Regardless of whether you’re new to employing a nanny or a seasoned veteran. Understanding how to set and maintain boundaries with your nanny is key. Not only will a set of expectations help maintain boundaries with a nanny, but it will promote a positive working relationship, and give you the flexibility to enjoy each others company; let’s face it, you’re going to be spending a lot of time together (especially if you work from home).
Setting boundaries with a nanny doesn’t need to be overcomplicated. In our opinion, parents and nannies that have a clear understanding not only work better together, but they continue to have a positive relationship and friendship outside of working hours.
Understanding the Importance of Boundaries with a Parent or Nanny
As a parent or family, whilst you want to enjoy the experience of hiring a nanny, its important to maintain boundaries with a nanny or childcare professional once you’ve employed them. Any healthy nanny and employer relationship has boundaries, so don’t let that terminology put you off.
Having a clear set of boundaries in place will help you work better together. It will prevent both you and your nanny from getting involved in tasks and jobs that are either outside of the job expectations, or, as a parent, prevent the nanny from getting involved in things or taking part in activities with your little ones that you’d prefer they didn’t.
Other boundaries may come down to communication preferences. For example, you might be happy for the nanny to contact you via text message or WhatsApp during working hours, but you’d prefer they didn’t reach out to you during the evenings (unless they need to inform you of a sickness, or something equally as relevant).
Establishing Clear Expectations for Building a Nanny and Employer Relationship
Establishing clear expectations and nanny duties is something that, as a family, you’re likely to have thought about prior to hiring a nanny. However, that first week of employment gives you the perfect opportunity to set some healthy boundaries and rules for you both to respect and abide by.
An excellent way to be transparent and display expectations is in the form of a written document.
Something that can be reviewed regularly and updated as needed that is signed and dated by both you as the family, and your nanny. Don’t see this as a contract, but more of a professional agreement between you all that states that the nanny responsibilities are clear and have been agreed. Of course, it’s recommended that any clear responsibilities for the role are specified in the contract for legal purposes too.
Parents: How do you set boundaries with a nanny?
Establish some clear topics or areas that you’d like covered. These often include boundaries and general rules that cover the following:
- Communication preferences
- Transportation
- Activities
- Food and snacking
- Personal relationships
- Additional children in the family home
Have an adult conversation with you nanny or babysitter around communication. What method of communication would you prefer, is there a time of day that generally isn’t good for you, or maybe you’d like them to provide you with regular updates either daily, weekly or monthly. This really is open and flexible and depends on how open you’d like communication to be.
Think about any transportation boundaries you’d like in place when the nanny is caring for your child. Some families will allow the use of the family vehicle for the nanny to get children to and from school, activities or classes. But it’s important for the nanny to respect that the vehicle is for work use, and shouldn’t be used for personal errands or socialising outside of work.
Do you have any preferences around activities for your children? You might want to ensure that your children’s wishes are respected, if they’re uncomfortable doing something, you’d want to make sure that the nanny respects that and doesn’t push them to the point where they get upset or no longer want to take part.
The possibilities really are endless when it comes to creating nanny boundaries so make them work for you and your employee.
Communicating Openly and Regularly with Your Family or Nanny
A lot of what we’ve discussed in this post comes down to communication. Babysitters and nannies need to have regular communication with you as a parent to help them do their job better. This doesn’t mean you need to have a daily meeting at the end of each day.
If either of you pick up on something that doesn’t quite seem right, the best course of action is to have a conversation about it.
Understand what the problem is, and work together to come to the best solution. This is only going to benefit everyone involved, including the children. Setting those professional boundaries at the start of your working relationship will only make having these kinds of conversations easier, as both of you will naturally become more approachable.
What about performance reviews with my nanny?
Regularly performance reviews are extremely useful for both families and nannies. From the nanny position, it allows them to understand what’s been working well, and where there are areas to improve. As parents, to provide help for nannies and to maintain the professional boundaries that you’ve set, keep any performance reviews professional and agree next steps accordingly, communicating any new details and expectations clearly.
Is oversharing an issue?
You should look to bond with your nanny and create a good, professional, working relationship. However, even if you get on really well with your nanny, it’s best not to overshare and discuss certain things. This could include topics such as your marriage, finances and other personal circumstances.
This also works both ways.
As the family nanny, avoid discussing your personal situations and never discuss previous employers or the families previous child care solutions negatively. If you need to discuss these topics, then do so professionally and avoid gossiping.
Work to Respect Each Others Personal Boundaries
As parents and families, it’s important to respect your nanny, and not interfere with their personal lives outside of agreed working hours to create extra work or discuss additional job duties. Likewise, for nannies, the family may be your employer, but you need to respect that and treat them as you would in any professional working setting.
If you’ve hired a live in nanny, it’s important to respect their own time and allow them to relax and do their own things in their personal space. Likewise, if you have a personal office at home, as a nanny, they should respect your privacy and refrain from going in there unless requested or absolutely necessary.
Conclusion
For employers and employees, there are some clear non-negotiable boundaries that need to be respected by all parties.
For nannies, whether they’re a live in employee or external, live out childcare provider, they need to respect the families personal spaces, beliefs and communication preferences. It goes without saying that the relationships you build should always remain professional. If at any point you feel that your personal relationship is starting to become intimate, you should look to end your employment and find a new nanny job elsewhere.
A great way to help cement your boundaries so that everyone is working with the same expectations and transparency is to create a signed agreement. This isn’t a contract, but will help maintain organisation and keep everything professional.
Looking for your next role or nanny?
The team here at Nanny Recruit specialise in nanny recruitment. We only place professional, experienced nannies that are OFSTED registered so you know that your children are in safe hands. If you’d like our help in finding a nanny, please get in touch with us here.
If you’re a nanny looking for work or preparing for your current role coming to an end, please submit your CV with us and we’ll gladly support you in finding your next family.
