You may not recognize his name right off the bat, but you probably recognize the TV shows he is responsible for: Survivor, The Apprentice and Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader. Yes, Emmy winner Mark Burnett has had a ton of success in the entertainment industry — success that he attributes to his job as a male nanny.
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Continuing our posts on autism to help raise awareness this month, we thought it would be especially helpful to provide some tips for caring for a child with autism. Moms and caregivers with autism experience, we’d love for you to jump in and share some of your own unique tips as well!
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Did any of you catch In the Motherhood this week? It’s a new show on ABC (it started as an online show that moms on Twitter told us they loved) and this week’s episode had a nanny-centric plot that seems to imply that “nanny knows best.” It has seemed to have touched a nerve with some moms, but other moms find it a little more lighthearted. Where do you stand?
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You may have already seen our list of parent interview questions and babysitter interview questions in the child care library, but when a child with autism is the one needing care, the babysitter interview takes a slight shift to ensure that the special needs are addressed.
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Today is World Autism Awareness Day, so we’ve got some great ways you can help raise awareness and get involved. Whether you want to start small (join the Facebook group!) or go all out (donate or attend an event!), here are several different things you can do to help raise awareness about autism.
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April is Autism Awareness Month, so we’re going to be doing a series of autism-related blog features over the next few weeks to help educate and inform our readers about everything you need to know when it comes to caring for a child with autism. During our research, we’ve learned quite a bit about this diagnosis, so we can’t wait to share everything with you to help raise autism awareness. First up: what autism actually is.
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Do you have family members on Facebook? It seems like more and more of us are finding our extended family on there lately, and Facebook has developed another way for us to get more involved with those web-savvy relatives by creating private family Facebook groups.
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The economy is so bad right now that some families are forced to cut back to only five nannies! The horror! Only five nannies per family? How in the WORLD will they survive?? [Sarcasm over.] Okay, we’ll settle down so we can bring you the story.
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Many of our members have told us that they love interacting directly with other parents and sitters, getting each other’s opinions, asking for advice and sharing stories. We’ve got such an active community here on the blog that we decided to expand all this direct interaction by creating a Sittercity discussion group on Momlogic — but that’s not all. To kick start the discussions over there, we’ve teamed up with the amazing folks at Momlogic to give away 5 $100 AMEX gift cards to Sittercity members who pop over to the community and join our Sittercity group!
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With this economy, nearly every family out there is looking for ways to save more money. Naturally, child care is one of the areas where they tend to consider cutting back, but not everyone is willing/able to make sacrifices when it comes to the babysitter or nanny — and some parents have the extra layer of guilt over reducing a caregiver’s hours, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out yesterday.
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It’s the latest child care story to hit the media: Last week, it was revealed that a daycare provider in Arkansas mistakenly served 10 children windshield wiper fluid thinking it was Kool-Aid. The wiper fluid had been placed in the refrigerator and consumed last Thursday, with doctors estimating that the children drank about an ounce before realizing it tasted wrong.
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Ex-Project Runway contestant Laura Bennett (the sophisticated redhead with six children) wrote a hot-topic piece in The Daily Beast last month, titled “God Bless My Nannies” about how she has several nannies to help her family and about how “people love to hate the fact that I have nannies to help me with my kids.”
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It’s National Nutrition month, which means that the spotlight on healthy eating is brighter than ever! Yet, incorporating new or healthier foods can be difficult for those caring for picky eaters. For babysitters and nannies — especially those new to child care — it can be an even tougher situation: Are you supposed to force the child to eat certain foods because you know he needs nutrition? What if he refuses? How are you actually supposed to make sure he’s eating healthy when he’s battling you every step of the way?
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There was a great article in the New York Times two weeks ago about how a financial analyst working in Midtown Manhattan was laid off from her glossy downtown job and had a bit of an unanticipated career change into the field of nannying.
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We’ve been a little MIA on the blog this week and for those of you who check your email each day, you might have an idea why. We’ve had some exciting opportunities come through Sittercity in the past couple of days, so, needless to say, they’ve been keeping us quite busy!
