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Halloween Fun and Safety Tips for a Spooktacular Night!

Introduction

Halloween is a favorite holiday for many children—a night filled with costumes, candy, and spooky fun! However, as exciting as Halloween can be, it’s essential to keep safety in mind while ensuring everyone has a great time. From choosing the right costume to making trick-or-treating safe, here are some tips for creating a Halloween experience that’s both fun and safe.

1. Choose Safe and Comfortable Costumes

Costumes are at the heart of Halloween fun, but safety should come first. Here’s how to pick the right costume:

Choose Bright Colors: Opt for bright or reflective costumes so children are easily visible in the dark. If your child’s costume is darker, consider adding reflective tape or glow sticks.
Check the Fit: Make sure costumes fit well to avoid tripping or catching on objects. Avoid long, trailing fabric or accessories that could be a hazard.
Fire Safety: Choose flame-resistant materials, especially if there will be candles or open flames around. Many costumes and props are labeled as flame-resistant.
Comfort Matters: Halloween can be a long night, so pick costumes that are comfortable, breathable, and weather-appropriate to ensure everyone can enjoy themselves.

2. Go Trick-or-Treating Safely

Trick-or-treating is the highlight of Halloween, but it requires some safety planning:

Stick Together: Always trick-or-treat in groups. Young children should be accompanied by a trusted adult, and older children should go out with friends, never alone.
Plan a Route: Map out a safe, well-lit route and make sure children know not to take shortcuts through alleys or unfamiliar areas.
Use Flashlights and Glow Sticks: Give each child a flashlight or glow stick to increase visibility. It not only helps them see where they’re going but also makes them more visible to drivers.
Set Ground Rules: Remind children never to enter a stranger’s house or car. They should stay on well-lit paths and only visit homes that have their porch lights on.

3. Practice Road Safety

Halloween can be a busy night, so it’s essential to stay vigilant on the streets:

Use Crossings: Make sure children know to cross streets at designated crosswalks and to look both ways before crossing. Remind them to avoid running across streets.
Stay on Pavements: If Pavements are available, use them. If you’re in an area without sidewalks, walk on the far edge of the road, facing traffic.
Avoid Distracted Walking: Remind children not to use their phones or other distractions while crossing the street or walking in busy areas.

4. Inspect Treats Before Eating

After trick-or-treating, it’s tempting to dive into the candy stash, but it’s essential to inspect treats first:

Check for Tampering: Look for any unusual wrapping or packaging before letting children eat their treats. Discard anything that appears opened, homemade (if it’s from an unknown source), or suspicious.
Consider Food Allergies: If your child has food allergies, check labels carefully to ensure treats are safe to eat.
Moderation is Key: Halloween candy is exciting, but encourage kids to enjoy their treats in moderation to avoid sugar overload!

5. Safe Alternatives to Trick-or-Treating

For families who prefer to avoid traditional trick-or-treating, there are plenty of fun alternatives:

Host a Halloween Party: Create a safe, festive environment at home with Halloween games, treats, and a costume contest.
Trunk-or-Treat Events: Many communities host trunk-or-treat events in parking lots, where families can collect treats from decorated car trunks in a controlled environment.
Movie Night or Scavenger Hunt: Organize a Halloween-themed movie marathon or a scavenger hunt in your neighborhood or backyard.

6. Decorate Safely at Home

Halloween decorations are fun, but it’s essential to keep safety in mind, especially if you have young children or pets:

Avoid Real Candles: Use battery-operated candles in jack-o’-lanterns and other decorations instead of real flames to reduce the risk of fire.
Keep Paths Clear: Make sure walkways are clear of obstacles to prevent trips and falls for trick-or-treaters.
Secure Decorations: If you have hanging or inflatable decorations, ensure they’re securely fastened, especially if it’s windy.

7. Keep Pets Safe

Halloween can be overwhelming for pets, so it’s essential to ensure their safety too:

Secure Pets Indoors: The excitement of Halloween can stress out pets, so it’s best to keep them indoors, away from the door and trick-or-treaters.
Keep Treats Out of Reach: Halloween candy, especially chocolate and artificial sweeteners, can be harmful to pets. Keep all treats safely out of their reach.

