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Back to business after a parental leaveDiane Moore - Moms adjust to work after staying home with the kids. 'Professional edge' can get rusty after an extended break. For many families, September is a month that sees their children starting school for the first time. If a parent (usually the mother) has chosen to stay home with her children until they reach school age, September can herald a new phase in her life - one that gives her enough free time during the day to consider returning to paid work. While some women take the standard one-year maternity leave off after childbirth, an increasing number of working women are choosing to stay home with their children for an extended period. They value the opportunity to devote their full attention to their children, but many women find that being out of the workforce for any length of time can be problematic. "The longer you stay at home with your children, the harder it can be to return to the working world," says Marla Nudler, who has been a stay-at-home mother taking care of her children, aged 6 and 8, for the past eight years. "Things change so quickly in the workplace that it's easy to start feeling obsolete when you've been out of it for a number of years. This can affect your confidence when you start looking for opportunities to restart your career." Kim Vance, a counsellor at George Brown College, has just returned to work after her third maternity leave, and experienced some of these same trepidations after being out of the workplace for only a year. "It's a challenge to keep yourself tuned into what's going on in the working world while you're taking care of your kids at home. "Although I loved having that year off to spend with my son, something I didn't have with my other two children, I did notice after the first few months that my professional edge started to get dull. Being with children all day, you're not using your brain in the same way that you do in business. I noticed that even my vocabulary started to change and become more basic." Vance says she always felt during her maternity leaves that it was a juggling act to stay plugged into issues and trends in her field, even during her shorter leaves with her older children before the time off for new parents was extended to one year. "It's hard to forget that while you're staying at home, someone else is doing your job. You don't want to be forgotten during that time." Monita Sen, the intake outreach co-ordinator for Times Change, a Toronto-based non-profit women's employment agency, says that Vance's and Nudler's feelings are quite common for women who've been out of the workforce, even for a short time. "Many of our clients need help with rebuilding their confidence along with their skills before they start contacting prospective employers and promoting themselves in employment interviews," she says. "Although they may have had the skills they needed for their job in the past, those skills may have become outdated while they were out of the workplace, which in turn affects their confidence in their ability to market themselves to prospective employers." Women who are currently at home with their children or planning to take maternity leave can take steps to remain plugged in, even though they are away from the day-to-day workplace. "Keep your computer skills up to date," advises Sen. "That is one area that changes almost by the minute. With so many jobs being technology-based today, it's important to keep those skills up to date or you can be left behind quite quickly. If you don't have a computer at home, find one that you can practise on." Times Change offers a computer lab for clients to brush up their skills using business software and tutorials. Sen also recommends looking for volunteer opportunities as a way of keeping your skills sharp. Vance says she set aside time regularly during her maternity leave to check into what was happening in her field. She read publications, used the Internet to read up on latest developments and maintained her network of professional contacts, which led to finding her current position when she was ready to start working again. Nudler emphasizes the importance of finding a way to maintain your business network. "I completely removed myself from the working world, which perhaps wasn't the best strategy. I'll have to talk to a lot of people and do a lot of networking to get myself reconnected with the business world." She advises women who are planning to stay home for a while to keep in touch with colleagues and join professional associations and other networks to stay up to date on trends in their field. Some women who've been out of the business world for a few years may feel that it is too late for them to get back on the career track. But Nudler says that it is never too late. "Try to identify some of the skills you've needed to manage your home, balance the family budget, or run extra-curricular activities like co-ordinating the carpool. Employers may value these skills more than you realize." As a mature worker, you may bring stronger soft skills such as an ability to negotiate with others and work more effectively on teams than less experienced workers. Nudler admits that she could have gone back to work sooner, but chose not to. However, she doesn't regret having taken a time-out despite the challenges of breaking back into the working world. "My idea was to stay at home until both of my children were in school for full days. My husband has a very demanding job. Between the two of us, it made sense for me to be the anchor at home for the time being." But now that her youngest is in school all day, she's looking forward to returning to paid work, although she's not quite sure just yet what career path she is going to pursue. If you have trouble knowing where to start in planning your re-entry in the working world, Sen recommends that you take advantage of community resources. Times Change offers help with work searches as well as a five-week career planning program for unemployed women who can't or don't want to return to their previous job, but aren't sure what type of work they want to pursue. (Find out more about Times Change at http://www.timeschange.org/.)
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