Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Nanny rant (part deux)

It's been 3 weeks since our nanny arrived. It hasn't been smooth sailing. I guess the quick update would be that there isn't much change. Last week, G's mom arrived for a "surprise" visit. When she arrived, of course, g gravitated towards her immediately but something was off according to her. G told me that his mom felt that g had no connection with her. She said that usually when g felt like dancing, she would round up all the people in the house at the time and do a round of "ring around the rosie". g did her little dance, dragging G's mom with her but didn't bother bringing the nanny in. When G's mom arrived, the nanny just started to busy herself with things to do around the house, cleaning, gardening, etc.

Routinely we have just found that the nanny really prefers housework over dealing with g which is sad since that is what she is really there for primarily. However I am trying a new approach this week. Since I have had such a negative perception of her approach to childcare, maybe she has felt this. Maybe g feels this. I have noticed that g is more whiney when she is around. I understand how annoying it could be to care for a child who whines all the time, so maybe it could be it. It's hard to figure out which came first (the attitude or the behavior.)

So for the week, I am going to try to suspend my negativity and try to find constructive ways for her to become more engage with g. We have worked out one thing already last night with regards to her feeding g when G & I are around. Hopefully, a little positivity is all that is needed.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Was just reading this and thinking about the other day when I had taken a random Wed off waiting for furniture delivery. Decided to eat lunch at the playground in Forest Hills and there were young kids and toddlers running all around. What I found amazing was that mostly all these kids were with their nannies and rarely did you see the kid with a mother/father. You could pick out the mother/father-child pair instantly vs one with a nanny. How did you see the difference? The mother/father pair would be actively involved with their kid; ie.pushing them on the swings, running around with them. With the nanny pair you see the nanny sitting off on the bench with the kid running around randomly. This all makes me wonder what choice I will make when in the future. Tough decision...