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---------------------Nanny Net News------------------------
A newsletter for Parents, Nannies and Agency Owners
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Vol. 3, No. 1
February 2002
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Deborah Smith, Editor
Parents With Nannies, Inc.
Deborah@4EverythingNanny.com
This newsletter is distributed by subscription only. If you
wish to unsubscribe, you can find instructions at the end of
this newsletter.
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IN THIS ISSUE
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> A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
> SWEEPSTAKES
> PEACEFUL PARENTS, PEACEFUL KIDS
> ARE YOUR CHILDREN VULNERABLE TO DISEASES WE ONCE THOUGHT
WERE ERADICATED?
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A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:
Hi Everyone,
Well, I can't believe it but we are actually going into our
third year of publication. Our first edition went out to
just 23 subscribers. Now we reach close to 1600 nannies,
parents and agency owners every month. Some of you have been
loyal subscribers since those first few editions and I just wanted
to say thank you and I hope we can look forward to many more
years together.
We have two great articles for you this month. The first is
an excerpt from an excellent book, Peaceful Parents, Peaceful
Kids by Naomi Drew. I am half way through the book and it has
helped me tremendously in dealing with my four-year-old. One of
the most helpful tips the book has given me is about setting
limits and sticking to them. My son is known at his pre-school
as the "negotiator." His teachers tell me that if they ever have
a hostage crisis they will send in my son because he would surely
bring the bad guys to their knees. With the help of Peaceful
Parents, Peaceful Kids I think I have finally found a way to
set limits that will make our house a much more peaceful
environment.
(I hope to have Naomi as a guest in an upcoming
online chat. I will let you know more in the coming months.)
The second article this month is by Fran Hernan, mother of five,
grandmother of nine, and nanny of many. She is also the author
of The ABCs of Hiring a Nanny. Fran writes about the importance
of immunizations especially in light of the fact that many parents
are hiring immigrants who have not been immunized.
I hope you enjoy this issue. Please keep contacting me with your
suggestions for articles that you would like to see in future issues.
I always appreciate your feedback.
Sincerely,
Deborah Smith
Editor
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JANUARY SWEEPS
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PEACEFUL PARENTS, PEACEFUL KIDS
Practical Ways to Create a Calm and Happy Home
by Naomi Drew
Excerpt:
Teach Your Child How to Cool off When Angry
A chapter on raising peaceful kids wouldn't be complete without
a section on cooling off. Although we'll be dealing with anger
management strategies in depth later in this book, I want to give
you a quick overview now so you'll be able to teach your children
the process of cooling off right away.
We all get angry. Anger is a normal and natural human emotion.
However, anger can lead to huge problems when we choose to react
to it aggressively. Research has shown that when children are taught
how to cool off and calm down, explosive episodes can be avoided.
Start by sitting down with your child at a neutral time when
you're both feeling relaxed. Let your child know that you're
going to help her come up with some constructive things she can
do next time she feels angry. Tell her it's so much easier to solve
problems when we cool off first; then we can sit down and talk about
things calmly. Let your child know you've started using cooling off
strategies in your life, and share some of your favorite ways of cooling
off with her.
Now help your child identify things that help her feel calm when she is
upset or angry, like deep breathing, counting to ten, going into another
room, splashing cold water on her face, or writing down angry feelings
in a journal. Be creative and don't discount any ideas your child comes
up with. Sometimes unexpected ideas that come from children yield the
best solutions.
When Barbara did this activity with 7-year-old Kim, here's what Kim came
up with, "Hug my teddy bear, drink some apple juice, go into my room, put
on my favorite tape, and 'squoosh" clay real hard."
So, the next time Kim got upset, Barbara told her to stop, take some
breaths, then look at her list to see what she could do to cool off.
Kim went into her room, grabbed hold of her clay, and started rolling
it out into a long rope. Before long, she became calm enough to talk
over the problem with her mother. In the past, Kim would have gotten
stuck in a pattern of whining and nagging instead.
===================================================================
About the Author: Naomi Drew is recognized
around the world as one of the first to introduce
peacemaking and conflict resolution into public
education. She has specialized in this area for
twenty years, has lectured nationally to parents,
educators, elementary school administrators, and
has worked extensively with children.
Ms. Drew is the author of two other books,
Learning of Peacemaking and The Peaceful Classroom in Action,
which Jonathan Kozol praised as "gentle, ingenious, and
immensely practical." Hailed as visionary, her books are
used internationally by educators and parents. She has
worked in public education for twenty-four years, and
currently heads an advisory panel on conflict resolution
for the New Jersey State Bar Foundation.
To order Peaceful Parents, Peaceful Kids, follow this link:
http://4nanny.com/book_of_the_month.htm
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Are your children vulnerable to diseases we once
thought were eradicated?
by Frances Anne Hernan
Public awareness is at its peak with the threat of another
terrorist attack, particularly biological warfare looming
over our very existence since 9-11. Concerns about anthrax
and the shortage of small pox vaccine have Americans rushing
to their doctors for prescription medication.
