Nanny vent...advice welcome! UPDATE POST #13

[MtBikeLover]

I am starting to have some serious doubts about our nanny and some things are just not feeling right to me, plus there are some things that just bug me. I would love advice if I just need to let it go and relax or if I should start looking for another nanny.

1. A lot of times I ask her to do something, I always hear "I'll try but I am not very good at that". For example, she cleans our stove all the time but when she puts it back together it is always put back together wrong. Today, I showed her the right way and her response was "Well, I'll try, but I am not very good at things like that." Also, when I ask her to take the kids places, she says "I'm not good with directions." I offer to give her the GPS then it's "I'm not good with electronics."

2. There is a children's museum about 25 miles away from our house that DD loves. I bought a membership and in the interview, I asked her if she would be willing to take DD. She had said she would. Now, she keeps making excuses not to go and says "I'm comfortable with my driving, but it's the other drivers that I don't trust."

3. She seems to get irritated when I ask her to do or not do certain things with the kids. We use a journal to communicate to each other, and today I asked her not to let the kids watch TV and not to do junk food since they had just had plenty of that at their dad's house over the weekend. She seemed really irritated.

4. When I try to talk to her, she says that she isn't very good at communicating with adults but that she is great with kids.

5. She always shows up tired in the morning. She did not get rid of her other job when she took this one so she works all weekend most weekends. I don't care what she does on her time off, but i don't think she should show up exhausted to my house every morning.

6. She will talk to her friends, read books, etc and they will give her advice on how to deal with my DD but yet she won't share that info with me. The other day, she told me she got some good advice from a friend and I had to ask her 3 times before she would tell me what advice she had gotten. I could tell she was irritated but I told her in no uncertain terms that if she was going to be trying something new with my kids, I wanted to know about it. For example, she was going to try a rewards chart for good behavior but luckily I found out and put a stop to it. She doesn't seem to respect that I want to be involved in whatever she is trying.

7. She makes me out to be the bad guy a lot. She will tell the kids "Do I need to call your mommy?". She will sometimes call me 3-4 times a day to deal with a situation. She will also tell them "No, your mommy will be mad if I let you do that" in situations that she has NO idea at all how I would react because we have never talked about it.

8. She has made many comments to me about spanking. In the interview, she told me flat out that she was against timeouts and spanking, before I even mentioned anything about my beliefs. On her first day, she said "I promised you I would never hit your kids and I won't." Then one day, she was having a rough day with my DD and she told me "I was proud of myself. I didn't lay a finger on her." Then the other day on the phone she told me that she was scared. I asked her what she meant. She said that she was afraid DD would tell me that nanny pushed her or hit her and then it would be DD's word against nannies word.

9. One time, she lied to me about something DS said. It was stupid too and I could tell she was trying to cover because she ran to me as soon as I got home and said "DS will try to tell you.....but I handled it." I knew she was lying right away and dealt with it the next morning by saying "Just so we are on the same page......" and then let it go because it really was a ridiculous thing to lie about.

DD says she is nice, but DD is never really happy to see her. They do seem to interact a lot and do lots of arts and crafts together. And DS really likes her.

I hate to get rid of her because the kids have already had enough change in their life the last few months with the divorce. But I have had a really bad feeling in my stomach for a week now. I just don't see the communication getting any better between us.

I am sorry this got so long. Am I just being too picky and worried? Should I just let this stuff go?

[russsk]

Originally Posted by MtBikeLover

I hate to get rid of her because the kids have already had enough change in their life the last few months with the divorce. But I have had a really bad feeling in my stomach for a week now. I just don't see the communication getting any better between us.

I am sorry this got so long. Am I just being too picky and worried? Should I just let this stuff go?

Please trust your gut. I don't know if any of the issues you raised are indicative of a serious problem or not, but your bad feeling certainly is. You need to honor that, even if all of your reasons don't seem to add up to an air-tight case to get rid of her. If you haven't read it, I would highly recommend "Protecting the Gift" by Gavin deBecker. He has some excellent advice on choosing caregivers, and he says to always follow a gut feeling like that. You may even be subconsciously picking up on other details that you don't even realize that led you to feel like this.

