This week we tackle the dreaded "Screen Time" Dun Dun DUN! Luckily, Dr. Colleen Russo Johnson is an expert and she walks us through when screen time can actually be useful and help children grow and learn! Like any tool, it depends on how you use screen time!
This week is an author interview for the ages! Hallee Adelman joins us to talk about her amazing "Way Past" series that's all about feelings! These books have been really popular with every kid I've read them with and are such a great springboard for conversations about feelings! You'll hear the delight in our voices as we discuss methods for working with kids on expressing and working through their feelings!
Finding the balance between our jobs and our lives can be extra tricky for nannies. Sometimes our identity is wrapped up in being a nanny. Luckily, this week we have Amber Noelle to walk us through how to maintain our work life balance! I am constantly inspired by her Instagram account and was delighted to have her on the show!
Dr. Stephanie Ryan is back to talk us through some fun 4th of July science experiments! These are a wonderful way to celebrate an often very loud holiday for kids who may not enjoy fireworks or if it's raining! All of these experiments can be done any other time of the year too! Make sure you follow both Dr. Stephanie and Chronicles of Nannya to see videos of how all of these are done!
Emergencies happen when we least expect them. As nannies, it can be really anxiety provoking to think that a major emergency may happen on our watch. Brigid Murphy joins us to talk about her use of "Emergency Helpers" with her nanny kids and how it has come in handy over the years! This interview certainly changed how I talked about emergencies with my nanny kids!
"Nannypalooza is a national nanny conference. Designed by nannies, for nannies, the gathering is an amazing weekend of learning, connecting and growing as a professional." Sue Downey joins us this week to talk about Nannypalooza! If you haven't heard of Nannypalooza, do not pass go, do not collect $200, please just listen to this episode because it's one of the best conferences around!
Crystal Gail was on our 10th ever episode! Now she's back to talk about Clearly Nanny and Nanny Pride! This episode was so uplifting and helped me feel connected to the nanny community! I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed recording it!
Rob Fox (The Cambridge Manny) joins us again to talk about Dyspraxia. We talk about being a nanny while also being neurodivergent and how it can be your greatest strength! This uplifting and moving episode brings me so much joy to share with you!
"My Gnome on the Roam ® is a collection of toys and tools designed to help families bring more adventure to their lives, it's a suitcase full of memories waiting to be unpacked. It’s an invitation to explore, create and connect with your family. It's a brand with a mission…designed help busy families build adventure and create stronger, happier kids, and more present and connected adults." This week we talk with My Gnome on the Roam's creator, Anne Armstrong, about how she developed this idea and how you can use My Gnome on the Roam in your nanny day! These little guys are so much fun!
We've talked before about how to help kids who have anxiety, but on this episode we cover how to help when you, the nanny, have anxiety! Morgan Rohloff joins us to discuss ways nannies with anxiety can navigate our days, which can be fully of stress and anxiety provoking situations. This past year hasn't been an easy one and many nannies have found that they are feeling more overwhelmed than ever! I truly hope this episode helps you as much as it did for me!
Encouraging kiddos to be adventurous eaters starts in infancy. Angelina Pizzi joins us this week to talk about all things adventurous eating! So many healthy habits (even not food related ones) can also be taught during mealtimes. Some of our best caregiving comes from sitting down and sharing a meal!
This week's guest, David Rue, is the creator and host of an amazing bedtime stories podcast called Biddy Stories! We talk about the importance of creating a bedtime ritual, based in connection and love. Biddy Stories is the internet's only sitcom style podcast for kids, pure and simple. There's nothing else like it. The humor is tailored for both the kids and the grownups... Think of us as a joint spinoff of Mr. Rogers and The Office with a hint of Bugs Bunny thrown in for good measure. David is a 10 year veteran podcaster with his family focused "Biddy Stories" podcast. He hails from Minnesota and is an elementary school music teacher, a choir director, a husband and a father to 3 outstanding children. David’s podcast mission is to help families understand that…. “If you go to sleep laughing, you’ll wake up smiling.”
A Little Spark is more than just a book, it's a multimedia experience with a lot of heart! This chapter book comes with QR codes to listen to music throughout the story and a code to download the audiobook right in the book! Reading time is such a special time for connection and A Little Spark really has something for the whole family to enjoy! It also has really wonderful lessons throughout the book. Remember, always Be That Spark!
So many nannies are feeling burnt out and overwhelmed right now. Many are considering leaving the nanny world forever. Nanny Kim joins us this week to talk about nanny burnout and how you can turn your passions as a nanny into a lucrative business! There are so many goodies in this almost two hour episode because Nanny Kim is a fountain of resources to make your nanny life better!
If you've ever seen a child light up when their favorite song comes on, you know how important music is to children (and all of us, really). This week Amelia Bell from Bubbles Academy joins us to talk through music and how to use it with your little ones! Music can be used to teach so much from pattern recognition to social emotional skills to cultures from around the world!
Tax season is upon us again and I was delighted to have Rainey Knight from Oh So Simply on the podcast to talk us through this tricky topic! As Oh So Simply's name implies, Rainey takes complicated concepts and makes them very simple, like nanny taxes! This interview was a lot of fun and very informative! We answer that age old question of how to handle it when a nanny family pays you with a 1099 and then asks for your Social Security Number come tax season and so much more!
Get ready to hear me geek out with my teacher, Jill Stansbury! Jill joins us to talk about Positive Discipline which is one of my all time favorite subjects! I know that I'll be returning to the episode again and again to refresh when I need a boost to my nanny day! We cover the origins of Positive Discipline, encouragement vs praise, different parenting styles, and so much more! Thanks so much for listening!
When this week's guest, Lesley Koplow, couldn't find a book to address the current struggles of little ones during COVID-19, she decided to write one herself! "Lilah in the Land of The Littles is a story for children in the time of Covid. Lilah is struggling with all of the changes in her life brought about by the Coronavirus." This book is a wonderful resource to help you start talking to your little ones about their feelings around the abrupt changes over the past year due to Covid. It offers imaginative play as the antidote to the stress of being in isolation for a year now! I highly recommend this book and the conversations that come along with reading it!
As we approach a year into quarantine, it seems fitting to do an episode about grief. Many of us have been forced to deal with grief over the past year in a much more up close way than maybe at any other time in our lives. Hundreds of thousands of people have died during the past year and, as a community, we have taken little to no time to sit with that loss. Whether someone you know has died or you're grieving other sorts of losses, Shannon MacFarlane helps guide us through some ways to support those around us and ourselves when grief is present, no matter the reason. I hope this episode is as helpful to you as it was to me!
Opportunities for science experiments are all around us! Dr. Ryan joins us this week to talk through some fun and easy experiments we can do with our kiddos using things found in the kitchen! I learned so much and have changed my thinking about how to present science concepts to kids. This episode was so fun and in the words of Dr. Ryan, "Kids of all ages can do science and math activities with things that you have in the home! Even cooking and snack time can be used to learn STEM concepts!"
