The inviting summer sun wakes you early with a burning desire to take the kids out of the house and spend a day enjoying the sunshine. You packed a giant picnic basket filled with healthy lunches and snacks but you keep thinking that you forgot something. Here is a quick list of items recommended by some of our nannies.
Have fun!
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our clients, nannies, housekeepers, chefs, managers and all of the other many wonderful people that have helped us grow this past year.
Dedicated Domestics wishes all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Best Wishes,
Eloisa and Jeff Nelson
The first step is to decide what your real needs are. Be realistic in what you are looking for. Most household employees are looking for full time work. Some will be willing to work for two days with one family and three days with another, while others prefer to work full time for one family. The more challenging the schedule the more difficult it will be to find someone to fill your position. It is customary for nannies to request higher salaries to work odd hours, just like any other field. Sometimes, we have found that a family can hire a full time nanny for only slightly more than an odd schedule might cost. It really does pay to think through your needs carefully since hiring around a standard schedule can give you greater flexibility at home, increase you selection of nannies and sometimes even save you some money.
Besides the schedule you should consider what you need the person to do.
· Do you just need someone to watch your children or do they need tutoring skills to be able to help with the homework?
· While most nannies will help with light housekeeping, they will not scrub you bathroom. If deep cleaning is what you really need, you may want to find a good housekeeper. And while some housekeepers will keep an eye on older kids occasionally, I am sure you do not want someone with chemicals on their hands from scrubbing the toilet to start changing a diaper.
· Does the nanny need to drive the kids anywhere or to run errands?
· Will they need to use their own car or will you provide a car?
· Have you planned on a mileage allowance, insurance or both?
· Do any of the children have special needs that a nanny should be prepared for?
· Are you a stay at home mom that just needs extra help or are you planning to be out of the house and need a full charge nanny?
· Does the nanny need a passport to travel with the family?
· Will the nanny need to be flexible for overnight stays?
As you can see, there are many questions to think about before hiring someone. The above is just a short list of common questions. The more you think through what you are looking for in a nanny or housekeeper the easier it will be to find the right person for you. Give us a call at Dedicated Domestics and we will be glad to review your needs and help point you in the right direction.
By now you have the kids all ready to go trick or treating and you are just squeezing into your own costume. Just a few quick things to remember. Kids will be running all over the place and crossing at the corners is the last thing on their mind, so if you are driving be very, very careful. If you are not driving, still stay aware to be able to watch for some of the kids that may not notice they just stopped in the middle of the street.
To kids all candy is good, but make sure at the end of the night you go through the candy to make sure it is all good. Sometimes candy can sit for too long and may look pretty gross. When in doubt, throw it out. Keep some of your own candy to switch with the kids so they don’t feel cheated. You may also want to dole out the treats over several days to avoid stomach aches. Then of course the best thing may be to donate all the candy and get the kids to enjoy some healthy snacks. Good luck on the healthy stuff.
Seriously, have a great holiday and try not to over do the candy.
Many families are turning to in home childcare to help watch their children, giving the parents the ability to continue their careers. This is certainly nothing new. In-home child caregivers commonly referred to as nannies or babysitters are just a personalized version of a daycare center. The nannies provide much closer supervision then the six or eight to one ratio of most daycares, while keeping the children in the family home where they feel more secure.
However, once a family has this extra pair of hands in their home, they assume they should be kept busy every minute. To keep them busy they start coming up with long lists of chores so the family thinks they are getting their monies worth. The reality is that taking care of children is a full time job. Ask your mother if you aren’t sure. Keeping track of a child’s activities and being prepared for sudden and unexpected behaviors is not hard, but does require constant monitoring and a high state of awareness. Most nannies will take care of cleaning up after the children, preparing their meals and even doing the children’s laundry. But you do not want them kept so busy with household work that they neglect the children. After all the whole reason for having a nanny is to take personal care of the children.
Professional nannies that are given the time, can really help your child grow and prepare them for the next stage of their life. By reading to toddlers and playing games with them helps develop skills that will prepare them for school. With older children, helping with homework or even just making sure that the kids have the quiet time they need to study will help. While some nannies will be able to help with some tutoring, I wouldn’t expect a nanny to help with trigonometry or advanced calculus homework. Then again how many parents out their can help with all of the homework our kids bring home? Okay, don’t be a show off. I am sure there are some of you that can even help with quantum physics, but the majority of us start to pause when faced with anything above basic algebra. Good nannies, just as good parents can still help their kids by removing distractions, preparing healthy snacks and providing support. Most times that is all that a child needs to solve the problems on their own.
Even for stay at home moms with multiple children, hiring a mother’s helper or nanny can be a very big plus to the growth of the whole family. For one thing, having the extra help allows parents to spend more time with each of their children individually while the nanny watches the others. The extra pair of hands and eyes may prevent accidents since the kids are being watched and cared for while lunch is being prepared or the laundry being done. Not to mention the time the stay at home parent saves by being able to complete more tasks during the day so there is more time for the family at night.
So when you think that hiring an in-home child caregiver, nanny or mothers helper, remember you might benefit even more than your children.
As you send your children off to school each year, there are so many issues to learn about and deal with I sometimes wonder who is getting the greater education. Aside from the curriculum there are many issues that parents need to be involved with to help their children grow. One sometimes overlooked issue deals with bullies.