[NewDirections]

You are not being too picky. She sounds weird at best. It's time to find a nanny who is a better fit for your family

[kirstenb]

I would be looking for another nanny. The whole spanking thing alone would cause me to start looking, even without the other issues. Combined with everything else, it doesn't sound like she is a good fit. I don't think you are overreacting at all.

[LynnS6]

I'm going to list in order of how much they bother me, the things that you said in your post:

"I was proud of myself. I didn't lay a finger on her." Then the other day on the phone she told me that she was scared. I asked her what she meant. She said that she was afraid DD would tell me that nanny pushed her or hit her and then it would be DD's word against nannies word.

One time, she lied to me about something DS said.

When I try to talk to her, she says that she isn't very good at communicating with adults but that she is great with kids.
She doesn't seem to respect that I want to be involved in whatever she is trying.

She makes me out to be the bad guy a lot. She will sometimes call me 3-4 times a day to deal with a situation.

Now, she keeps making excuses not to go and says "I'm comfortable with my driving, but it's the other drivers that I don't trust."

She seems to get irritated when I ask her to do or not do certain things with the kids.

She always shows up tired in the morning.

If you had one or two of these things that bothered you, I'd say, give it some more time. But all of them? She seems to be clueless about how to be a good employee, disrespectful and not trustworthy.

Better to change now than to have things go downhill fast!

[hillymum]

As an ex nanny I will say you should have a strong bond with your nanny. Communication should be easy and trust should 100%. You have none of these with this girl. Time to look for someone who you feel a connection with.

[MamaChicken]

That sounds very awkward! My nanny and I talk a lot, at least by text messaging throughout the day. I trust her to talk about things with me. We both recognize that kids behave differently with different people, so it's okay to do things different than I do, but I still want to know about it. My DD is excited the days she comes over and my boys never cry when I leave and seem happy when I get home.

If you have a bad feeling, I would listen to it.

[HollyBearsMom]

There are so many red flags in your post I don't know where to even begin

TRUST YOUR GUT!!!

Your child will get over another transition a lot easier than she will get over being hit, spanked, smacked

Your child will get over another transition a lot easier than you having to rebuild her trust.

You child sees this person as a role model. Is she the kind of role model you want??

I have had 3 nannies in my sons 8 years. 1 for 3 years, 1 for 4, 1 for 6 months. The one we had for 6 months I wish I had listened to my gut sooner. I would have fired her much earlier.

We now have a part time babysitter/nanny. I am a lot more lax here since she really is just a driver to and from after school activities. But still I was like a hawk those first 6 month!!

[JL83]

You definitely post some things that would cause me to find a new nanny.

Other things seem like total micromanaging.

I've worked as a nanny and the best situations are ones where my ideas about parenting (as NOT the parent) and the parent's ideas about parents worked together. Sometimes I needed to do things that they did not. I did sticker charts and time-outs which I would never do with my own child. But they were necessary to do with other people's children. It's a different connection/relationship between a nanny and a child than between a parent and a child.

I wonder if your kids are playing the "you're not my mom" card. I had one family who did that, and it took alot of resourcefulness to figure out how to deal with it without calling the mom to have her back me up. I will confess that I did lie a few times and tell them that their mom had said X when she never had. But the kids pushed every limit to the max, all 3 of them were limit testers. I used to talk to the mom about it and neither one of us wanted the rule to be that they couldn't call her or whatnot, but it got to be silly the number of times they'd try to call her to ask if they could do something I'd said no to. (The mom was a doctor and didn't have time to keep returning phone calls to tell the kids that in fact, they couldn't have more candy or go to the park before practicing their piano.)

However it works out, it doesn't sound like she's a good fit for your family. You want someone who's more adventurous (takes the kids out) and better at communicating. You also need someone who has better child management skills. The nanny shouldn't have to resort to threatening all the time.

My advice would be to write out everything you *want* in a nanny. Figure out what's really important to you. Then pick ~3 things and put them on your *need* list. What's more important, that the nanny is happy that you spring no TV on her on Monday morning or that she takes them to the science museum? Once you have your 2 lists, then interview. Don't consider anyone who doesn't meet all the parts of your *need* list. Then pick the person who also fulfills the most of your *want* list.