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Last week, we had a party in our office to celebrate the new space, the last year and all the hard work everyone puts into Sittercity. There was an American Idol sing-off, a scavenger hunt, a photo booth, tons of balloons, food and drinks. And, of course, a trusty photographer we call our Project Manager captured the whole thing. (Thanks, Jay!)
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It’s a fact of life: siblings fight. Sometimes it only amounts to a mild tiff, other times it’s a knock-down, drag-out nightmare. Either way, as a parent or a caregiver, there are a few things you can do to help reduce the fights between siblings and restore a little more sanity back into the home.
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A few days after we posted about what it would take for Nadya Suleman, the octuplet mom, to hire child care providers, she gets a MASSIVE babysitting offer from notorious attorney Gloria Allred.
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Well, it’s not exactly hard news, but we’ve been getting into some great debates here on the blog, so we figured it wouldn’t hurt to post a “soft news” piece as a departure from the bigger stuff. Let’s get to it!
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There’s been endless talk about the mom who had octuplets (adding to her brood of six other children), and up to this point, we hadn’t written about it. In general, people seem to either be fascinated by the story or simply tired of hearing about it already — or a mix of both. Since we fall somewhere in between those sentiments, we decided to write a post about what it would take for Nadya Suleman to hire in-home help for her family of fourteen.
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In our January post calling for questions/concerns from our sitters and parents, one sitter expressed her frustration over seeing parents offer less than minimum wage for child care jobs in her state. With the economy in the shape it’s in, some parents are trying to cut costs by offering less to caregivers — and coming in under minimum wage in same cases.
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What would you do if you saw a mom or her child berating the nanny in public? Would you get involved and say something? Would you walk away? Would you stay out of it unless it got physical? Tonight on ABC, the hidden camera show “What Would You Do?” will be exploring this exact scenario and filming strangers’ reactions to nanny abuse.
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We haven’t posted a blog entry in a few days because we’ve been in the midst of moving offices here at Sittercity! We left our cozy loft space in the heart of River North and relocated to a bright, open office on the 22nd floor of Chicago’s infamous Merchandise Mart.
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It’s not just parents who drive the kids around. Many of our sitters have the responsibility of keeping kids safe on the roads as well, so when we saw that our friends over at CafeMom spoke with Kristy Arbogast, PhD, director of engineering at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, we wanted to share the discussion with all of our members here.
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On MomLogic today, one babysitter shared her story of working for one particular family with some particularly difficult children. After reading the story, the audience seemed split. Some thought it was a hilarious tale of how ridiculous child care can be, others felt bad that the nanny had to go through such a difficult experience and the rest scolded the nanny for being so judgmental.
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During one of our unrelated discussions here on the blog, one sitter expressed frustration over not hearing back from parents as much as her roommate. After clicking through to her profile, we noticed that the sitter had great experience, references and qualifications — as well as several visible tattoos. It sparked the start of a tattoo discussion that we wanted to continue in its own thread.
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Dear Genevieve. How much should I charge for babysitting at events such as weddings and parties? I have been asked to baby-sit at a wedding and the number of children I will be caring for is unknown at this time. I typically charge $15 per hour but this will be much more then the 1-3 children I care for. How do I figure out an hourly fee? ~Mandy
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This topic has come up time and time again here on the blog, so it’s time to address it once and for all. Many sitters have been feeling frustrated that parents do not take the time to reply to the sitter’s job application. Let’s take a look at why.
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The nation’s all abuzz with the excitement of such an historical inauguration coming up tomorrow, and everyone’s talking about the Obamas — even actress Anne Hathaway, who recently said, “I would want to be head babysitter. I’d love to be first babysitter, absolutely!” And she’s not the only celebrity interested in being a presidential babysitter.
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We’ve said it a few times before, but it’s worth mentioning once more here on the blog: Sitters with the most complete profiles get more jobs. One part of having a complete profile is posting a video, but we’ve noticed that videos are one of the last things sitters are completing — not completing at all. We want to help you make it easier to create a complete profile, so take this quick poll to let us know what’s stopping you.
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