Bullying has become a growing problem for our school system and most importantly our children. While we can’t always protect our children from everything, we can give them the skills and confidence to handle many situations on their own. The days of boys being the only target of misguided bullies is long gone. These days’ young girls are just as prone to aggression as their male counterparts.
Understanding where bullies are coming from is a good start to prevention, but in most cases it is just a dead end. Some bullies are strictly in it for the attention. They may not be popular or were not accepted by the cheerleaders so they are going to show how important they are by torturing someone else. Many of those kids know what they are doing and some will grow out of it, but in the mean time, they wreak havoc on local schools. The most difficult bullies to deal with are the ones that don’t even have a clue that they are doing anything wrong. Sometimes it is because of the way they were brought up and sometimes it is due to their own sociopathic problems.
Regardless of the causes or reasons behind the bullies’ behavior, dealing with them remains the same.
1- As a parent encourage communication and take it seriously if your son or daughter talks to you about a problem at school. If your children are fearful they are not going to concentrate on their school work and will have trouble throughout life.
2- While running away is not a good long term option, avoidance is. If you can find a way to avoid a situation that puts you in harm’s way, that should be viewed as your first choice of action.
3- Bullies don’t like buddies. Most bullies rule by intimidation and power over someone they believe they can overcome. Making friends and walking with a buddy or partner can make most bullies look for an easier target.
4- Feeling good about yourself is also very effective and is sometimes underrated. While it is not necessary to learn martial arts to attend school, having the confidence that comes with proper diet and exercise programs should not be overlooked. When you feel good about yourself and walk around with confidence, you are no longer a good target for bullies.
Bullies have always been around and will probably always be around. Eventually most bullies end up friendless and without the power they so desperately want. The hope is to educate all of our children to understand the behavior is not acceptable and they do not need to put up with it. Fear at school reduces our children’s ability to learn and grow. Bullies waste valuable time and energy that our children need to develop and pursue lasting friendships. Take the time to talk with your children and listen to their problems, you may find that their insecurities have made them into the bully nobody likes.
Since California’s cell phone law recently went into effect I thought we would be hearing less about the unsafe practices of drivers. One might think drivers would understand the correlation between being distracted on a cell phone and a high accident rate would carry over to other distractions as well. But it appears that since driver’s can no longer talk on their cell phones they have resorted to texting instead. Maybe the law isn’t clear or maybe it is just me, but isn’t texting even more dangerous.
With kids in the car screaming and mom texting whoever, the distractions of driving are making our roads even more unsafe then they once were. Don’t get me wrong, I love technology and like being able to stay in touch as much as I can. But, especially when shuttling kids around town, I would hope we could all put our toys away and pay as much attention to driving as safely as we can. It is bad enough that we take risks with our own lives, but we should be more careful with children around.
The law may not have banned every distraction and it can’t. But it should be a wake-up call to pay more attention to what we are doing. It is sad that so many people will watch what they eat and get plenty of exercise in hopes of living a longer and healthier life. They then get in a car and and forget the number of lives that have been ruined or shortened in a crash.
This is not another public service announcement, just a concerned parent reading about to many accidents that could have been prevented.
First remember that most but not all household employees are looking for full time work. Some will be willing to work for two days with one family and three days with another, while others prefer to work full time for one family. The more challenging the schedule the more difficult it will be to find someone to fill your position. Just like any other field, it is customary for nannies to request a premium or higher salary to work odd hours. Sometimes, we have found that a family can hire a full time nanny for only slightly more than an odd schedule might cost. It really does pay to think through your needs carefully since hiring around a standard schedule can give you greater flexibility at home, increase your selection of nannies and sometimes even save you some money. For example at Dedicated Domestics we had a request from a family for an almost full time nanny to work 8 hours per day on Mondays and Thursdays and 6 hours per day on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and 4 hours on Friday. Due to the two six and one 4 hour days, the nanny knew she could not fill in her week with another job so she requested a premium of just $3.00 an hour more to compensate for the odd schedule. Based on her experience and what the family was expecting her to do, the nanny would have charged $600.00 for a standard 40 hour work week which is $15.00 per hour. The schedule that the family wanted worked out to 32 hours at $18.00 (with the $3.00 premium) or $574.00 per week. After we spoke with both the nanny and the family, they agreed on $600.00 a week for a simple 40 hour schedule. For just $26.00 per week more the family now has extra help and flexibility when they need it and the nanny is more comfortable with the full time salary. It is good to remember that while the cost of gas has gone up dramatically over the past year a small increase in a full time schedule will cover the higher prices. But, when a part-time employee is working only 4 hours with one family and then commutes to another family for 4 more hours the gas cost doubles and will represent a larger part of their salary. The agency you work with should be able to steer you in the right direction so you get the best value for your money.
The rich and famous have always enjoyed the ultimate luxury of having a staff of Maids, Butlers and of course a Personal Chef. While that is still as true now is it was hundreds of years ago, at Dedicated Domestics we are finding a whole new class of people looking to enjoy part of that luxury. More and more hard working professionals and executives are turning to hiring a staff so they can concentrate on what they do best. As one doctor told me, (she) “would rather perform one more surgery than go home and have to cook”. Luckily the chef we found was a perfect match since he enjoyed cooking more than surgery.
A businessman I worked with had a very sound financial reason for needing a chauffeur. He knew it was not just a luxury; he could make more money working during his commutes from one meeting to the next if he could find a driver. By hiring a chauffeur he could continue to work between appointments. A win for everyone, the businessman made more money and the chauffeur got a job.
So what kind of help do you need?