[One_Girl]

If you have a bad feeling you should go with it. If you have had a lot of turnover with nannies though then you should really think about whether these things are little things that you are blowing up or making assumptions about because you don't like not appearing in control of every aspect of your children's lives. It is hard to let go of control and I find that when I am under a lot of stress I tend to overreact when it comes to childcare and I get to concerned about little things and in childcare there are many little things. A divorce causes everyone a lot of stress. Is it possible that this is something you are stressing over because it is something you can control quite easily. If she isn't going to you for advice it may be because she thinks you are against her. I think clearing up the communication lines and not making assumptions is very important at this point.

I also want to point out that you can have a good nanny or a good maid to clean your oven and house daily, but it isn't easy to be both of those things. Even SAHMs tend to not do copious amounts of cleaning and excursions on a daily basis. You should consider making your expectations more realistic and more focused on what you want her primary job to be.

I do think you should insist that the nanny brings your child to certain places like the park and the museum a set number of times each week. It should be non-negotiable unless she has a serious concern about your children's behavior outside of the house. I also think you should let her try the behavior chart but insist that it is used only for tracking positive behaviors, especially if she has to call you several times a day because your kids are out of control and they have figured out she has no power over them. Tracking the positive behaviors may help her see that things are going well overall.

[JL83]

I thought about something else.

I picked a care provider (in our case a small center) where I knew we agreed on the big things. They are big on giving children choices. They don't punish (no time-outs or other punishments) and they serve good food.

But I also picked a provider who's judgment I trust for the small stuff. I can't micromanage everything that they do, so I made sure I felt I could trust them to make good (maybe not optimal) decisions about all the little things. Do I like that they seem restrictive in what they let the kids do sometimes (like insisting that their feet stay on the floor even if they are tiny like my DD and can't always reach things), well no. But I trust that their reasons are good and I know it won't harm her to learn their rules. I also don't "like" alot of the crowd control type stuff, but it won't hurt her (or hasn't yet in 18 months) to have that skill. It's not like learning to walk in crocodile lines at daycare has gotten us anywhere with hand holding at home...

[Dandelionkid]

Get rid of her.

[MtBikeLover]

Update - She is gone. Today, when I got home, she told me that they sat in the parking lot at the grocery store for 1 hour while DD threw a tantrum. Now, DD has never thrown a tantrum like that before so I found it odd that it took that long for her to calm down. Then DD said that nanny grabbed her wrist. Nanny said that wasn't what happened. So I finally said that I would talk to DD and try to found out what was going on.

DD told me very clearly that nanny yelled at her because she snapped her seatbelt off while the car was parked but before nanny told her it was ok. DD is 4yo. DD told nanny not to talk to her that way and nanny yelled at her some more. DD told me that nanny grabbed her wrist really hard and that it hurt.

So I called nanny to see what had happened. She had amnesia all of a sudden and said she didn't remember what had set off DD. She said she was scared of DD because she was trying to bite her and that she pushed DD to get her off of her.

DD has NEVER EVER bitten anyone nor tried to.

Nanny also told me that it was so bad that someone in the car next to them asked if everything was ok.

At this point, I wasn't believing any of what the nanny was saying. She said this wasn't working and said she wasn't coming back. Funny though that she had already cashed the check. She even brought up the police saying that she wouldn't be surprised if I was calling the police as we spoke. I didn't really get that comment.

I thought the kids were going to be upset, but they were really happy. DS told me later that night that nanny never really talked that nice to DD.

Thank god it was only 6 weeks and luckily she was only in the house alone for 1 week with the kids since my ex just moved out.

The kids have said that she never hit them or hurt them other than the wrist holding today.

I have to say I feel so much better. I really need to trust my gut more. Thanks everyone who said to trust your gut. I'm not sure that I would have questioned her so hard today on the phone if you all hadn't pushed me to listen to my feelings.

[MtBikeLover]

Originally Posted by One_Girl

If you have had a lot of turnover with nannies

This was our first nanny. I had a teenage sitter for the summer but other than that it had always been ex-husband that watched the kids during the day.