Conclusion

Halloween is a night of imagination and fun, and with a little planning, it can be safe and enjoyable for everyone. By taking precautions with costumes, trick-or-treating, and home decorations, you can ensure your family has a spooky yet safe Halloween. Enjoy the festivities, stay safe, and have a hauntingly good time!

World Environment Day

World Environment Day: Reimagine, Recreate, Restore

World Environment Day is celebrated each year to encourage worldwide awareness and action for environmental protection. This year’s theme invites us to reimagine the way we interact with our environments, recreate sustainable solutions, and restore damaged ecosystems.

Why We Need to Act Now

With rising pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss, it is more important than ever to adopt sustainable practices that protect the environment.

How to Get Involved

Participate in local clean-up drives or tree planting events.
Reduce, reuse, and recycle in your daily life to minimize waste.
Support policies and leaders who prioritize environmental sustainability.

Conclusion

World Environment Day is a call to protect our natural world for future generations. Every small change contributes to a larger impact when it comes to environmental protection.

How to Parent a Strong-Willed Child Without Breaking Their Spirit

As parents, we often celebrate the unique qualities of our children that make them who they are. However, when it comes to raising a strong-willed child, we may face some challenges in balancing their determination with the need for discipline and guidance. In this article, we will explore how to parent a strong-willed child without breaking their spirit, empowering them to become resilient, independent adults.

Respect their autonomy: Strong-willed children crave autonomy and control over their lives. Instead of fighting them on every decision, try to provide options and allow them to make choices within a set framework. This shows that you respect their independence while still maintaining boundaries.

Choose your battles: It’s essential to prioritize what’s worth fighting for and what’s not. Focus on issues that impact their safety, health, or morals, and let go of smaller conflicts.

Positive reinforcement: Praise your child’s good behaviour and acknowledge their efforts, even if they don’t always succeed. This encourages them to continue making positive choices.

Set clear expectations and consequences: Establish boundaries and make sure your child knows what is expected of them. Consistently enforce consequences when boundaries are crossed, but also be open to discussion and negotiation when appropriate.

Stay calm and composed: Strong-willed children can often push our buttons, but it’s important to remain calm during conflicts. By staying composed, you model appropriate behaviour and prevent the situation from escalating further.

Encourage problem-solving: Teach your child to analyse situations and produce their own solutions. This not only empowers them but also helps develop critical thinking skills.

Be a good listener: Take the time to genuinely listen to your child’s thoughts and feelings. This builds trust and opens the door for more effective communication.

Display empathy: Show your child that you understand their feelings and emotions, even if you don’t always agree with their actions. This fosters a stronger parent-child bond and makes them more receptive to your guidance.

Be consistent: Consistency in enforcing rules and consequences is crucial when parenting a strong-willed child. This helps them understand the limits and expectations set forth.

Model appropriate behaviour: As a parent, it’s essential to model the behaviour you want to see in your child. They will look to you as an example of how to handle various situations.

Raising a strong-willed child can be challenging, but with patience, understanding, and the right strategies, you can help them grow into confident, responsible adults without breaking their spirit.

World Book Day 2023

Engagement with books can start very early, especially if there are pictures. Babies can be encouraged to hold board or cloth books, experiment with turning the page, focus on pictures and listen to simple stories. Toddlers are often able to recite parts of the narrative, turn the page at appropriate moments and point to the pictures. When their language skills are more developed you can talk about the pictures and what they show about the characters and what they’re feeling.

To celebrate World Book Day this post is all about books and imagination.

How can I make story time fun and encourage children to engage with books?

A story sack associated with a book gets children to anticipate what happens next by providing visual cues. For familiar stories this jogs the memory and for new books it encourages them to let their imagination fill in the blanks before you read on.

Many children enjoy the process of learning to read, engaging with letter recognition and decoding, although it can also be frustrating. Keeping children focused on the story and what the words are communicating rather than the shape of the words themselves means reading doesn’t become a chore, but a way of accessing meaning.

