Practically Perfect podcast

In this episode, Sue talks about the new book The Agency with the author Monica McGurk. The Agency is Mary Poppins meets James Bond and is YA fiction fun for everyone. We chat about writing books, why use nannies as a subject and some more serious issues that Monica is passionate about. You can learn more about Monica at MonicaMcGurk.com 

It takes good communication, good boundaries and some flexibility to support a new mom and be a great nanny during this transitional time. 

When a new baby is added to a family, many things will change. Sue discusses her situation as a new baby is coming any day now! We will be discussing many of these issues in further episodes. 

The beginning of the year is the perfect time to get a contact in place or renegotiate your contract to include things you may have forgotten! We discuss how to approach this. 

Can you just skip over a bad reference? What can you do if you know a reference is not going to be great? How can an agency help? 

Household Manager. Family Assistant. Nanny Manager. These types of jobs are in high demand, but the titles used can be confusing. What does its meant to say you are a family manager? 

We discuss the hot topic of the season-bonuses! We have a few different ways to look at it- and we disagree a little too!!

We discuss how nannies get upset when parents offer super low rates. 

Do you charge a flat rate for overnights or do you ask hourly? We unpack the details of negotiating an overnight rate. 

What makes a great agency? What should you look for when choosing?? We discuss things to look for and what to watch out for when searching for an agency. 

Everyone makes mistakes, what happens when you do it on the job? Marker on the couch, broken dishes, what can you do? 

Sue and Lora discuss the new normal - working from home parents!! 

A replay!  How do you handle difficult conversations with your employers? As a nanny, you will have to give notice, discuss issues with the children, maybe ask for a raise. We mull over these and a few others and give our ideas on how to tackle them. 

Lora and Sue have been in the nanny world for many years. This week we think about what advice we would give to our younger nanny selves. 

Right now there is a nanny shortage and demand is high for nannies. What does this mean? How can you take advantage of the market? 

After an extended hiatus, Sue and Lora are back and we are talking about COVID conversations you should be having NOW!!! 

Many nannies find it challenging to work with kids who are a little older. So we are chatting about children who are school age and brainstorming ideas about how to deal with a few of those troublesome issues. 

We continue our series talking about difficult behaviors and how we as nannies can handle them. This time we focus in on 3 and 4 year olds. 

We discuss common challenging behaviors with toddlers and how nannies can work with them. 

We kick off our summer series this week on handling difficult behaviors age by age. We discuss here what kinds of behaviors are challenging.