To sack my au pair over this issue

[puffyisgood]

Have had an pair for a few months, looks after our kids aged 4 & 6 for c an hour in the morning before school & c three hours in the evening.

Been a little disappointed with her for a few reasons... In a nutshell she's not very good at either of her two main jobs, namely: (1) preparing tea for the kids - it's nearly always just a ham sandwich that they quite often don't finish for whatever reason; and (2) washing & looking after the kids' clothes - it just never seems to get done in time]. But at au pair rates you don't expect to get the best of the best, I've been planning to soldier on.

In the week something bad happened that's made me seriously consider the au pair's position. We were out for a couple of hours so she was babysitting, got a text saying there was an emergency, got back & the kids' bathtime had somehow led to several litres [maybe even gallons, it was a lot of water] being thrown out of the bath onto the floor, much of it eventually staining the ceiling of the room below.

All agreed that the kids [mostly the 4 year old] threw the water out using a jug we keep in their for hairwashing. They've been disciplined for this.

In terms of why the au pair didn't notice/stop them, she said that they locked her out of the room [which doesn't sound at all like them], they say she disappeared for a long time, which sounds much more likely TBH.

How serious do mumsnetters think leaving kids of that age [not babies, I doubt there's an incredibly serious drowning risk] . But for her not to hear the racket they no doubt made when chucking all this water around I should think she must have been several rooms away and/or inappropriately absorbed in something. I'll often leave the kids alone in the bath whilst i dash off to grab a towel or something, but only ever for amounts of time best measured in seconds rather than minutes.

How serious does this sound??

She sounds a bit rubbish but on the other hand you need to give very clear instructions to an inexperienced au pair.

For example you should tell her what to give the children for tea every day and make sure the ingredients are ready.

Tell her not to leave them in the bath. For things like that it's be better if you show her how to do it the first couple of times. It's good that she told you straight away that there was an emergency at least! She probably feels bad about it but if she does it again now you've told her not to, that would be the time to sack her.

Tell her about any other important safety things. Really spell it out (hold hands crossing the road, lock the door when going out etc etc)

Be clear about what you expect her to do all day. If she does 25 hours a week with 4 hours childcare per day, that leaves an hour for her to do chores. Tell her what you want her to do in her hour's chore time each day. Then say thank you when she has done it.

And every single day when you get home ask her did the children behave, were there any problems. That gives her a chance to say why she didn't manage to do the laundry or that they refused to eat their tea etc. She may just need a bit of extra support and guidance. She may well be relieved if you lay down a few guidelines for how to handle the children.

She may telling the truth. If she is, then she has little authority over your children, if she isn’t, she’s not acted responsibly. Either way, there are a number of issues about which you’re not comfortable. I’d also ask her to leave.

What do the dcs say?

Before getting your next au pair, I’d be talking to the children about their behaviour and ensuring they are respectful.

Then say thank you when she's done it? I'm sure the OP has basic manners Carefreeee.

She's a lazy so and so. Get rid!

Should an au pair be bathing two children unsupervised, in the absence of parents who aren’t even in the house

Well she is an adult.

Should an 18 year old mum bath her kids or does she have to have an older adult present?

Age isn't the issue here.

If they locked her out then she should have broken the door to get in.

Definitely fire her

She shouldn't have left the bathroom at all. If one of your kids had jumped around in the bath slipped and fallen it would only take moments to drown.

On a serious note - all bathroom door locks should be able to be opened from the outside with a coin.

I'd sack for the bath business, but then I wouldn't and didn't have an au pair for a pre-school child. Hire a nanny why don't you? Au pairs are not trained child care. She's fucked up but then so have you for trying to get nanny care on au pair's wages. Can't believe you think there isn't a drowning risk.

At 120 pw you are getting a sweet deal. How old is she ? You refer to her never having cooked for you. Why should she? She's a language learner, not a cook. It's your job to say what meals need to be made for the children. Spell it out for her, or the next unfortunate .

As an ex Au Pair I'd say have a sit with her and tell her exactly what's expected of her and what's absolutely not acceptable (i.e. leaving the kids alone in the bath). When you're in your late teens or early 20s you just don't look at things the way you look at them when you're a mother.

When I was aupairing in Spain I was once told off by the host mother for not making her daughter's hair in the morning. I still shiver when I think of that day and how nasty she was to me (and it was nearly 20 years ago!) but the thing is, no one had ever sat down with me and told me: this is what you're expected to do. They just assumed I knew. But you hardly ever know when you're still a kid yourself.

So, I'd have a chat with the girl first (unless you'd already had that chat then yes, sack her).

Tell her about any other important safety things. Really spell it out (hold hands crossing the road, lock the door when going out etc etc)

Someone so incompetent that they needed to be told to lock the door or watch a four year old when crossing the road wouldn't be in charge of my dc for ten seconds.

You can't possibly brief someone on every potential safety hazard - it can't be done. Don't let the four year old jump on the trampoline with a gobstopper in their mouth. Don't let them run up to the face of the snarling Rottie. Don't let put peas up their nose. Stop them from jumping over the fence with knife-sharp spikes.

You need someone with a decent amount of common sense, which is possible even with no childcare experience. If they don't have enough sense to do even the basics without being instructed, that's a disaster waiting to happen IMO.

