3 Things to Look for in a Babysitter

Sometimes when you are busy, when you are short on help, when there just aren't any other options available to you there is a temptation to just let anyone who is available babysit your kids.

Unfortunately this is not the greatest idea. According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency in the United States 4 percent of the reported crimes committed against children in the form of neglect, assault or sexual abuse are committed by babysitter. This is why it is so important to really be able to assess the character and then predict the behavior of anyone that you hire to look after your child!

Lots of the time we assume that a friend or relative is the best choice to look after our kids. This is not always true unless the candidate has demonstrated to you that he or she is –
1. Mature
2. Responsible
3. Capable

As you know 'liking the person', familiarity with the person and even age may have nothing to do with this. Some of the most likeable people in the world don't like kids or may do you 'the favor' of looking after your kids because he or she feels obligated.

Furthermore familiarity with a person does not always mean that they are familiar with how to look kids or the basics of First Aid. In fact, if you really think about it, some of the people we are most familiar with in our lives, especially family members, tend to lean towards the dysfunctional side (but we love them anyway!)

Also, 'being responsible' does not necessarily come with age. There are lots of sixty year old out there that are much more thoughtless and reckless than the sixteen year old down the street.

Then there is the issue of capability. If you have a toddler going through the 'terrible twos' you do not want to have someone frail or nervous looking after your kid. You want someone who knows how to dry tears, bribe a kid out of it or give him or her Time-Out. You want someone skilled with children and someone who is able to 'make the call' about whether or not to take a trip to emergency if your child is hurt.
In a nutshell, you want an individual who is mature, responsible and capable because anyone who fulfills those three criteria is going to be someone that you can trust when you are not at home!

Online Art Lessons for Free

Have you got a kid that is into art? Jerry's Artarama is a real store that been around since 1968 that is now online. It offers every single art supply you can imagine including brushes, canvas, colored pencils, easels, fabric paints, gold leafing supplies, gouache, inks, pens, markers, scratchboard, pastels, oils – you name it Jerry's Arterama has what you need to satisfy artistic kids.

Although Jerry's Artarama has everything that you could possibly imagine for sale it is also well known for it's online art lessons. Why pay for art school when you can just go to Jerry's Aratrama and watch videos on how to make art for absolutely free. At the time of writing there were approximately 550 free art video lessons on the site e. I have an artistic teenager who just sits and learns from these videos for hours. They are step-by-step in nature and you can freeze a video so you can work on your own project right along side of it while the video is running. Every art teacher who teaches kids should know about this site too!

You can find out on to do some really practical things like stretch canvas, prime canvas, make your own stretchers and so on. There is also lots of theory in with that practice. A glimpse at the most watched videos on the site reveals topics such as 'Blocking In', 'Sight Sizing a Car', How to Make a Pinch Pot', 'How to Use Cover Liquid Watercolor', 'An Introduction to Negative Space', 'Brush and Ink Gesture' and so on. Not only are you taught the technique but also the concept behind it. This site is addictive. I have spent hours on it.

These video lessons are taught by real artists who are art experts in their field. The lessons can also be searched on site according to the medium you want to research (watercolor, oil, pastel etc.), the skill level (advanced, all ages, beginner, intermediate or kids) and the subject area (as in cartooning, collage, color theory, underpainting, printmaking etc,)

The other great thing is that you can order these DVDs online. This is great for teachers of professional and amateur art classes who want to explain a certain artistic technique to a class. If you like making crafts and are thinking of making some for the holidays then take a peek at these videos! They are very educational.