The job of a child carer is a demanding one; mentally, emotionally and physically. We love our jobs, working with children is exceptionally rewarding, but if we’re not careful, we can suffer from stress, burnout and exhaustion.
We’ve put together some top tips to help keep you healthy and in tip-top shape to ensure that you and your charges receive the best care!
Continue reading “Taking Care of Yourself: Tips for Child Carers”
As parents and caregivers, it can be extremely difficult to answer questions from children about terrorism. It’s a heart-breaking subject that you might wish you could push away or not discuss, but it’s quickly becoming a necessity due to the world that we live in.
The act of terrorism and the horror it brings is hard for even most adults to come to terms with and understand, which is why, following the terrible events occurring all over the world, we’ve put together some advice to help explain terrorism to your children.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a significant rise in internet fraud, phishing scams and other ‘traps’ that aim to trick victims into handing over money, providing sensitive information or even putting themselves in physical danger.
To help you stay safe when applying for your next nanny job, we’ve put together our top online safety tips for nannies:
How many New Year’s resolutions have you seen or heard from your family, friends and co-workers so far? How many of those were about weight, smoking, drinking, or travel? How many of those were about parenting or childcare? I’m guessing the latter was a significantly smaller number than the former.
This New Year, wouldn’t it be nice for us to make a New Year’s resolution that will not only benefit ourselves but our children and the rest of our family? That’s why we’ve put together a list of areas that we can all try to improve upon in the New Year when it comes to caring for our children.
Continue reading “New Year Resolutions for Parents and Childcare Professionals”
How are you getting on with that mischievous little man (or woman) known as Elf on the Shelf. It can be difficult to think of new mischief for your elf to get up to, especially if this isn’t the first year he’s come to stay.
That’s why we’ve put together plenty of new Elf on the Shelf ideas to help delight children of all ages this Christmas!
Bereavement can occur without warning at any time of our lives and it’s important to understand how as a nanny, you can help the children in your care deal with the losses that they may face.
Loss can be exceptionally difficult for children to understand as they are not always able to process the emotions and thoughts that follow, which is why it’s important that children have a strong support network at times of great upset.
Bereavement can be the death of a loved one, a friend or a pet, it could also be the loss of someone close to them, which can often be a result of divorce or separation of a child’s parents.
To help you further help the children in your care deal with the losses they face, we’ve put together the following advice:
Continue reading “Helping Children Deal with Bereavement and Loss”
As temperatures plummet it understandable to want to retreat to the house where it’s warmer, but the bad weather shouldn’t be an excuse for children to swap playing outside for lounging in front of the TV.
That’s why we’ve put together some simple ideas to help keep your children active this winter:
Did you know that 20% of UK parents spend no time at all reading with their children? Or that just 50% of parents with young children read for just 1 hour each week?
Not only does reading to your children help to improve their academic performance, but more importantly it strengthens your bond, improves their imagination, helps children learn to read, teaches them about the world around them, and provides important morals to help make your child a nicer person.
The day of love is right around the corner and Valentine’s Day is the perfect excuse to bring out those craft supplies and start making gifts for all.
Try these fun Valentine’s Day inspired crafts for kids of all ages:
Nursery jobs are, by some, considered to be unskilled jobs that anybody can do – this is not the case. Nursery jobs come with plenty of challenges, and not everybody is cut out for working in a childcare setting. Fun they may be, but nursery jobs are no easy option!
However, the rewards of nursery jobs are many, and if you are the kind of person who can adapt to nursery life, a nursery job might well be the perfect career option for you.
So, how do you know if you are cut out for one of the many nursery jobs that are available?
Do you like children?
This may be devastatingly obvious, but it’s an important point nonetheless – in order to be able to hack the daily hustle and bustle of a nursery, you will need to have some kind of passion for children and early years education. With office jobs and the like, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t like your job much, as long as you can fulfil your tasks – with nursery jobs, enjoying your work (most of the time) is important. After all, you’re dealing with little people every single day – little people who will need to be connected with you and who need you to have their best interests at heart.
Can you tolerate noise and chaos?
Good nurseries tend to be well-organised and run to a schedule. In any facility where there are a lot of people in one place that need caring for, some kind of schedule is necessary. However, children being children, things won’t always go to plan. There will be moments that the nursery will be a chaotic environment, and you can guarantee that it will be noisy nearly all of the time. Not everybody can tolerate such a busy and noisy environment, and nursery jobs require that you are able to stay calm and in control even if all hell is breaking loose.
Are you patient?
We all lose our temper sometimes, and you don’t have to be endlessly patient to be a great nursery worker. However, you need to be able to be patient with the children – shouting at them is never okay. We all have limits and that isn’t a bad thing, but you need to be self-aware enough to realise when you are approaching your limit so you can remove yourself from stressful situations before they escalate.
Do you have a sense of fun?
If you don’t enjoy playing and being silly, you certainly won’t enjoy working in a nursery. Of course, there are plenty of other duties besides playing to undertake in nursery jobs, but playing is certainly one of the most important. Small children learn through play, so being able to engage them in stimulating, creative activities is vital. Having a sense of fun and a good imagination is important, as is not being afraid to make animal noises and dress up like a princess or a superhero in the presence of lots of children (and probably a few adults, too).
