Heading back to work after a career break to care for your children can be nerve-wracking. If you’ve been out of the traditional workplace for a while, you might feel anxious, worried about whether you’re rusty in your skills, or just feeling concerned about having less time to spend with the kids. If you’re going back to work and feeling nervous, try some of these tips to help you.

Assess where you are

Look at where you’re at right now. Don’t think of yourself as an unemployed person. As a parent, you’re already doing a job. It’s easy to feel that you’ve been doing nothing while you’ve been away from work, but remember that motherhood is full-time tough work.

If you weren’t spending your time raising children, the world would have no future ahead of it, so you shouldn’t sell yourself short. You haven’t been doing nothing all this time. You’ve been busy with something very important that needs to be done.

What skills has motherhood taught you?

Motherhood will have taught you a range of new skills. Are you queen of getting all the kids where they need to be, from playdates, after-school activities, and doctor’s appointments? That’s time-keeping. If everyone also has their homework and PE kit when they need it, that’s organizational skills. If you’re the one arranging all the lifts and pick-ups with other mums, you’re nailing teamwork. Are you connecting with other mothers? That’s networking.

All of these are skills that are desirable in the workplace. When you are searching for a job, even if you’re in a high-pressure field and using a job database for urgent care doctors, remember that you don’t have to limit yourself to talking about what you’ve done while being paid. Think about the skills you’ve learned through parenting and find a way of translating these skills into the workplace.

Job experience is really just about showing the proof that you can do what the job requires, and all the things that you’ve done as a parent can be used to show off your skills if you find the best way to present them.

Reduce your isolation

When your kids are in school, you have free time, so use your hours for something useful. You don’t need to leap straight back into paid work. Instead, you could try volunteering to get out of the house and into a group of people working together.

After a lot of time just being Mum, and only talking about toys and cartoons, volunteering with adults can help you to feel like yourself again. It also looks great on your CV, showing that you’re driven and active.

By volunteering, the person in charge of you can become someone who can give you an up-to-date reference, which is very useful when you do begin applying for jobs. It can be a way to build up the beginnings of a professional network.

Find something you care about and volunteer your time to stand out from other applicants.