When you’re a parent, the idea of going back to work can be equally exciting and daunting. If it’s something you really want to do, however, then you definitely should; not everyone wants to be a stay at home parent, and if you want to find a career that suits you, then you will be happier in general, and that is extremely important.
If you are needing a change and want to head into or back into the world of work, what should you do? What will enable you to be a parent and a worker? This can be a hard choice, especially if you’re looking for something more long term. Yet interestingly, as a parent you will already have developed many skills that you might not even have realized. You might even have picked up the skills required to become a nurse. Parents can often make amazing nurses, and here are the reasons why.
Communication
Communication is crucial when you are both a parent and a nurse. You might immediately think of talking as communication, but there is much more to it than that; you also have to listen, and even look out for non-verbal cues. As a parent, even if you hadn’t noticed it, this is what you are doing all day, every day. You are responding to your children at all times, understanding exactly what it is they need, and helping them learn more about life.
On top of this, communication means that you are able to relate your own life experiences to those who need to hear. So if you understand exactly what it means to be a sleep deprived parent, or you’ve sat by the bedside of a sick child, you will help patients and their loved one relate to you. This will make you a trustworthy, compassionate, and well-loved nurse who is able to help their patients in all kinds of ways.
Planning
Planning is something parents become masters of. Remember a time before children when you could just leave the house without any kind of plan at all, grabbing a bag or just your keys and wallet, and going out to find something to do? As soon as you became a parent, this spontaneous behavior will, for the most part, have stopped, and planning will have taken its place. Dealing with children means planning everything from day trips to going to the grocery store to weekly meals in advance in order to be able to keep everyone happy, healthy, and calm.
When you are a nurse, planning is just as important, and if you have already honed this skill down to a fine art, you will be one step ahead. It can begin before you are even a practicing nurse, or before you go back into nursing if you were previously working in this career because you can plan your education and additional qualifications by studying your online DNP nurse executive programs around your other commitments.
Nurses have to be good at planning so they can prioritize the many different tasks they have to do. Some will be more important than others, and knowing what order to work in will make your job much easier and more efficient, and it will help the patients and your colleagues too.
Teamwork
When you are a parent, the idea of teamwork might not be something you really consider, but in fact it is something you are doing a lot of the time anyway. You are able to work with your children and their distinct personalities in a way that means you can usually get them to do what you want them to do without causing them upset or concern. Or you can decide which battles are worth getting into and which are best left alone.
You also work together with other parents, your partner, grandparents, and other helpers too, ensuring that your kids have everything they need.
Teamwork is a skill that nurses have to have even if they are working one on one with a particular patient. In most settings, there will be teams of nurses of varying ranks and with varying amounts of experience who all need to come together for the good of their patients. If you can be a strong team player, you will become a highly regarded member of the team.
Supervisory Skills
Parents are always supervising their children, even when it seems as though they are not. If you are a parent, you will know that, as soon as the children start to crawl (and even before that) you will never be able to stop checking up on where they are and what they are doing. It’s your job to keep them safe, after all, so you need to be the ultimate supervisor.
One of a nurse’s primary skills is that of monitoring their patients. Even if no medical work needs to be done, often patients will need to be checked on regularly to ensure they are not becoming more ill or to see if they need something. As a parent, this idea of making sure everyone is where they should be, doing what they should be doing, and helping them if they need assistance is already ingrained. Parents who become nurses are excellent at supervising and monitoring their patients without needing to learn this particular skill.
Critical Thinking
What is critical thinking? Although there is a fair amount to it, in essence, critical thinking is what happens when people use reasoning and logic to work out the best solutions to various issues and challenges they are facing. As a parent, critical thinking is essential, and you will often need to make on the spot decisions while staying very calm, and sometimes parents have to make very tough calls about all kinds of problems including education, health, and nutrition.
Nurses share many of these skills with parents. They too need to think critically a lot of the time, looking out for any signs and symptoms within their patients that are going to mean the original treatment plans need to be changed, for example. By understanding how to make decisions quickly while also weighing up all the pros and cons, patients can be treated better and more positive outcomes can be achieved.
