OK, we have a nanny housekeeper. At the mo, dcs (7, 4, 3) are in summer activity centre/nursery respectively. She picks them up and they're all home at 5-ish, then have tea around 6 or 6.30. I get home between 6 and 7 usually. I have repeatedly said "no TV" in the week. DS1 has revealed that they actually always spend this 1 1/2 hours watching Power Rangers, Pokemon, and a load of horrible ads for junk food and plastic rubbish.
Now, my problem is that the carer in question is a nice person, but just useless with small children, with exactly zero imagination for games and no techniques for coping with tantrums and rows. When I confront her with this, she just says "but they were fighting" and looks dumbfounded when I ask whether she had thought of initiating a game, doing a puzzle, starting a painting session.
But, I don't think power rangers is suitable for 3 and 4 year olds as too violent. And I don't want them watching the adverts.
But, they seem to have found their happy medium in this way, and we are only talking until mid-August, when we will have other childcare arrangements. I don't have time or inclination to engage in extensive training for the nanny/housekeeper, as we are moving house, I'm busy at work, and she's leaving anyway, and it's just not a complete train wreck (though this is one of a series of problems, which is why she's leaving when we move). But I am a bit cross.
So what would you do? The options are:
- Let it go. After all it's hardly child abuse and everyone's happy.
- Say no TV, and babysitter has to be responsible for making sure they have something to do apart from fighting.
- Say they can watch TV, but only a DVD from the kids selection (extensive) that we have at home. The problem with this is that they always argue about what to watch.