Your children are your most valuable asset, and you want the peace of mind knowing you’ve left them in the best hands possible if yours are not available. Selecting a child care provider is more than picking out a day care. Day care centers have their own advantages, but you must first decide what you expect from a child care situation and base all decisions around your expectations and budget.

Assess Your Situation

Your children’s ages have much to do with your decision about childcare. Young infants have little need for socialization and require a great deal of hands on care. Older children strongly benefit from socialization and structure of some kind although there is great debate as the value of education at the expense of play. A single child gives you many options for childcare while multiple children needing care might be better served by a single provider to take advantage of what amounts to a bulk discount.

Consider Your Desires

What you want for your children is obviously the best, but “the best” can vary by family and your particular child’s temperament. For example, an infant with special needs or extreme fussiness will likely get more personalized attention from a nanny or babysitter dedicated to only one or very few children. A child struggling with social skills or speech would do well to be surrounded by a structured preschool environment that provides discipline, security and motivation.

Do you want your child to receive individual care or to be in the company of others? Are there an acceptable number of children a caretaker should be responsible for at a given time? Would you prefer your child to be in a group of his peers or in a group that includes children of various ages?

Make a list or at least spend a few minutes thinking about what would be an ideal childcare situation. You may find that staying home with your child is the ideal, but if that option is not available for financial or other reasons, you’ll want to arrange the next best scenario. (more…)

Working at home is the dream of many, but when children are added to the mix, the dream can quickly become a nightmare if proper provisions aren’t set. Children are demanding and young children especially have a difficult time allowing parents to work in their presence. Parents working at home with children must find time, space and dedication to effectively balance all areas of their life as well as maintain or grow their careers.

Set Business Hours
Your first step to working at home is to determine the time you’ll actually be working. By setting and maintaining routine business hours, you will maintain a professional feel and your clients and colleagues are better able to reach you. The beauty of working at home, however, is that your hours don’t always have to be publicized nor do they have to conform to traditional office hours – unless you’re expected on conference calls and other such commitments.

Set your hours around your current situation. If your children are in school or preschool at a certain time, those empty hours are obviously your best work choice. Even if you work only four hours in the morning to take advantage of preschool programs, you can find the remaining hours in the evenings or early morning when your children are sleeping or on the weekends when your spouse is home to help entertain the children.

Once your hours are set, establish a sort of routine to help you settle into your hours. A routine will help you find a work frame of mind more quickly and avoid unproductive time. For example, after you drop your children off at school, grab a cup of coffee and go over your emails. By the time your administrative tasks and coffee are done, you’ll be ready to jump into the day. (more…)

Education has been proven many times over to be the absolute best means to grow your career and increase your earnings. To use education effectively, you should pursue learning opportunities in your current field or select a new field that suits your interest and skills. The more you learn in a particular industry, the more advanced your skill level will be and the more valuable you will be to a particular employer – or you might learn enough to employ yourself.

The Benefits of Education
The costs of education are almost always far outweighed by the benefits. Knowledge alone is priceless, but to put a price tag on a degree or certificate the latest figures show an individual with just a high school diploma earns an average of $30,940 per year. Six months to a year of higher education increases that salary to $35,048. An associate degree earns an average of $37,492 and a bachelor’s degree is another big step up at $50,024.

If you were to complete a bachelor’s degree while working in a skilled job of some kind, you would stand to increase your earnings by over $12,000 a year. Should you go on to pursue a master’s degree, you can expect to see your earnings jump even higher to $59,280. There is definitely value in a single certificate or training class, but the impact on the bottom line by a full degree is even more impressive.

Using Education
To use education effectively, you must first assess your long-term career goals. If you’re hoping to start anew in a totally different industry, your educational program will be far different than the associate looking to move up to a management position within a corporation. Once you have your goals in mind, you can begin to sort through the many programs and alternatives to find the best educational solutions for you. (more…)