While parents expecting to get routine shots (immunizations)
are being informed that the shots aren't available.
The shortage is so great; some states are releasing parents
from their requirements for school and daycare entrance.
Doctors are delaying the schedules, with the promise that
the shots will be available at a later date. If the parents,
for whatever reason, don't get the shots later, not only are
they risking their own children, but could risk spreading
diseases we thought were eliminated or very low risk.
The Center for Disease Control recently announced a shortage
of vaccines against four of the eleven diseases preventable
through routine vaccination of children: diphtheria, tetanus,
pertussis (whooping cough) and penumoccoccal disease. This
shortage, could leave hundreds of thousands of children
unprotected from what are really very preventable diseases.
Delays in vaccine availability for influenza vaccine, which
is recommended for many adults and children, could cause
serious problems. Insufficient stockpiles of vaccines, and
difficulty in following practices established by the FDA,
add to the problems. Companies have reported manufacturing
problems in making the vaccines; consequently fewer companies
are making the vaccines. While the vaccines are very important
to the health of the nation, they are not lucrative from a
financial perspective.
"We have to look carefully at how the vaccines are produced,
how they're distributed. We have to coordinate much better
between private physicians, public health authorities and private
pharmaceutical companies. And we have to coordinate a great deal
more. That's why I have asked the General Accounting Office to
conduct this survey of possible programs that we can do at the
federal level." (Senator Jack Reed of RI, Mornings With Paula
Zahn (CNN) December 4, 2001)
Senator Reed has asked the General Accounting Office to conduct
a survey of possible programs to determine the severity of the
problem. The GAO is currently studying the issue of vaccine
shortages to better understand the problems and identify solutions
that will prevent this situation from occurring again.
Our children are vulnerable to diseases we once thought were
eradicated, particularly those who haven't had shots on time?
Undocumented individuals (nannies and housekeepers) that have
never had any immunizations, threaten the well being of our children.
"The issue is broad reaching and goes to the heart of the economics
of childcare. Just as women have bought into the traditionally
undervalued roles of mother (and wife) so too have women unwittingly
assigned little value to the hired versions of these occupations.
With this unconscious diminution of worth has also come the reduced
concern for the health and welfare of these vital roles so that women
who work for women as nannies and caretakers are often not insured for
medical care and are not tended to for their illnesses in the same
professional manner any other employee would expect. Immunization
in this country is seriously deficient both for women (as compared
to men) and for women that are hired by women to care for their children.
The medical risks that result are considerable, both to the caretakers
themselves and to the families they are charged with. For example,
in the U.S., most cases of Pertussis infection (whooping cough), can
be traced to under or non-immunized foreign caretakers. It is even
conceivable that polio, which currently exists in isolated pockets
outside the U.S., could resurrect here by way of foreign carriers
working in our homes, now that the broadly protective oral vaccine
has all but been eliminated from use. It would serve us well to
have every recent émigré, particularly those working in childcare,
immunized with live vaccine before permitting them to work with
young children. I have rarely been asked to provide immunizations
for new childcare workers unless I have specifically made a point
of recommending this, despite Pediatricians being in the most
advantageous position for doing this. And yet, even among Pediatricians,
there is little said on the subject." Paula M. Elbirt, MD Assistant
Professor of Pediatrics, Mt.Sinai /NYU Medical Center, New York City
and author of the Dr. Paul parenting series, most recently
Dr. Paula's Good Nutrition Guide, Perseus Books.
This recently announced shortage (that could last until mid 2002)
makes the problem much worse. Prioritizing the available vaccine
will decrease demand and end spot shortages but until these
shortages are overcome, parents must pay close attention to
their children's immunization schedule and make every effort
to get the shots when supply catches up to Demand. If you
want more information about the shortage and other issues
that directly face you and your children, please visit
the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
http://www.cdc.gov/ and the page of the National Immunization
Program, http://www.cdc.gov/nip/
========================================================
Frances Anne Hernan, mother of five, grandmother of nine,
and nanny of many. Author of The ABCs of Hiring a Nanny,
expanded version, I'm a Nanny not a Ninny, and Triumph
over Violence, A diary of a Battered Woman.
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NEW NANNYCLASSIFIEDS.COM AFFILIATE
Welcome to our new NannyClassifieds.com affiliate
Twin Cities Professional Nannies. TCPN is a Minnesota
nonprofit corporation formed in July 2001 by a group
of nannies living and working in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul
area of Minnesota. There website is located at
http://tcpn.homestead.com/. TCPN will be carrying our
classifieds on their website to help nannies in their
area find employment. Thanks TCPN and welcome.
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T-SHIRTS FOR THE NANNY AND KIDS IN YOUR LIFE!
Great gift ideas! We now ship our shirts outside the
US. Email me for details: Deborah@4EverythingNanny.com
http://www.4everythingnanny.com/products.htm
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I hope you have enjoyed this month's issue of Nanny Net News.
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