Being a parent in digital media is hard. Attend this small group, speed-dating-style session for insights into topics impacting journalist parents, from pumping in the newsrooms to talking to your kids about bad news, and share tips, tricks, and the best parenting hacks to make our day-to-day jobs better.

1. Parenting in Digital
Newsrooms
Tips, Tricks, and Hacks to make work and life
the best they can be
#ONA19Parents

2. Psst. Over here. This is important.
To promote the most honest conversation,
this session is *OFF THE RECORD*
Feel free to social big thoughts and good
moments with #ona19parents but please, no
identifiers

3. Get fresh
Eat
Drink
Be merry
But keep all food and drink in this room

4. Block 1: Work
Parental Leave
Returning from Leave
Advice for parents who manage parents
Managing work travel
Advice for being managed as a parent

5. Parental Leave Policies
What is your company’s policy?
● What would you change, if anything?
What were some of the challenges you had
negotiating leave/using your leave?
● How did you overcome those challenges?

6. Re-Entry
● How did you prepare to go back to work?
● What were those first few days like?
● How did you manage your workload?
● Did you change your schedule?
● Did you change responsibilities?
● What helped you return to work? What made
it harder?

7. Parents managing parents
● How do you help the parents on your team
thrive?
● What are some of the challenges you face in
managing parents?
● How do you, as a parent, use your experiences
to guide the parents on your team?

8. Work travel
● Do you take the family with you? Leave them
at home?
● How do you communicate while on the road?
● How do you negotiate work travel at your
workplace?
● What are some of the challenges you face as
a traveling parent in digital news?

9. Being managed as a parent
● Is your manager a parent? Does that change
how you talk to him/her?
● What are some of the challenges you wish
your supervisors understood about your
family situation?

10. Block 2: Life
Self care: Managing yourself as a manager with kids
Talking Trauma: How to cope with tragedy
Single parents: when it’s all up to you
Self care: Finding your work/life chemistry

11. Self Care: managing yourself as a
manager with kids
● What are some of the ways you carve out time
for self care?
● What does self care look like to you?
● How do you encourage your team to care for
themselves?
● Do you practice what you preach?

12. Talking Trauma: How to cope with
tragedy
● Describe a traumatic event in your newsroom.
How did your managers respond?
● What would you change, if anything?
● What language do you use with kids to talk
about difficult things in news?
● How do you manage your mental health in a
tough news cycle?

13. Single Parents: When it’s all up to
you
● What are some of the things you wish your
co-workers and bosses understood about
your situation?
● How do you organize and manage your work
and home lives?

14. Finding your work/life chemistry
● How do you define your job?
● What are some of the challenges you face in
finding the right chemistry?
● What could your managers/employers do to
help you find that chemistry?

15. Block 3: Stages
Prospective parents
Infants and Toddlers
Elementary School
Middle/High School

16. Prospective Parents
● What are some of the things you worry about
in terms of work and responsibilities?
● Do you know your company’s leave policy?
● Do you have parent-mentors in your
newsroom?

17. Infants and Toddlers
● How do you manage child care? Who does
that work in your house?
● Does your kid understand what you do for a
living? How do you explain it?
● Has having a little kid changed the way you
work or your work schedule?

18. Elementary School
● How do you talk to your kids about what you
do for a living?
● What news do you let your kids watch/read?
● How do you manage summers with your work
schedule?

19. Middle School/High School
● What are some of the challenges you face
with your child?
● How are you preparing for college or
post-high school life for your kid and for
*you*
● How do you talk to your kids about social
media, especially if you use it for work?

20. Continue the conversation
● Join us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/344180556487717/
● Network: find a mentor here!!!
● Stay tuned for a blog post
It takes a village. Let’s support each other.

21. Thank you!
Be sure to visit the many ONA19 exhibitors in the third floor Exhibit Hall.
Stephanie Backus Megha Satyanarayana
Continue the conversation at #ona19parents