A lot of people online get frustrated when it seems that someone else has copied their idea for a business. It doesn’t matter how new you believe your idea is, someone is going to copy it, more likely than not.

You can protect particular parts of your business ideas. You can trademark your business name and/or logo. You can copyright the things you write for it. You may even have an idea that can be patented.

But your idea to sell left handed widgets to right handed consumers… you don’t own that, and if it’s a good idea, someone else is going to try it too.

There are very few truly unique ideas in business, and most of us don’t run anything remotely unique. There are tons of work at home sites out there. Tons of parenting blogs. Tons of review sites. Tons of sites giving advice good, bad and indifferent. You may do work that stands out from the rest, but you usually don’t own the very concept you’re working from.

This gets frustrating if you come up with something that stands out in your niche, and then competitors start running with your ideas too, with their own takes on it. It’s particularly frustrating if they’ve scarcely changed the idea at all. But unless they run things so close you can get them on copyright infringement, there’s probably not anything you can do about it.

What Can You Do When Your Ideas Are Stolen?

When someone takes your idea, there’s only so much you can do about it. If they’re a poor imitation of you, you should be able to outdo them on quality. If they’re good, there might be a way to work with them to mutual benefit. If they’re so close that customers can’t tell the difference, you need to make one. If you’re the more original thinker, you may be able to come up with something that will help you to stand out again.

If things are close enough to constitute copyright infringement, try filing a DMCA notice on them. This is great for those times someone directly takes your content without permission, and declines a polite request to remove it. If they ignore that, you can move on to their hosting company. Any time someone infringes on your copyright, trademark or patent, you have legal recourse. If they’re just doing something close to what you’re doing, they probably aren’t infringing.

Always remember that there’s more to business than just having great ideas. If you can’t market them successfully, it doesn’t matter how great your ideas are; hardly anyone will find them. When you come up with an idea, you know it better than any copycat. Do what you can to take advantage of that.

Summer break is really getting close for schoolchildren. It starts June 2 for my son, June 14 for my daughter. That means all too soon the kids will have many extra hours in which to express their boredom. As all work at home moms know, it pays to be prepared for summertime so you can still get some decent work hours in.

Not all of my ideas are about making things fun for the kids. Fun is good, and children need plenty of it, but you have to expect them to help around the house too. They don’t have school over the summer, and that means they have more time to help you, like it or not. And so…

1. Add new chores to the kids’ to do lists.

Children are quite capable of helping around the house, and they should do it often. How many people have stories about the college freshman they knew who had never done his or her own laundry and was at a complete loss, or the friend who didn’t know how to cook even the most basic of foods?

This summer is when my oldest is going to get more involved in helping with meal preparation. She can already make a few basic foods such as scrambled eggs; now it’s time for her to learn more and to get more comfortable with the whole process.

Think about what your kids are capable of cleaning, even if they won’t immediately do it to your standards. Dusting, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, laundry, all that fun stuff. Surely some of it can be made at least partially a chore for the kids.

2. Keep their school skills fresh.

One big problem with such a long summer break is that children forget what they learned in school. Then their teachers have to go over all over it again at the start of the new school year.

There are plenty of websites which can help you help them retain the things they learned at school. You can find printable math worksheets and more online. The Khan Academy has only a little suitable for elementary school aged kids, but it gets better as they get more advanced.

You can also make up your own assignments for them. I prefer to keep summer work within the interests of each child when I can. My oldest, for example, loves fairies and is intensely creative, and so her writing practice will be to write about fairies, and typing practice will be to type up what she has written onto her own website. She wants to have a business like mine, so this is a way to help her get started.

I don’t suggest hours of schoolwork a day or even necessarily doing schoolwork every day. Even a half hour once or twice a week may be plenty, depending on the skills you’re working with.

3. Summer camps and classes.

You don’t have to do all the educational stuff on your own, and it doesn’t all have to be educational anyhow. Look into summer camps and classes for your kids that fit into your budget and their interests. I insist on swimming lessons for my kids each year, for example, because they have regular access to a pool at a friend’s house and at their grandparents’ house.

