up with lame excuses for why we have not done it for a long time. My lame excuse is that I work an hour from home, so it’s hard to invite them to come to work with me without requiring them to stay the entire day. But enough with excuses. (My wife, a portrait artist, has NO excuse at all. Her art studio involves a ten yard commute … down the hall from our bedroom to her art studio.) The fact is, for too many of us, our kids have almost no idea what we do for a living other than a title or a short blurb: “My dad is in banking” or “my mom works in the accounting department” or “my dad works at Microsoft” but beyond that, they could not begin to explain what it is that we do from Monday through Friday, week in and week out. The average adult works roughly 40% of their waking hours each week, and yet, for most of us, our kids barely have a clue about what we really do all this time. And why is that?

Are we really too busy to afford one day a year to invite our kids to our work? (And no, the company Holiday party does not count.) Do we think our child might be bored? Perhaps. But hopefully your plan would not involve parking them in a corner to read magazines or play games on their cell phone. The purpose is to engage them about what you do, how you go about doing it, and help them get a taste of what their dad or mom does to provide for their family. It can be a wonderful learning experience – for both of you – IF you take the time to actually include them, ask them questions, maybe even ask them to help you out on a task or two.

I invite all of us (starting with moi) to make a commitment to take our kids to work with us sometime in the next few months (preferably when school is not in session, of course). Have your child sit with you – not down the hall or in the lobby.  Talk to them about the various tasks you do and issues you grapple with. Invite them to ask questions – especially ones beginning with “why”. Give them a tour. Have them sit in on a conference call or two. Show them what your product or service does for customers. Talk to them about a work challenge you recently had to work through and how you approached solving it. Explain to them how your job is connected to other people’s jobs in your company and why cooperation with other departments is so important. In other words, flesh out what it actually means when your child says “my mom working in the accounting department”.

Not only is this a great bonding opportunity for you and your child, but hopefully it may give them a firsthand appreciation for what it means to actually work for a living. Perhaps parts of your job are a bit mundane and boring – well, that’s part of real life for most of us, isn’t it? Being a lawyer doesn’t always mean making closing arguments in a packed courtroom. Being a purchaser for a clothing store doesn’t always mean getting to try on the latest cool fashions. Most jobs contain a mixture of more engaging aspects along with some pretty mundane, perhaps even tedious elements. Giving your child an exposure to both is a valuable lesson about life after high school or college. At the very least, your child may walk away with a deeper appreciation and understanding for what you do beyond the four-word blurb. And who knows? If you’re lucky, they might even teach YOU a thing. They might even come up with an idea or two about how to do your job more effectively.  After all, most kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for.

So what are you waiting for? Invite your child to work and you both might just learn a few new things – together.      

Posted by Tim Jones at 12:10 pm

Labels: personal & career development