We happily announce our new family program's birth. It grew out of 100s hours coaching, 1000s hours brainstorming with children and parents and 1 million hours of nannying.
The program is a private bootcamp for parents and nannies to start to write their own same page. It is a getting to know each other one day to three days when they can get to know one another's private and parenting style better.
As we decide to have a new nanny in the family we don't have too much time to get to know her. One maximum two interviews (max. 2 hours), checking out papers, calling references. That is all we know about the person who we'll leave our children for long hours day after day.
We feel a bit calmer when we choose the nanny through an agency. As they must be professionals so they know what to look for. But I can reassure you a nanny agency won't do any more work than you if you do it in private. They check out the CVs, call references, ask for certain papers. Plus they try to match a family who they don't know too much with a nanny who they know probably less about.
So where is this leave us? We choose to have a nanny, we find one and we leave our children with her/him after max. one day supervised probation day. So what's happening after that? We have a good professional with our children who we don't really know anything about.
As we don't know the style of each other and the expectations from both side we have the first some months with trying and (t)error.
Questions from the family's side:
- What if I chose the wrong person?
- What if my children won't like this nanny?
- What if her parenting style is worse than mine?
- What if her parenting style is better than mine?
- What if my children won't love me anymore?
- What if my children will love her better?
- What kind of extra tasks can I ask her?
+ 100 million other ones
Questions from the nanny's side:
- What kind of person leaves their children home when they go to work and pay for someone else to look after them? (job type, reason to go back, why to choose a nanny instead of other options, etc.)
- What kind of tasks do they want me to do?
- This is their house but I live here (nannies work 5 days a week) - can I do certain things on my own way?
- What is their parenting style?
- What is their punishing style?
+ 100 million other ones
There is usually no time and occasion to talk about questions like these. During the handing over period it is good if we have enough time to talk about what's happened during the day. How could we possibly get to know each other? Do we need to actually get to know each other better?
I am not sure how other people feel about this question but I felt 100% better and safer in those families where we made some effort to get to know each other. When you become friends with the nanny, family it is much better to be on the same page. If everybody is happy it is a beginning of a long lasting personal and professional friendship. Having the same nanny for year(s) is better for the children, for the family and for the nanny too.
If you are interested to form a long lasting professional and personal relationship between your family and nanny than don't hesitate to contact me.
For your family's happiness,
Adrienn Faklya-Schmitz
