MomTrusted on Parenting, Kids, and Early Education Archive:

WIN – just by posting on MomTrusted!

Get your own Online Provider Business Card

How do you Promote Your Profile with your very own Provider Widget?

It’s easy!

1. Just login to your MomTrusted.com account and click on the “home” tab at the top of the page.

2. Use your mouse to select the Widget Code from the Your Widget Code box.

3. Copy the code from the box by holding down the Ctrl button on your keyboard and clicking on C (button on your keyboard) at the same time. (OR you can normally right click the mouse and choose “copy” from the menu that pops up).

4. Now go to your website, facebook profile, or wherever you are going to put your widget. Paste it there by clicking in the text area (somewhere you would be able to type text normally). You can paste by holding the Ctrl key and the V key at the same time OR right clicking in the text area and selecting “paste” from the menu that popped up.

Use your MomTrusted Personal Provider Widget to professionally link to your profile. Here’s an example:

Your widget shows your profile picture, provider name, provider type (facility, preschool, nanny, babysitter, inhome), the number of positive parent reviews you have, the first few lines of your descriptions, and links to your child care or preschool profile. This way new parents can easily find more information about your services and your current parents can quickly leave reviews. It’s like an online business card for your child care business or preschool!

Here’s a few other ideas for how to use your child care or preschool profile widget, use it in
– your email campaigns to your current parents
– your email signature
– classified ad postings across the web (craigslist, facebook, etc)
– your classroom blogs
– your website
– your signature on forum and chat sites (cafemom, momslikeme, babycenter, etc)
– all your social networking profiles (facebook, myspace, bebo, friendster, hi5, orkut)
– all your social media sites (youtube, yahoo profiles, bookmarking sites, etc)
– ANYWHERE you promote yourself on the web! (if you have other ideas we would love to hear them!!)

If there are any places that do not allow you to use your provider widget code but will allow you to put a link to your website or profile…simply click on “View My Profile” from your “Home” tab (after you login on MomTrusted.com you will automatically be directed to this page). Once you are on your public profile, copy your unique url from the address bar of your internet browser. It should look something like this:

http://momtrusted.com/in_homes/3243-NannyMable

Use this url as your own personal website to allow new parents to get important information about your services quickly.

If you have any problems please feel free to contact me! :)

Finding Good Preschools. How to I know?

We spoke with Kim Ginn of 4C for Children in Cincinnati, OH for her thoughts on how to select quality preschools for your 3, 4, and 5 year olds.

What Kim had to say:

Be sure to evaluate the physical environment of the Preschool.
1. Look for a clean, safe, and healthy environment. The space should be free of potential safety hazards.
2. Ask about policies on storing and distributing medication.
3. Are the teachers and staff trained in first aid?
4. Is the outdoor play area fenced?
5. Are emergency and exit plans posted and drills practiced regularly?

The importance of group size and ratios
Lower ratios allow teachers to respond and support children’s individual development and learning needs. NAEYC, National Association of Education of Young Children, reccomends 1 teacher for every 10 children with no more than 20 children in a group. A group is the number of children in a room and/or doing the same activities.

Qualified teachers and ongoing training are important for up to date understanding on how children learn and grow.

Trained teachers will:
1. engage children in conversation at the child’s eye level
2. ask who, what, when, where, why, and how questions
3. allow children to choose their own activities and toys most of the time
4. encourage the children to solve their own problems

In a qualified teacher’s classroom you will see boys and girls playing together and hear music, laughter, and singing.

Find quality state and parent rated preschools at MomTrusted.com

Now sign in with your Facebook account!

Parents…do you have a Facebook account?  Now you can log in or register on MomTrusted with your Facebook account.

Once you accept the registration through your Facebook account you will only need to remember your Facebook credentials to log in to Momtrusted.com.  You will also  be able to “Like” your favorite Child Care, Preschool, and Inhomes providers.

Liking your favorite child care and early education provider not only helps them promote their business…it helps your friends and family know what has worked for you!  You probably already know that a recommendation from someone you trust is the best thing you can get when looking for child care or preschools.  So help your friends out and let them know the places you like!

Exciting New Features for Providers

Exciting new features for child care centers, preschools, inhome providers, nannies and babysitters!

1. Invite Parents to Get More Reviews

Now, from your home tab you can invite your current or past parents to MomTrusted.  When you get your parents to your profile you can substantially increase the number of reviews you have!  Invite them by searching your email contacts and selecting the appropriate people OR entering them by hand from your offline email list.

2. Get Your OWN Facebook Page

When someone “likes” your profile on MomTrusted we send it over to Facebook to get you more exposure.  When a parent clicks “like” that page is sent to their Facebook profile where all their friends and family can see that they like your services.

Don’t want to wait around for someone else to “like” you to get on Facebook?  You don’t have to!  Just go to your profile and click the “like” button.  Once your page is on facebook ANYONE can connect to it and learn more about your services.

3. Have a Question?  Confused about something?

Give us your Feedback!  Now from every page you can click on the “feedback” tab on the right hand side.  Here you can ask a question, give a suggestion, or tell us how great we are ;)  Never feel stuck again, let us know what’s going on and we’ll get back to you or fix the problem as fast as we can!

Child Care Centers for all of Ohio NOW AVAILABLE!

Attention Ohio Parents:

We now have all licensed child care centers in Ohio on MomTrusted.com! 

Now find:

– Akron Child Care, Akron Inhome Centers, Akron Preschools, Akron Nannies, and Akron Babysitters.

– Cincinnati Child Care, Cincinnati Inhome Centers, Cincinnati Preschools, Cincinnati Nannies, and Cincinnati Babysitters.

– Cleveland Child Care, Cleveland Inhome Centers, Cleveland Preschools, Cleveland Nannies, and Cleveland Babysitters.

– Columbus Child Care, Columbus Inhome Centers, Columbus Preschools, Columbus Nannies, and Columbus Babysitters.

– Dayton Child Care, Dayton Inhome Centers, Dayton Preschools, Dayton Nannies, and Dayton Babysitters.

– Toledo Child Care, Toledo Inhome Centers, Toledo Preschools, Toledo Nannies, and Toledo Babysitters.

and ALL Ohio Child Care, Ohio Inhome Centers, Ohio Preschools, Ohio Nannies, and Ohio Babysitters.

Listening to kids

Adora Svitak spoke to TED in February about why adults should listen to and learn from children. This 12 year old is an amazing speaker and has some really great ideas.

My take-aways:

– Let yourself imagine without limitations…working inside a box only stifles creativity. As Adora says, “Sometimes [for adults] a knowledge of history and the past failures of utopian ideals can be a burden…we kids still dream about perfection. And that’s a good thing because in order to make anything a reality, you have to dream about it first.”

– Learning should be reciprocal between adults/teachers and children. Both learn more when operating in this way. Additionally, adults must really listen to kids to create the best learning environment.

– Finally, never underestimate the abilities of children. They are much more capable than we think and we should give them space to succeed.