Communication and reading together is important long after a child can read unaided. Children learn enthusiasm for suspense, the pleasure of unexpected twists in the tale and how to respond emotionally to stories by talking about them with others. By reading together children can access books which are beyond their reading level but within their intellectual capacity and this extends their language skills.

We don’t have many books

Whether it’s cost or space holding you back, you don’t have to own books to enjoy them. Find out where your nearest library is here (if you live in England) and join up to borrow books for free. If you don’t have a library, see whether anyone in your circle of friends would be interested in book swaps. Toddler groups and activity centres often also have a collection of books so make a beeline for them and make time to sit for five minutes and enjoy a book together. School aged children may be able to borrow books from the school if you have a quiet word with the teacher.

If you find a really great book, keep it in mind for a birthday or Christmas present. It’s worth owning books you will read time and again, even if you have to sacrifice some space to do so. Also it’s not necessarily the number of books that matters as recent research shows reading the same books over and over may in fact be beneficial for toddlers to expand their vocabulary. Even if the same word appears in many different books it may not be picked up as toddlers focus on other details. Familiarity with the story means it’s likely they can pay attention to the vocabulary and absorb it.

What can I do with books that isn’t just reading?

If you feel you lack imagination to move beyond what is written on the page, you aren’t alone. Start by using visual supports, such as puppets, to act out parts of the story or encourage children to incorporate actions such as wading through the grass or splashing in the river in ‘We’re Going On A Bear Hunt’. You can then use the start of the story when playing with the puppets and ask children to continue with their own version or pick up on the actions to create your own hunting story. When playing with toys, suggest that you act out the story together, for example a tea set can easily be used as props to act The Tiger Who Came To Tea.

Stories can be incorporated into art and craft activities too. Children’s own artwork can be used to inspire a story, or books can provide inspiration. Why not use fingerpaint to make a Hungry Caterpillar eating his way through the week? Or if you’re feeling ambitious try it in 3D with papier mâché! How about making a woodland scene using natural materials complete with a Gruffalo or making the animals in their crates from Dear Zoo?

Let your imagination run wild!

Friendship Day

It’s National Friendship Day on Sunday, taking time to show our friends how important they are to us is a good lesson to teach our little ones, recognising and appreciating good friendships is critical in this current world and knowing who you can love, and trust is a great skill to learn from an early age.

National Friendship Day offers a special opportunity to go beyond the normal, everyday appreciation of friends.

So, what can we do to show our appreciation and what can out little ones do for their friends?

Spend Time with a Friend

Beyond cards or gifts, truly the best way to show a person how much their friendship means is by spending quality time with them. Offer to take them for a cup of coffee, have a chat over an ice cream cone, or even just go for a walk in the park. Practice being a good listener and be an encouragement for whatever is going on in your friend’s life.

Create and Send a Card to a Friend

You don’t have to spend a lot on a card, handmade, personal cards will show how much you care even more and so will the words you put inside. Your little ones will love making cards for their friends too!

Get creative with drawing, stamping, painting, or cutting out pictures to make a collage. It might even be fun to get super crafty and make handmade paper to write the note on. Grab an envelope, put it in the mail, and let that friend know how much they are appreciated on National Friendship Day!

Friendship Bracelets.

How about making a friendship bracelet with your older children? For over 50 years friendship bracelets have been given as a sign of love and affection between friends. These handmade tokens can be large or small, intricate, or simple, but what is most important is that they are made with love! A quick search of the internet will soon show you how to make them!

Bake Friendship Bread

Your little ones will love doing this and what a super gift to give to those special people in their lives!

A tradition started by Amish people; friendship bread is made from a sourdough starter that is often given by a friend. Each time a loaf is made, a small portion of the starter is kept aside for the next loaf, which is perfect for National Friendship Day.

Because it contains yeast, the friendship bread starter is placed in a warm area where it is stirred daily and can “grow.” Keeping the starter alive means adding a few ingredients on certain days, like flour, sugar, and milk. It usually takes about ten days for the starter to be ready to make another loaf.

