By Susan Dunn, MA, Emotional Intelligence Coach & Consultant

Once upon a time there were what were called "displaced homemakers." If you're too young to know what that phrase means, this article may be particularly helpful to you. It referred to women who were taking their first jobs in the workplace after having been home raising their children; generally speaking, because of divorce.

Now we're seeing the trend reversed, and women are leaving the corporate world to return home to be with their children. (Some fathers too!)

The pace and the mindset are very different between these two worlds, though both include plenty of work! Here are some tips for adapting if you're going back home.

Enjoy It

You may be 100% ready for this, or you may be ambivalent, but this will be only one of many transitions in your long lifetime. Use this one to prepare you for all others. In any change, chosen or imposed, you are in control of one thing: your attitude.

When you're older, you'll look back at many stages in your life and say, "that was another lifetime." They can feel that different.

KEY: Find a way to enjoy every bit of this (and it will have its down times). It may take a commitment every morning; not a bad lifetime policy.

If you spend time "missing" your corporate days and focusing on that, you'll miss out on something very important. Be fully where you are.

Switch Gears

As we learn in Emotional Intelligence, we have three brains: reptilian, limbic and neocortex. In the corporate world, much is focused on the neocortex, the thinking brain. You have deadlines, projects, problems to solve. It's "relational," yes, and it involves emotions, but it hasn't the intensity of life with your loved ones.

At home, you'll be more in the limbic brain, which is where the parenting instinct comes from. You may feel your "brain has turned to mush," as you spend your days wiping bottoms, tears, oatmeal off the floor, and crayon marks off the walls. You'll talk in simple sentences and repeat a lot, emoting a lot - you're teaching your child about emotional expression! And you'll do a large number of routine things.

That's okay! Enjoy it. You'll bounce right back to the Einstein-mode when it's needed.

The world of children is slow, emotional, and in-the-moment. You will do harm to both the children and yourself if you try and run your run your home like a professional office, corporate department, or military post. Handle the children with your heart, and relax. Unlike the chance to sell the real estate, the dishes will always be there, and the chance to laugh with your little one will not.

What Are You Working For?

Not money. Not a promotion. You're now working for a very different purpose. Explore this. It will serve you in good stead all your life.

Focus On What's Profound

I did a needlework when I was at home and I was sometimes overly concerned about keeping things perfect. It said: "Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow, For babies grow up, we learn to our sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs, Dust, go to sleep, I'm rocking my baby, 'cause babies don't keep."

It goes very fast. Ask anyone whose kids are grown.

And about the needlepoint...

Develop New Interests

It's easy to get 'lost' in the mammoth tasks of running a home and full-time childcare. It is work that's literally never done, and you never get to leave it behind you.

At the same time, there can be lots of waiting -- for the soccer practice to be over, or in the queue to pick up your child at school. Take up knitting or needlepoint. Bring along a book. Get some language tapes. Meditate.

Enrichment

Full-time childcare at home is not unlike the life of the pilot—hours and hours of boredom punctuated by stark terror. Yes, a lot of it is routine. Make it more rewarding for everyone by including enrichment activities.