to cut my nanny's pay?

[MarieFromStMoritz]

I really need some advice as I am at the end of my tether. In order to avoid drip feeding, I want to point out the following:

1. We live overseas where standards and expectations are lower.
2. My DS is a Year 2 child in a Year 1 class.
3. I am experiencing complications in my pregnancy, and am on strict bed rest.

We hired our nanny in January. We chose her because she was recommended to us and because she was a school teacher. We pay her way in excess of other nannies because of this. As our son is in the year below his age group, he needs to do a certain amount of work every day after school to keep up with his age peers. It is not much: some maths, handwriting, spelling, etc. I have provided all the books and sheets, and it is very clear what he should be doing every day. It should take no longer than 40 minutes.

When we first employed our nanny, I was working full-time. Unfortunately, I am having a very difficult pregnancy and am on strict bed rest, possibly until the baby is born in October, so I have had to give up my job.

So, it became clear quite early on that she was not doing his work with him. She will lie and say that he has done it, when in fact he hasn't. She blames him by saying he doesn't want to do it, he said "no", all sorts of excuses. I have had a few talks with her about this, and she promised that she would get on top of it. I have also noticed that some of the work he has done looks suspiciously like it was written by her. Twice I have completely lost my temper with her, but she just says "sorry" and smiles coquettishly. She just doesn't seem to take it seriously. She is 36, by the way. I don't think it's a coincidence that both times I lost my temper with her, I had a massive bleed afterwards. This is all causing me so much stress.

I have also spoken to DS. He can be difficult and you do need to be firm with him. I accept that. But she doesn't really even seem to try with him. I homeschooled him for a year, so I am aware of what he is like. However, it is not that difficult once he gets going.

I try to get DH involved, but he works very hard, very long hours and has a perilous 90 mins commute both ways, so I don't expect a lot from him. I have asked him to listen to DS read every day, that's the only thing I expect him to do. But he never does it unless I put the book under his nose or "remind" him. The thing is, then it will be coming from me, not him, and I was DS to feel that DH values reading and doesn't do it because Mum has asked him to.

So I don't know what to do now. I really feel like saying to the nanny, "well, as you are not doing work with DS as per your contract, we are cutting your pay by 25%". Would that be unreasonable? The thing is, I know that she needs the money. She sends half her salary back home to help her family, so I would feel bad doing this.

And if we do that, then what? Should I use the money to get in a personal tutor? Risk coming off bed rest and do it myself? Or let DS flounder?

I would be very open to suggestions. Thanks very much.

First of all poor you, you sound so stressed.

I think you are understandably getting this being behind a year all out if proportion, in the grand scheme of life it really doesn't matter, lots of kids catch up as they mature. I would keep the nanny to help with chores, while you maybe play a few games with your ds on the iPad, or traditional ones like scrabble, hear him read but stop all the stress, relax, it's supposed to b fun having kids!!!

Dh works long hours, welcome to the club! Mine works away mon to fri, it's very commen.

You need to prioritise and the main concern is your health and the baby, not 40 mins of school work for a young child.

Are you really sure she is a school teacher? How come she is working as a live in domestic help with you then? You had to sponsor her, and she had training in her country first? So, this means she is not a professional, and has no prior experience?

Can she read?
Does she have a husband and children of her own?

She is now working for you, in a culture she does not know, for a family with another culture she does not know? She is not a machine you know!

I think you are expecting too much from her, and need to let her get on with just the care and domestic element and deal with schooling yourself.

How come you live so far from your husbands work place? Can you move closer?

Getting what you want from domestic staff can be so difficult. I ended up letting my helper go when we stayed in India, and did it all myself, as I was not able to manage her and get from her what I needed and expected.

A friend of mine said (very privileged young woman from the higher classes in society) "Being a woman like me in India is so hard, because training staff is such a headache, you get this person from the country side, who has grown up in an illiterate family, and you are supposed to teach them how to clean, how to cook, how to care for china and beautiful linen, discipline the young, in an environment they have only seen on film". You can take what you want from her erm, wisdom, but the point is, that it is very likely that you wont ever get what you want from this woman, she wont be capable.

At least not unless you manage her differently, and communicate in such a way as suggested up-thread. You tell both son and nanny what you expect them to do, you tell your son to do as nanny says, and if not, you will give out the consequences. You need to team up with nanny rather than expecting her to manage him on her own. A 7 year old should be able to do as he is told.

But he is possibly also feeling very insecure and threatened by a mother who is now on bedrest. I bet he is also worried.

As for your sons learning. You say he is a good reader, have you tried letting him play the games on bbc bitesize? There are numeracy and literacy games, which are excellent, and categorized into school year group. There is also a site called Mathletics, and if your school does not already subscribe, you can subscribe yourself. It is excellent. Some of the maths work sheets can be printed out, and he can do it on paper.

My son is 6, and has just joined a Y2 class straight from nursery as we came from Norway to Britain, so I totally sympathize with doing additional work. When he comes home from school he is tired, and just want to relax. Not ten wild horses can make him sit down and do additional work after school.

So we do it after breakfast instead. His mind is fresh, and he is not yet tired. And he gets a break from school work on the way to school.
It works really well. We take 20 minutes, and go through his extra spelling, and his reading. Could you try do some work with him in the morning after breakfast?