Once a person has the starter (or has patiently made one from scratch), this is a delicious bread that is easy to make, including ingredients like flour, eggs, baking soda and cinnamon. Because it uses a lot of sugar to make the yeast grow, Amish Friendship bread has a delightfully sweet flavour to it, suitable for toasting or simply eating slathered with butter.

New Job, New Family

Starting a new job is always nerve wracking but when there are children, parents and possibly animals involved it can be doubly so! But remember the family are probably as nervous as you are….

Starting a new job is always nerve wracking but when there are children, parents and possibly animals involved it can be doubly so! But remember the family are probably as nervous as you are, they may never have had a nanny before or their previous one was well loved and in their minds difficult to replace or maybe they have had a nightmare with childcare previously and they are worried this won’t work out either. So going in with an open mind and a friendly, respectful attitude will almost certainly get you off to a good start and have the children and therefore Mum and Dad loving you within days!

Preparation for those first few days is key and we have some top tips on how to get the foundations of a good working relationship off to a good start.

1. Once you have been offered the job try and spend some time with the previous nanny while they are still with the family or arrange a day with the family so that you can all get to know one another a bit better. Expectations and requirements should all have been discussed prior to accepting the job and should all be stated in a formal contract, for example are you responsible for just watching over the children and keeping them entertained or are you also expected to cook and clean up after them. Do you have regular days off or is it on a week-by-week basis and if the parents are in the house who has responsibility for bedtimes etc all these are important factors to discuss prior to starting work. But getting to know the family and all the personalities that go with it takes much longer and spending time with them before you start may help that first week go more easily.

2. If they family have had a nanny previously it may be a good idea to discuss the routine they had with that nanny and what worked for them and what they would like to see done differently, remember that it’s possible that the children may have had the nanny from a young age and that routines and house rules need to be changed to consider the more grown-up child. Check that you have been fully informed about allergies, medications, disabilities, or anything that may make the child particularly anxious. Having a better understanding of the children you are in charge off means you can often exceed expectations and avoid the need to constantly be referring to Mum and Dad with questions they might expect you to already know. Having all the specifics of how they would like things done from what time mealtimes are to when they should go to bed means that you can structure the day and make sure that the children are happy, healthy, and having fun!

3. Make sure the first week or two with a new family are full of activities, days out and plenty of getting to know you time. It’s important that you bond with the children quickly and that they are comfortable around you. The parents will love to see happy, smiley faces and hear about all the thoughtful and well structed activities their youngsters have had. Parents like nothing more than to see that their children are learning and having fun. Hands on activities help children bond with strangers and get them chatting without feeling self-conscious around new people and try and find time to do something with each child individually and find out what they like and dislike. Gaining their trust and confidence is imperative in the early days and will make for excellent solid foundations if a bit if time and effort is put into this.

4 Plan for things to go wrong, make sure you know where the first aid kit is, how the doctor or dentists are and do a quick trip around the house to identify a hazard (you’d be amazed how many families forget to mention they have a pond (or even a swimming pool!). Check you have all the necessary contact telephone numbers and

5 Most Nannies now use their mobiles to pop a photo or message about how the day is going but it is also a useful tool to debrief parents each day about what has gone on and what the highs and lows of the day have been. It’s also great to look back if there are any issues further down the road to see if there is a pattern in a child’s behaviour or to clarify a situation. Mum and Dad love to hear about their children’s day and being involved in this way, being asked questions, or letting them know about some of the positives and negatives of the day helps them to feel involved.

6 And finally, have some little treats planned for yourself throughout the first week. Starting a new job is hard work and when working with children there definitely isn’t a minute to yourself during the day. So, arrange to meet friends, go for a massage, or visit the cinema, it will help you relax and switch off and you will go into work feeling refreshed and ready to face the new day.

Small Employer Relief

Our partners at www.PayrollForNannies.co.uk provide payroll advice for parents and nannies and have provided this content. For more advice and support please get in touch with them.

