How To Get A Mary Poppins
Who'll watch your kids when you're not around? As a parent, it's one of the most important decisions you'll ever make.
There are no ironclad guarantees that the baby sitter or nanny you hire will be a Mary Poppins. But in his book Protecting the Gift, author Gavin de Becker does have some clear and simple guidelines. He shares some with CBS News This Morning.
Many parents would never think of asking about what they are really the most concerned about, like "Have you ever mistreated a child?"
Too many parents feel that asking this kind of question would be rude or ridiculous because surely anyone who did mistreat a child wouldn't answer truthfully.
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Check References
It sounds like common sense to check references. But while many parents ask for references, very few actually call them, de Becker says. References don't do you any good unless you actually speak with those people.
And when you call references, you should always ask if they could give you the name and number of someone else who knows the applicant well.
That's a good way to get references that the applicant won't have prepared for you to call, he says.
Trust Your Intuition
If you have any suspicions about a candidate or a baby sitter once you've hired them, go with your gut feeling and fire them. Most parents who install nanny cams to check out suspicions behavior end up firing the nanny anyway.
If you are suspicious enough to need a nanny cam, you don't trust your nanny or baby sitter and you should find someone new.
When parents have a nanny cam, they can feel the selection process is less important and can lower their standards, de Becker says.
Communicate Expectations
Whatever their expectations, parents often assume their house rules will be honored, but don't always communicate them.
Don't assume that everyone knows a baby sitter's boyfriend isn't welcome. You must communicate that message directly to the sitter. It can be really valuable to write them down in a book, a guidebook that is organized and intelligent, de Becker says.
Neighborhood Kids as Baby Sitters
Fnally, there is no rule about what age is too young to be a baby sitter. But there are interesting tradeoffs: Hiring a 13-year-old girl certainly means it's highly unlikely that she'll have a criminal record for armed robbery.
But it's also unlikely that she'll have lots of experience caring for young kids, notes de Becker.
And he suggests that before hiring a teen-ager you might want to ask yourself the following:
Does the prospective baby sitter know how to deal with the possible con artist that could call or come to the door?
Does he or she know how to handle the unpredictable events that could arise, like medical or other emergencies?
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