4. Go to the park.

Getting out to the park regularly gets the kids away from the electronic forms of entertainment, and if you have one young enough to nap yet, encourages naptime later on. If your kids are old enough to only be lightly watched as they play, you may even be able to bring your laptop and work while they play.

I suggest going either early in the day or in the evenings after dinner, as those are the cooler times of day. You’ll also have to worry less about sunburn.

5. Trade time with other at home parents.

You usually can’t just send your kids over to play with a friend and not have to reciprocate. That’s okay, as the right friends will keep your kids out of your hair almost as much when they’re playing at your house as when they’re elsewhere. Most parents really appreciate getting the time for a break.

6. Get a mother’s helper.

I loved it when I had a mother’s helper when my oldest was a baby. It made life much easier. My helper was too young to be a babysitter, but quite aware of how her older sisters made money with babysitting. Of course she cost less to hire, as I was right there, able to change diapers and so forth. She just had to keep the baby entertained.

If you have a toddler and an older child, you can also pay the older child to have more specific duties toward the younger, beyond what you expect simply for the fact that you’re all family. It’s a good way to teach them responsibility and the value of earning money.

7. Go to the library.

My kids love library days. We’ve been going nuts waiting for the local library to reopen after a remodel, but it’s going to be nice having it open again. New computers, WiFi, new paint and new carpets should make it a pretty nice place to visit this summer. It’s so much cheaper than getting new books for them at the bookstore all the time.

8. Have arts and crafts supplies available.

Just how available you make the arts and crafts supplies be depends on how much you can trust your kids to use them properly. My two year old means that all supplies must be kept out of her reach, but the older two are mostly good about how they use things. Mostly. They’re still kids after all, and sometimes whim takes the place of thinking.

9. Have a dedicated play area.

Just as you are better off working in a dedicated home office space in most cases, kids are often better off in an at least somewhat dedicated play area. It might be their bedrooms, but at least they’re playing someplace where they’re out of your hair. Just be sure to check out that suspicious silence. They’re either up to something or being so cute you’ll need a camera. Maybe both.

It’s a dream for many people to start a home business that takes care of all their bills and lets them live a comfortable lifestyle. If you’ve looked carefully at what it takes to start a successful business, you probably know you’re in for a lot of hard work and that things don’t always work out even when you do work hard. Is it a good idea to get or keep your outside the home job as you build your home business?

Some people find having to live off their savings motivating. It’s a challenge, knowing that you’ll be in deep financial trouble if you don’t succeed. It makes going without any source of income other than that business both tempting and satisfying. Others need the security of having money still coming in, so they aren’t too stressed over their finances to work on their business.

There’s no one right answer for everyone. You have to consider your own situation.

How Long Can You Live Without a Reliable Income?

While you may have an estimate for how long it will take you to reach your income goals, there are no guarantees when you run a business. It might prove harder to reach your goals than you thought, or easier. Either way, you need to know how long you can cope without a reliable income before you’re in a bad financial position.

If you’re going without a job, you need at least six months’ living expenses saved up, more if you think it will take you longer. More isn’t a bad idea anyhow.

Don’t assume you can make it off credit cards and pay them down later. You could, but that means later on your basic expenses will be higher, as you have to pay off the credit cards and deal with your living expenses. It increases how much you have to earn in order to consider your business a success.

What About the People Relying on You?

Thinking about the people relying on you is particularly important for parents and caregivers. You’d better have a way to support the people who rely on you and cannot support themselves.

How Will You Find Enough Time to Work on Your Home Business?

The advantage to plunging straight into a home business with no job is that you have more time to work on it. You can do the long hours required to make your home business a success.

This is more challenging if you have to go to work. You’ll have to work as many hours as you can manage outside the times you’re at work. It’s a pretty rough lifestyle, especially if the job often involves overtime.

What Options Do You Have?