In order to qualify for small employer relief, your liability for national insurance for the last complete tax year needs to be £45,000 or less.

An employer hiring a nanny will often meet the criteria of small employer relief.

This means that for statutory payments such as maternity pay, paternity pay, shared parental pay and adoption pay, you can reclaim 100% of these payments plus an additional 3% to help towards the cost of your employers NI.

It is important that this is noted in the payroll software, so if you ever have statutory payments, they will get deducted off your tax and national insurance liability each quarter.

Employers with a liability of more than £45,000.00 in last complete tax year can only claim back 92% of the above statutory payments.

THE JOB RETENTION BONUS EXPLAINED

Our partners at www.PayrollForNannies.co.uk provide payroll advice for parents and nannies and have provided this content. For more advice and support please get in touch with them.

In our review of Rishi Sunak’s Winter Economy Plan https://src-time.co.uk/government-announces-further-covid-19-support/, we referred to the Job Retention Bonus (JRB) which was announced earlier this year to sit alongside the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), although it does not actually form part of it. The Chancellor has decided that when the new Job Support Scheme (JSS) commences on 1 November, it will be possible to claim both it and the JRB.

Background

The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the scheme in July 2020 as an incentive for employers to retain staff in respect of whom they were receiving CJRS payments, after the CJRS scheme had ended.

The scheme comprises a one-off payment to employers of £1,000 in respect of every eligible employee for whom the employer has made a valid claim under the CJRS and who remains continuously employed through to 31 January 2021.

The JRB payment will be subject to corporation tax or income tax, so the business must include the whole amount as income when calculating its taxable profits.

Employers will be able to claim the JRB through gov.uk after they have filed their RTI returns for January. Payments will be made to employers from February 2021 by direct bank transfer

Qualifying employers

All types of employers are eligible for the scheme including recruitment agencies and umbrella companies, as well as those private households operating a PAYE scheme in respect of domestic staff. The employer must:

have a UK bank account

have complied with their obligations to pay and file PAYE accurately and on time under the RTI reporting system for all employees to the end of January 2021; and
be up to date with payroll obligations and have addressed all requests from HMRC to provide missing employee data in respect of historic CJRS claims.

Employee eligibility

Each employee must have been:

furloughed and the subject of an eligible CJRS claim;

continuously employed by the relevant employer from the time of the employer’s most recent CJRS claim for them, to 31 January 2021; and
paid a total of at least £1,560 for the period 1 November 2020 to 31 January 2021. The employee does not have to be paid £520 in each month but must have received some earnings in each of the three calendar months that have been paid and reported to HMRC via RTI.

Claims may be made for employees who are office holders, company directors and agency workers, including those employed by umbrella companies. These criteria must be met regardless of the frequency of the employee’s pay periods, their hours worked or rate of pay.

Employees who have returned from statutory parental leave or who are military reservists returning to work after 10 June 2020, for whom a CJRS claim has been made, all qualify provided the other eligibility criteria are met, as do employees who are on fixed term contracts.

Note that the employee must not be serving a contractual or statutory notice period, that started before 1 February 2021.

Winter Economy Plan

Our partners at www.PayrollForNannies.co.uk provide payroll advice for parents and nannies and have provided this content. For more advice and support please get in touch with them.

In an unprecedented move, the government has cancelled the Autumn Budget which had been tipped to include substantial tax increases for the affluent in favour of announcing a raft of measures to support jobs this winter in the wake of a double blow from COVID-19 and Brexit.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak announced today his Winter Economy Plan, which seems to have been inspired by similar programs in other European countries.

The current Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) will be replaced with a new Job Support Scheme (JSS)

The JSS is intended to ‘directly support’ wages of staff working at least a third of their regular hours after the CJRS scheme ends as planned at the end of October. It will start in November 2020 and end in April 2021.

Employers will pay their staff normally for hours they work. Then, they will be paid two-thirds of their pay for the remaining hours (with the employer and the government paying one-third each). So people will still see lower take-home pay – we have prepared the table below.

