Upcoming Parent Connection Events

Childcare Professional: Marketing Yourself for Success with Skills
While you could make a few extra dollars as a babysitter or nanny, you could vastly increase your potential income by marketing yourself well. Putting efforts into increasing your childcare services could make you a more attractive candidate to a potential family looking to hire you. There is more to providing childcare than simply knowing how to keep a child out of dangerous circumstances. You need to be prepared for anything that could happen.
1. Physical Care - Parents and organizations need to know that you can handle yourself should physical harm come to the child. Classes in CPR and first aid are always a feather in your cap when it comes to providing childcare. In some areas, you can receive CPR training and minor first aid for free as a service through your local government and/or family clinics. You don't need to be an EMT, but it doesn't hurt to know how to handle various injuries.
2. Psychological Profile - Knowing how to handle a child without flaring tempers is a must. If you are interested in prolonged babysitting, it could be in your best interest to enroll in childcare services that will help you understand children better. Social services and family care clinics usually hold these courses for free once per week. Upon completion, you will gain extensive knowledge about childcare and some of these services will even provide you with a certificate. This information is great to pad your resume with whether you are babysitting or looking for a career regarding children in any fashion.
3. Cooking - You don't have to turn yourself into Wolfgang Puck, but it could help solidify a job if you have knowledge of cooking. This is also dependent on whether or not you will be cooking for the child at any point in the day. Cooking classes are available at a variety of colleges and adding a course or two to your resume could help in a variety of fields. It can also benefit your home life as well as you cook your own meals. A knowledge of healthy edibles can go a long way with the parent or babysitting agency.
4. Driving - Depending on the conditions of your babysitting or nanny position, having a clean motor vehicle record is greatly beneficial. If you are looking to work extensively with children, taking defensive driving classes at your local DMV could help drive the point home for potential employers. Pun aside, defensive driving can benefit other goals and aspirations in your life as well.
5. Damage Control - Conducting a background check on yourself will allow you to see what the potential employers are going to see. This will help you develop a strategy of damage control. You should never lie when applying for any job, but you need to be prepared for anything that will shop up on this check.
It doesn't take a lot of money or time to increase your capabilities for childcare. In fact, many aspects of childcare can be enhanced for free. Even if you are simply going into babysitting as a way to make a few extra dollars, the skills you learn in order to improve that aspect of your life can follow you to other career paths or home situations. Learn what you can and improve your life while marketing yourself.
Author Bio
Nancy Parker is a regular contributor to www.enannysource.com and she loves to write about wide range of subjects like health, Parenting, Child Care, Babysitting, nanny background check tips etc. You can reach her @ nancy.parker015 @ gmail.com