Childproofing Your Home Office

1. Make your office close to where your children play so that you are always on hand if there is a crisis. If you have a babysitter or a caregiver, ensure that they are kept busy in some form of play or activity. You may want to create a small area for them with tables and chairs (sort of their own office) where they can color, finger-paint, or play with building blocks while you're working.

2. Keep everything portable up on shelves away from small hands. Office supplies particularly sharp and pointed objects like scissors, staplers or stapler remover should be placed out of our reach of your child. Make sure that supplies like correction fluid (white-out) and glue, which are flammable and contains ingredients that may be harmful when inhaled, should either have safety caps or be kept in locked drawers. Clearly label what kids can and cannot touch in your office.

3. Keep babies out of harm's way in a playpen while you are working. If your home office has space, you can work while keeping watch of your baby in a playpen. You can set-up your superyard or playden with lots of toys to keep the baby safe, entertained and happy. If you do not have space, you can set up their play area in a different room in the house, but you may want to use monitors to listen to your baby.

4. Attach locks to drawers and cupboards; simple magnetic ones will do. You may also want to consider using power strip protectors so your baby cannot pull the plug out of the socket easily.

5. Tape up, or otherwise, protect floppy disk drives on your computer. You may also have other expensive equipment in your home office that you need to protect, such as scanners, fax machines, shredders, digital cameras and printers. Your equipment, both electronic and of other kinds, are easy to break, very expensive to replace, but most of all, can pose as hazards to your young children. Make sure that these equipments are out of reach of your children. It is also important to ensure that cords dangling from all that expensive equipment are carefully taped so children cannot pull on them. There are plastic clips or ties that you can buy from office supply stores to keep your wiring neat and secure.

6. Install software that prevents access to your work documents. You may also want to put your computer in a higher area, as well as the phones. Children's natural curiosity will make them push buttons on your phone or fax machine, pound on your keyboards or accidentally restart your computer.

7. Make your mouse and screen accessible only by password. You may want to make sure that your documents are well protected. Young children love to be involved in grown-ups' activity that you may not be able to prevent them from typing gobbledygook or (horror!) delete your important files. You can give them an old keyword that they can play with and pretend that they are helping their mommy or daddy. If you do not have an extra keyboard, you can let your children use your computer as a reward for their good behavior at the end of the workday (with your supervision of course).

8. Keep fixed hours so that children know when you are not to be disturbed. But nonetheless, be sure to take a break to spend quality time with your children. It is beneficial to both you and your children to establish clear boundaries between "work" and "family" time. You can cuddle or play with them, or ask them to join you as you prepare lunch. Your answering machine or voicemail can receive any calls from clients or business associates.