Normal Hours	JSS Hours	Take home percentage of contracted hours

33%	67%	77%

35%	65%	78%

40%	60%	80%

45%	55%	81%

50%	50%	83%

55%	45%	85%

60%	40%	86%

65%	35%	88%

70%	30%	90%

75%	25%	92%

80%	20%	93%

85%	15%	95%

90%	10%	97%

95%	5%	98%

The level of grant will be calculated based on employee’s usual salary, capped at £697.92 per month. The employer will be reimbursed in arrears for the government contribution. The relevant employee(s) must not be on a redundancy notice.

The JSS is intended to protect viable jobs over next six months after the furlough scheme ends in October.

All small and medium-sized firms with a UK PAYE scheme and UK bank account are eligible – but large firms are only eligible if their turnover has fallen in the pandemic and can document this.. The JSS is open to firms who have not used CJRS.

It is designed to sit alongside the Jobs Retention Bonus and businesses can benefit from both schemes in order to help protect jobs.

The Job Retention Bonus is a one-off payment to employers of £1,000 for every employee who they previously claimed for under the scheme, and who remains continuously employed through to 31 January 2021. Eligible employees must earn at least £520 a month on average between the 1 November 2020 and 31 January 2021. Employers will be able to claim the Job Retention Bonus after they have filed PAYE for January and payments will be made to employers from February 2021.

CJRS Clarification on parents returning from maternity/paternity leave

The government has clarified that parents on statutory maternity and paternity leave who return to work in the coming months will be eligible for furlough scheme even after the 10 June cut-off date.

Introduction

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), which was scheduled to be wound up at the end of July has been extended until October, with new flexibilities introduced from 1 July to support the economy by allowing furloughed employees to return to work part-time.

To enable the introduction of part-time furloughing, and support those already furloughed back to work, claims from July onwards will be restricted to employers currently using the scheme and previously furloughed employees. This means people must have been on the furlough scheme by 10 June.

However, the government confirmed last week that parents on statutory maternity and paternity leave who return to work in the coming months after a long period of absence will be permitted to be furloughed.

This will only apply where they work for an employer who has previously furloughed employees.

Our analysis of the new measure

The types of statutory leave that will qualify employees for furlough are: maternity leave, paternity leave, adoption leave, shared parental leave and parental bereavement leave.

According to the government’s announcement, furlough can be agreed with employees on those types of leave ‘who return to work in the coming months’ (presumably up to October 2020), provided that ‘they work for an employer who has previously furloughed employees’ So any employees, not just the returning parent would count, and presumably having furloughed one employee would suffice).

The announcement says that this applies to employees returning to work after ‘a long period of absence’ without saying what that period is, but it seems unlikely that this is anything more than sloppy wording, with statutory leave running in weeks, one week of leave should be sufficient or else the rules would be nonsensical and open to challenge.

The wording of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme Factsheet (published 29 May 2020) suggests that it is not necessary that the employee remains on furlough at the point that the new scheme is introduced, provided that they have been validly furloughed (for a minimum three week period) prior to that. If this is correct it would allow an employer to re-furlough employees who were subject to a rotating furlough arrangement prior to the introduction of the new scheme.

If an employee was not furloughed for the first time by 10 June 2020 then the employer will not be permitted to claim their pay under either the pre or post 1 July 2020 CJRS scheme. This is because a full three-week furlough period is required prior to 30 June 2020 in order to qualify under either scheme. There will be no minimum furlough period from 1 July 2020. However, any furlough arrangement agreed between employer and employee reported in a claim to HMRC must still cover a period of at least a week.

When the new scheme was announced there was no exception for those on family leave. This meant that employees who were on statutory family leave and in receipt of less than the lower of 80% of pay and £2,500 would have needed to either agree to short notice to end their statutory family leave early so that they could be furloughed by 10 June 2020 and remain eligible under the new scheme, or remain on statutory family leave with the risk that they were made redundant on their return from leave because there is no work for them and they cannot be furloughed as the scheme has closed to new entrants.