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Have the right attitude

The children should look forward to you coming into their home.  If you have a bad attitude about your job, your employer will soon pick up on it and the children won’t want you to come back.

You need to give the children in your care plenty of love and do all you can to advocate for their best interests.  At the same time, you have to respect and honor the parent/child relationship. It’s a fine balance and you have to know when to step back and allow the family to relate without taking offense.

Know how to discipline

As a nanny, you will need to exercise discipline. In doing so you will have to respect the decisions of the parents and how they want to raise their children as far as possible. You will need to find out from them what they consider to be appropriate.

In certain situations, follow their instructions. They may trust you to make your own decisions about this such as putting young children in time-out or taking away privileges for older children. Whatever disciplinary measures you take, make sure they know that you still care about them and want the best for them.

Be prepared

As a nanny, you need to understand the children you are caring for, respect their feelings, love and comfort them and be a role model for them.

When faced with keeping them entertained, it’s all too easy to plop your charges down in front of the TV, especially when they are being very demanding. Some nannies are guilty of watching TV themselves or just sitting around while the kids keep themselves entertained.

Before you even go on duty, you can start finding age-appropriate activities, games, and stories to read to your charges. Once you come to know their interests, you can tailor some activities to these interests.

Find creative ways to help them learn

Working with children often involves making them simple snacks and meals. You can come up with ways to involve them in this activity. It can also be a fun project to take a simple recipe and make it with them.

Depending on the age of the children, you can help them to learn with the activities you introduce. A simple craft project can keep them occupied and they will also feel as though they’ve accomplished something.

A good nanny will be able to stimulate children’s natural curiosity. They will always be trying to think up creative ways for children to learn new