[HollyBearsMom]

Well I am so sorry you are out a nanny but so glad she is gone!!!

Your children will always remember that you talked to them, your listened to them and you *believed* them. What a wonderful lesson you have taught them on trust and honesty and unconditional love.

Good luck on a new search! I had great luck with sittercity. Lots of responses with craiglist but no success. Nanny agency took a lot of guess work out of the proccess but was really $$.

peace

[JL83]

Not that it's important at this point because the situation blew up. But it sounds like you think it was totally OK for you DD to undo her seatbelt before the driver told her she could.

I don't yell normally, but I sure would in a serious safety incident like that.

It sounds like you're OK with you DD being rude to the nanny. And if I yelled at a child for doing something really dangerous (a child in the back seat has NO way to know if the vehicle is actually stopped or if the driver is going to decide to move to a better spot), and the child told me not to speak to them that way, I would be pretty upset.

As a former nanny, you may find it hard to keep a nanny if your kids know you will side with them when they misbehave. I had 1 family where that happened and I quit within 2 weeks. The mom couldn't understand why they were going through nannies so fast (most only lasted a week). She kept telling how hard it was to find "reliable" people. But the children listened to absolutely nothing I said and felt free to be extremely rude because their mom would always take their side.

[GoBecGo]

I would freak right out if DD undid her belt too.

It sounds like your kid didn't feel respected by this nanny and thus didn't respect her (i wouldn't encourage DD to call me to try to undermine every instruction made by the nanny, if i had a nanny, i'd tell her the nanny is in charge when i am gone and i expect her to behave as well as she does with me).

Never mind, she is gone now and you're sure to have a MUCH better idea about what sort of person you want next time.

[ssh]

Originally Posted by JL83

It sounds like you're OK with you DD being rude to the nanny. And if I yelled at a child for doing something really dangerous (a child in the back seat has NO way to know if the vehicle is actually stopped or if the driver is going to decide to move to a better spot), and the child told me not to speak to them that way, I would be pretty upset.

The nanny was lying to her. Also the nanny yelled at the child and the child told her not to talk to her that way. A person, any person has a right to not be yelled at. Some families do not tolerate verbal violence. We also teach our DC to tell people "No" and "Stop" when they are treat our DC inappropriately. My DD's preschool teacher also tells my DD this same thing. Grabbing someones wrist to the point it hurts is abusive and shows a lack of emotional control. A nanny is a child care professional and except for "stop that's dangerous" get fired if they yell at children. Child care professionals get fired and sometimes sued for physically hurting a child. The nanny knew she was out of line that's why she thought that the police may have been called. If there was a mark on the childs wrist that could be an assault charge. Also taking off ones seatbelt or harness straps once the car is fully stopped and parked in a parking lot is not misbehavior. It could even be something the little girls parent allow.

To the OP, I'm glad your nanny is gone and nothing worse had happened. At least now you know to go with your gut feelings. Your intuition is accurate. I really hope your able to find someone wonderful. Maybe you could ask your DC to be sure and let you know everything they think about the new person. It would have been nice knowing that your DS thought the nanny never really talked nice to your DD as soon as he noticed.

[GoBecGo]

It could even be something the little girls parent allow.

But clearly it is not something the nanny allowed. If one wants someone to care for one's child exactly the way one would, make the decisions one would make, respond exactly the way one would respond and know intuitively all one knows when one goes about the role of care-provider then one needs to look after one's child one's-self.

[JL83]

Wait a minute.

You wouldn't yell if you were crossing the street and a child in your care ran out before you were ready? Taking off your seat belt before the driver says it's OK is that level of dangerous. I think that yelling in fear is an appropriate response.

I do agree that the nanny shouldn't have grabbed her wrist. That was wrong. And there is no defense for that.

But her DD should NOT have been rude to the nanny. He DD should have apologized for unbuckling.

I think that the OP needs to look at how she supports/doesn't support the next nanny. It really sounds (from the 1st post too) like the kids treat the nanny like she has no authority. No one can watch children effectively for any length of time without authority.