Gosh, this was long. Sorry.

Thinking more about it, if you are on bed rest, I would save your energy from all the housework/school run/cooking, and spend the energy you do have on doing any extra tutoring. If indeed it is easy to motivate your 7 year old to do 45 min a day, why not do it yourself (it's probably as long as it takes you to print the sheets out, find stuff for them to do, and then attempt to supervise it). Bed rest doesn't mean you can't sit by a small child and listen to them read/do spellings.

I think you need to take a step back. The problems with your son's education aren't an urgent issue that needs to be solved right now. If he was unhappy at school, being bullied or being neglected by the nanny then you would have to act straight away. However from his point of view his main issues are:

1. Mum is unhappy & on bed rest, therefore can't do as much with him and possibly seems quite cross a lot of the time.
2. Dad is busy with work and doesn't spend as much time with him as he'd like.
3. He resents doing more school work in the evening when he is tired. This is probably increased, if by being older, he is actually one of the more able kids in his class as he may already be getting bored with his school work. Also if he is ahead of the other children and being praised by the teacher for doing well, then why (in his opinion) is he being 'punished' by more work after school.

My advice would be to:

1. Keep the nanny, but re-negotiate her pay to reflect that she is not doing tutoring. If she doesn't like this then she can leave.
2. Speak to the school again, perhaps by this time they will have assessed you son's ability and may put him up to the next class, or allow him to do maths/reading with his age peers.
3. Turn reading with your son into cosy time together, try taking it in turns to do the reading so it's more fun for him.
4. Spend some of your bed rest time devising puzzles for him that involve maths or spelling, perhaps a kind of treasure hunt or crosswords.
5. Encourage DH to spend time with his son doing whatever they both enjoy. Focus on getting everyone de-stressed first!

Remember your pregnancy is the most critical thing here, everything else can wait until after the baby arrives without the world falling apart! Good luck!

I agree with those that say your ds is probably resentful of not spending time with either parent enough and therefore is not going to respond well to a nanny trying to make him do extra work. My dcs simply refuse point blank to do school work with their nanny, they want me and only me to be in charge - they're yr 2 and reception and I think at that age you can't expect them to see the bigger picture and knuckle down to extra work in the hope of a better job in 15 years time. My dd1 will only do extra work if she sits on my knee and I am not allowed to budge while she huffs and puffs through it.

If you can, keep the nanny for housework and general childcare. Personally I wouldn't reduce her pay if you will be really stuck without her but if you are very worried about money then it's up to you.

Spend cosy time with your ds reading, doing educational games on the ipad (remove any other sort) and using educational websites to do maths games etc. Do not worry so much about his long term future, he is young enough for this all to come right in the end.

Good luck with your pregnancy. It sounds very tough.

Let me see if I understand ... you've hired a nanny to do childcare, cleaning and tutoring so your son could do 2 years of school in 1 calendar year (the one the system is making him repeat because they don't understand homeschool and year 2, which he should be in), and you're wondering why the boy isn't interested in doing the extra schoolwork? And then you're blaming the nanny for not forcing him to learn and your DH for not using what little time he has with his son to do reading? And meanwhile, through no fault of your own, you're physically unable to work and thus cannot afford all your financial commitments so wanted to pay the nanny the going rate instead of the extra she gets for tutoring, since she isn't doing that anyway?
When do you return? to the uk, is there scope for catching up over a few years? Or for just accepting that your son will be a year behind once you do return and crossing that bridge when you come to it(I know you're worried that there will be a gap in his education if he does year 1 twice then effectively skips a year due to age)? Basically, I think you have very high expectations of everyone, and need to back off a bit. Maybe try to get some educational games for your son and DH to enjoy together, something related to DHs career (eg legos if he doses anything construction related), but stop pushing your 7 year old so hard, you don't want to turn him off book learning totally!

I would separate the roles.Have a nanny (if you still need one) who is warm and cuddly and lovely.And a tutor,somebody a bit -scarier- less familiar to do the school work.

You employed her to do a job which she isn't doing so she either goes or takes a pay cut since she isn't willing or able to fulfil her role.

I think you are being harsh on your dh here and feeling under undue pressure to tutor your ds.

If you constantly tutor your ds for the year ahead then until you return to the UK he will be constantly doing extra work and then will be bored in the classroom as he will have done it all before. Is it really a good idea at all? I think it would be better to leave him be, just spend some time reading to him yourself for the enjoyment of both of you. He needs to relax and de-stress I am sure.

If you return to the UK there is plenty of good tutoring available and it will not be particuarly arduous to catch up a year in primary school.

Your poor dh can surely just relax with his son not feel under pressure to read to him after a very long working day/commute in order to "prove" in some way (to your ds? or to you?) that he thinks academic achievement matters. You have said some very negative stuff about your dh - is it really warranted?

The situation with the "nanny" sounds very different to a UK nanny. Is this woman working in your house 7 days a week and dawn til dusk? Or do you already have more help besides her?

I agree with other posters that you need to focus on getting the family through the pregnancy without imposing uneccessary extra stress and having these massive expectations of everyone during this period.