We finally made it to the end of 2020 🎉  What a relief! It’s been a particularly challenging year and I honestly don’t know how we, as working parents, managed to muddle through. 

It was some kind of magic! The good news is that while we were spinning ALL the plates, employers were making changes to make life easier for working parents. Long may it continue. 

With that in mind, let's take a moment to reflect on the year and look at some of the positives:

⭐️  This year showed us how resilient we are - and our children too. A lot was thrown at us, often all at once, and we surprised ourselves by how much we can manage. Our children showed us how to get on with life during a pandemic, and kept us distracted and entertained (as well as busy and tired). 

⭐️  We acquired new skills. Some of them were digital and tech related, like how to navigate the complexities of Zoom and other conference calling services. Others were communication skills, like how to explain to your boss that you nee...

By Ian Dinwiddy, Thriving Parents Coach and Founder of Inspiring Dads.

As I remember it, 2020 started pretty well. Our two children turned 10 and 7 in January, flights were booked to celebrate my father in law’s 70^th, and plans were coming together to travel to Italy in the summer to celebrate my brother-in-law’s 40^th. A big piece of work was lined up….

But trouble was brewing on the horizon. Despite the initial warnings in January of a strange flu like infection on the other side of the world, at that stage I don’t think many of us really “got it”.

Full steam ahead into the new year.

Like the telegraph room on the SS Titanic, the warnings of severe trouble ahead were clear in hindsight. Far eastern countries with experience of SARS took the warnings seriously. Europe, it is fair to say, was less quick to grasp the enormity of the potential impact.

At my kid’s school there was worry about a dad who had just come back from a work trip to Singapore, who had he seen and when?!

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I am honoured to share this story with you today from working mother Gemma Bateson. She has been incredibly honest and brave and I know her story will help so many others navigating the transition to parenthood. 

One of the biggest takeaways for me is the advice to stop pretending. It doesn’t do you or anyone else any favours to pretend that you’re managing and being the perfect parent AND employee. Be honest, get the help and support you need, and you will perform better and be happier at work and at home! 

If you would like to share your feedback with Gemma, please email me at [email protected] and I will pass it on. You can also leave a comment on any of our social media channels. 

Here’s Gemma’s story… 

What was your biggest fear about work when you found out you were expecting and how did you overcome it?

My biggest fear was losing hard won ground in terms of my career progression. I was worried that someone might do a better job than me whilst I was away and that I...

September has arrived, and most working parents are sending children back to school or childcare after the longest extended period we’ve ever experienced.

We are over the shock of lockdown now. We have done what we do best - adapt. And now everything is about to change again. 

Talk about a rollercoaster of emotions. 

Think back on the last few months and notice what feelings come up... 

• Relief at the idea of things getting back to normal again?
• Concern about how your child is going to cope with the big changes that lie ahead?
• Excitement about getting things done that you’ve been putting off since March?
• Worry about a second wave and what that will mean?
• Love and happiness for the quality time you’ve spent as a family and the memories you’ve made?
• Sadness that this unique time of closeness is coming to an end?
• Motivated to step things up at work with better focus and renewed energy?
• Dread over getting back into a strict routine and getting everyone out the door on time?

By Ian Dinwiddy, Thriving Parents Coach and Founder of Inspiring Dads.

You might be wondering how you’re going to survive the emotional upheaval of becoming a new dad.

I know exactly how you feel. 

In fact, I felt the same way when my daughter Freya was born in 2010.

It can be a really brutal learning curve, especially first-time round. In fact, I think it’s worse than most people believe it’ll be. In hindsight we Dads are painfully ill equipped to deal with the emotional and practical complexity of fatherhood.

Of course it doesn’t help that almost as soon as we’ve got used to creating a family, we’re plunged back into work as if nothing has happened in our lives.    

My name is Ian Dinwiddy, I‘m a Thriving Parents coach, I specialise in supporting dads, and I know what it is like be a stressed new dad. 

I wasn’t always a coach – when my daughter was born, I was a management consultant, a workstream lead on a software implementation project. Fortunately I had been given a local ...

Since the lockdown, working parents have been streeeeeeetched. For those of us having to work remotely with kids in the mix and no option but to stay home, it’s been a rough ride. 

We have gone from shock and disbelief to panic and worry about how this situation could be remotely possible to manage. Life was enough of a juggling act before, right?

As the weeks go by, new challenges seem to emerge.

Whether you’ve been highly organised with a rigid schedule for your weeks at home, taking it day by day,  or even bouncing from one strategy to the other, it seems every day of working / parenting / homeschooling is different. 

One thing I think we can all agree on is that we have changed, and life after lockdown won’t be the same as it was before. 

Let’s look for the silver linings. Challenging as it has been, lockdown has taught us many things about ourselves, our children, remote working, work-life balance, and much more.

Following many conversations with working parents through...