What I Look For In A Nanny: Interview with Laura

Hi everyone! It’s Laura back with this week’s video.

Finding the right nanny for your family is SO important! Nobody wants to settle for a nanny that they are any less than thrilled about.

It’s not always easy to find that perfect fit but there are some things you can do to increase the likelihood of finding a fantastic nanny.

In this week’s video, check out the tips and tricks that I personally use when looking for a nanny. I hope you find it useful and enjoy!

Click the button below to watch.

Click Here To Watch!

A transcript of the video can be found below: 

Finding the right nanny for your family is so important. Nobody wants to settle for a nanny that they are anything less than thrilled to partner with. 

It’s not always easy to find that perfect fit, but there are some things that you can do to increase the likelihood of finding a fantastic nanny.

I believe there are several characteristics that make for a great nanny. 

Now, this isn’t an exhaustive list of what makes a great nanny, but I do think that these are some key characteristics to consider. 

Nurturing

You definitely want your nanny to have a caring and loving way about them. Nurturing care is going to meet all of the child’s social and emotional needs, and it will help them to grow and thrive in a secure environment.

Proactive

It’s really nice to partner with a nanny who is proactive in their approach to care. 

This could mean being a proactive communicator with a family, this could be a proactive planner for activities or the weekly schedule, or even proactive as in taking the diaper pail out just because it’s full.

Good Communication

Being a good communicator is so important in the nanny-family working relationship. 

Good communication when the relationship is newer means that everybody has clear expectations about the position, the style of nanny care that the parents are seeking, and also the ability to give and receive feedback. 

If one party doesn’t feel like safe communicating their feelings or ask questions, that is not going to lend to a strong working relationship. 

Good communication never stops being important throughout the relationship. Of course, it’s always great to have check-ins and a way to quickly and easily connect about any issues that may arise as time goes on as well.

Mindfulness

It’s really important, and it can apply to so many aspects of the nanny-family relationship as well as to the nanny care. It’s important to be mindful of parenting styles and communication styles, for example. 

It’s also important to be mindful of how to best support developmental stages and emotional development for children. 

Being mindful of feelings and emotions, naming them, holding space for them, and helping children to develop language and tools pertaining to emotions is also really important for children. 

Modeling mindfulness could mean pointing out a bee on a flower or how nice the sun feels on your skin or that a certain activity made everyone feel really happy.

Learning Mindset

I love it when nannies have a learning mindset and are curious about the world around them and want to share this with their nanny kids. 

Children are naturally curious, and their minds are like little sponges. 

Nurturing this curiosity and realizing that children are learning from absolutely every interaction, conversation, game, activity, and adventure will help to support a learning mindset in some of a child’s most formative years, and a nanny can play a huge role in helping the child to develop that learning mindset.

Positivity

Positivity is another helpful trait because it can really impact the whole dynamic in a child’s day. 

Helping a child to see the bright side of things is so important because children have big feelings about just about everything.

How Do You Find Those Characteristics in a Nanny?

That’s a really good question because these characteristics can be trickier to evaluate since they are not typically listed on a resume. 

There are some ways you can tease out that information and evaluate whether or not a nanny candidate has these traits. 

Some of my suggestions for that include having a detailed job description. Make sure to talk about your family and also tell about what an ideal nanny would mean for your family. 

The goal is to have something about your job description really resonate with a nanny. 

If there’s some common ground, maybe a shared interest or a shared parenting or care philosophy, that can really help to facilitate a great connection and a deeper or more flowing conversation during an interview.

I also make sure to point out that you should be evaluating every single interaction with the nanny candidate. 

Responsiveness to emails or text messages when setting up an interview can really help to demonstrate reliability and proactivity. 

A nanny asking if they should remove their shoes upon entering your home or texting if they’ve maybe arrived a few minutes early for the interview and they’re checking to see if you’re ready early, they’re happy to start earlier, that kind of thing really demonstrates attention to detail and also mindfulness.

And this is one of my favorite ways to gain insight into those characteristics that a nanny might possess: include some non-child care questions in the interview. 

Think about what questions might help you to evaluate qualities or values that are not listed on that resume. 

This could be a question about where do they see themselves in five or ten years, what is a goal they are currently working to accomplish, or what was the last good book they read. 

While these questions might seem kind of silly and off-topic, they will really demonstrate if the nanny can be flexible and how they will handle a question they didn’t likely prepare for. 

You might be able to glean information from these answers, such as that they are easy-going, cheerful, positive, or really mindful.

I also recommend asking a nanny about their care philosophy. It’s extremely important that you are satisfied with this answer during an interview. 

This is going to be the foundation of the nanny care that they deliver, so you want to make sure that you like what they have to say about this. 

A nanny’s care philosophy could include some official care philosophies, such as attachment parenting, positive discipline, or perhaps the Montessori approach, just to name a few. 

This could also be examples of how a nanny approaches certain situations or the types of activities they enjoy doing with children for different ages and stages. 

You may be able to get a good sense of if the nanny is nurturing and proactive here.