Be aware of the options you have that might make things work better for you. Some people have no problem with the prospect of having to move back in with parents if their home business fails or is slow to take off. They’d better hope their parents feel the same.

You may also consider alternative ways to earn money from home while building your core business, such as writing articles for pay, other types of freelancing, finding a work at home job and so forth.

Have a Backup Plan

You should always know what you’re going to do if things don’t work out with your business. You can’t always get a job immediately, and even if you get one quickly, it won’t always pay enough. Know when you need to implement your backup plan so it has time to work before things become a crisis.

Of course, if your home business is in addition to the income earned by your spouse and your family won’t be relying on it right away, you have a lot more flexibility in how you handle things.

Writing reviews is a popular way for affiliates to earn money. Share your thoughts on the product, link to it, and you have a chance to earn money on the commissions from your referrals. It’s a model that makes giving every product a highly positive review tempting. But does this mean you should forget writing negative reviews on products that deserve one?

Reviewing a product negatively is actually a pretty good idea. If you rave about every product you review, it can be harder for people to decide if they can trust what you say. Honestly saying that you don’t like a product builds trust for those times you love the product.

Most reviews should get into both the positive and the negative aspects of the product. There just aren’t that many products that are 100% perfect. Maybe you would like to see one minor feature added or removed. Maybe it’s only good for beginners or for experts. Maybe it’s exactly the wrong shade of pink.

There are some important things to remember when you do a negative review. First and foremost is to keep things factual. No name calling or stuff like that which could get you in legal trouble. Stick to the features of the product. Be professional. You can still include your affiliate link if you so choose, even if you despise the product, since some people will buy anything, others will disagree with your review and like the product, and if the site has other products to buy, you may still benefit from the affiliate link.

This doesn’t mean you should choose products specifically because you can review them negatively. Look at the things that are interesting to people in your target market. If they don’t work the way your target market would want them to, those are the products that should get a negative review. If they’re good, give that positive review, with appropriate note of the parts that aren’t quite what you’d like.

Your time is probably best spent on reviewing products you can enthusiastically recommend. You want to keep offering value to your readers, and that most often means something they can use. But when there’s a product that a lot of your readers are interested in and you just can’t recommend it, say why! That’s giving value too

If there’s one thing many mothers are good at, it’s guilt. Doesn’t matter how hard they try, many moms can make themselves feel guilty about every imperfection in their parenting, whether or not it’s really a problem.

This can be particularly acute for stay at home moms who find a need to start working at home. Didn’t they start staying at home to be there for their kids? Are they depriving their kids by taking a part of their day in order to work?

It gets even worse when others add to the guilt trip. Some people insist work at home moms can’t be fair to their children while earning an income from home. What’s a stay at home mom to do?

Quit Letting the Guilt Get to You

You can’t always keep from feeling guilty about the things that keeping you from being available to your kids every minute. Not do you only have other things to get done around your home, you have the right to some amount of your own life.

When it comes to doing the things you need to get done, you shouldn’t feel guilty if you need help with the kids or if they have to wait a bit for your attention. This includes doing the things you have to do in order to earn enough money from home that you can stay at home.

You don’t have to be immediately available to every whim of your child to still be more available than you would be working outside your home. You’re also showing your children the reality of what it takes to earn a living. That’s not a bad example for them – odds are they’ll be doing that themselves someday, whether at a job outside their homes, or following your example and working from home.

There may be times when the stresses of working at home will make you a little short tempered with your family.  It happens to the best of us. But it’s real, and rather than feeling guilty about it, make sure you’re setting the example of handling the stresses and your temper as best you can. The way you handle these times will make an impression on your kids.

Schedule Around the Needs of Your Children

Your schedule when you work at home is often quite flexible. As much as you can, work it around the needs of your children. This allows you to be more available to them when they need you.

That means working late nights or early mornings for many work at home parents, plus naptimes when you need daytime hours with an infant, toddler or preschooler, or during school hours for older kids.

It doesn’t always work out for all of us to work such a schedule, but you do what you can. If you really need work time when the kids are going to be around and active, try trading babysitting, getting a mother’s helper or even paying for daycare, especially if the need is going to be a regular thing. It’s not that unusual for a work at home parent to need some help with the kids, especially the younger ones.

Remember That Children Need to Develop Independence

Particularly as the kids get older, teaching them to entertain themselves as you work is a way to encourage their independence. As kids get older, they really don’t need your attention every minute, even when they think they do.

I don’t mean leave your very young child unsupervised unnecessarily or unsafely. I do mean teaching your children how to have fun without you in age appropriate ways. Coloring, playing with blocks and other toys, reading, things like that.

If you have a laptop you can often lightly monitor your kids as they play on their own, even outdoors if you find a place where you can read your screen comfortably. It all depends on how much supervision is needed, and how much you can be distracted and still get work done, which varies quite a bit depending on what you do and your work style.

Take Breaks

Be sure to take breaks not only from working, but from parenting too. During your work day, take a short break every hour or so, and longer ones every few hours. These are great times to get a bit done around the house, interact with the kids or just relax a little.

Take breaks from parenting sometimes to remember who you are on your own. Get out with your spouse or with friends. Read a book you want to read just for the fun of it. Make time for one of your hobbies. Be you.

Don’t Compare Yourself to Others

This is important both in your professional life and your personal life. Spend too much comparing yourself to others, and you won’t appreciate so much the things you do get done.

You can’t compare your progress in your working life to how others are doing. They probably aren’t doing exactly the same thing, and they don’t have your exact home situation.

You can’t compare how you keep your home to how others manage it. They probably have different priorities, different rules, a different amount of time to care for their home, and so forth.

Just forget the comparisons. If you’re doing well enough for what your family needs, that’s pretty good.

Know How Much You Can Take On

It’s all too easy to take on too much when you work at home. The commitment to being a stay at home mom or dad is already pretty huge. Add in working at home, and the time commitment grows tremendously. You have to know how much work you can take on with everything else you need to get done, and balance that with the income you need to bring in for the sake of your family.

Remember the Alternatives

If you weren’t working at home, what would you be doing? Could you afford to be a stay at home mom or dad without the additional income? Would you have to go back to work outside your home? Would you have to tighten your belts but otherwise make it without the income you bring working at home?

A lot of parents work at home because they need the income for their families. Others don’t need it quite so badly, but work because they love what they do. Still others are keeping their skills in so that they can go back to work when the kids get older.

Whatever your reason for working at home, you probably gave it a lot of thought. Working at home isn’t so simple that most people can just plunge into it. There’s usually a long search for just the right job or home business opportunity, and much concern about scams.

Working at home may keep you busy when the kids wish you were free sometimes, but how would it go if you worked outside the home? You’d be gone for hours a day and have much less choice in most cases about which hours you work. You’d have a commute, whether short or long. You’d have to figure out how your children would be cared for while you’re at work.

That’s not the worst thing; many families have no choice but to have both parents working, and make it work for them just fine, but if it’s not what you want for your family, you only have so many ways to avoid it. You can work at home and lose some of the free time you have available to your family or you can deal with having a single income and all the risks and limitations that entails.

Don’t try to be Supermom and have the perfect home, perfect family while working long hours to add to the family’s income. It doesn’t work that way all the time and you’ll burn out trying to do it all. Get everyone to help out and know that the small stuff has to slide so you can take care of the big things.

Too often work at home moms try to keep their home as perfectly as they would if they didn’t have a job, plus be there every moment for their kids. That’s not fair to anyone. Not you as a parent who never gets a moment alone. Not to your kids who learn that parenthood means running around completely frazzled, doing things for everyone else and not for yourself. It’s not the example I suggest you make.

If everyone is safe, reasonably happy and properly fed, you’re doing it right. The rest is extra. Odds are your family will be impressed with all you accomplish no matter how guilty you feel about the things you think you should have done.