Get rid. Now!

I agree with a lot of what carefreee says.

How old is the au pair ? In general what is her attitude ?

Ppl tend to forget that au pairs are young, usually teenagers who may have babysat before, but may not have training or the experience which naturally come to us as common sense.

OP, I suggest you visit the AP forum, where people have a lot of experience, because if you don't talk them through and show, the next one may be just as bad.

I remember my first AP put on the nappy back to front, so I knew I had to show her every step of the way.

They must have locked her out and ignored her demands to open the door, and threats that she would call you, for quite some time to have managed to get enough water on the floor long enough for it to soak through to the ceiling below If a 4 year-old locked me out of the bathroom and refused to let me back in for longer than 1-2 minutes I'd be on the phone to the parents.

I think you need to change the locks in the bathroom so the lock (or bolt) is high up. This is because if it's possible for your kids or kid to lock themselves in the bathroom, you're going to have to break the door down if they can't open it again. Kids can be very canny and naughty, it's perfectly possible that they've locked the door to play up the au pair.

I'd say it's not ALL the au pair's fault if they were able to lock the door...although they MUST have hopped out of the bath in order to do this, so she couldn't have been paying ANY attention to them.

I think she's been given more than she can handle. Failures on both sides - her for not managing the children and you for putting her in that position to start with.

She shouldn't be given this responsibility again - which means you either need to get rid of her, or vary her job description to something that works for both of you, and bring in additional external help.

I wouldn't be surprised if your kids act differently with her and based on the au pair's summary of events, I would get help from a much more experienced nanny. It sounds like you need someone who is more assertive and used to dealing with kids who may not be little angels all the time...

All the good things carefree suggests are in my house rules. You need that for when an aupair is looking after young children. She may not understand what is age appropriate behaviour for a child of that age.

For example, the rules will say do not leave the children unsupervised in the bath. That works for children of 4 to 6 but not necessary when my dcs are now 14 and 11.

I also provide a detailed timetable of all their duties for that day, hour by hour, which will include doing up my dd's hair if that was required.

That said, from experience, this aupair sounds like she is taking the piss. You can try to performance manage her with house rules etc but that will prolong your agony by another 2-3 months. She is a time waster and not likely to improve IMO because she does not care to do a good job.

Get Rid Now.

OP, you said "But at au pair rates you don't expect to get the best of the best, I've been planning to soldier on."

Your children deserve the BEST of the BEST. End of. Basically you seem more upset about some damage to your plasterwork than about who spends time with your precious children in their early years.

sack her.

Very serious. I'm still within earshot of my 2 kids at bath time and they are 6 and 7

Your children deserve the BEST of the BEST

No, the children just need competent childcare.

The next statement to the above is probably going to be that OP should stay at home to look after her children herself because that sounds like where this is headed. Bear in mind you get pisstakes amongst nannies as well. Throwing money at the problem does not solve it. But getting rid of incompetent childcare quickly does. Hence, the need to be decisive (and also have good procedures in place so that the aupair knows what her role is from day 1).

OP, don't beat yourself up. Anyone who hires employees knows that it is an inexact science. Someone could look great on paper and at the interview but stink in a job. I have got glowing verbal references from previous aupair host families and still ended up with dud aupairs. That's ok - the fit is between the family and the aupair is quite subjective. But at the same time, there are some girls who are not suited to aupairing and the sooner you part ways, the better.

When I was 20-21, I looked after some b/g 5 yo twins for a teacher twice a week after school as an English assistant. I picked them up from school, took them home and fed them tea and did half an hour of English.

One evening the mother asked me as a favour to stay on and look after them, bath them and put them to bed. The boy really played up. Wangling his willy, flashing a few times, getting up to all manner of antics in the bath. I didn’t leave them alone obvs. The mother told me she put them to bed at 8 and she would be back around 8.30.

Except they wouldn’t go to bed for me. The mother eventually came back at gone 9 with her new guy - except she hadn’t actually finished with the old one and I don’t think she was intending to. So her kids saw this new guy and I expect the mother wasn’t pleased.

Anyway, she went ballistic, they were up really late, bla bla bla. She told me to leave The next day she asked me to go to hers, I naively thought it was to clear the air. No, it was so that her friend and she could lay into me how irresponsible I was. And I took it. For an hour and a half before being thrown out again.

I’d never baby sat apart from looking after my 6 yo cousin when I was 16 for a couple of weeks when their au pair left early. That was easy as I knew her and we just had fun.

Looking back, I handled so many things wrong. But I knew no better. I’d not had the sort of parenting where I’d learnt to parent someone else’s child. So I totally get you need to direct a young person on how to look after your children.

Firstly, if you didn't want her to leave the room when bathing, was that made very clear to her?

Secondly, are you sure the kids didn't lock the door, giving them more time to throw water out?

Your issues about making sandwiches and the washing are different and separate to this. Have you addressed these concerns with her? If not, she's not a mind reader and you should. Don't let those issues colour your view of this individual incident.

You have to decide if this one incident is serious enough to warrant sacking. Before you do this you need to clarify how long she was away for and what the kids were doing. You need to speak to her about it and also to the kids and impress upon them the need to be honest. Obv I do t know what happened, but it sounds to me like she lacks a bit of control (quite usual with au pairs) and left the room - with children of this age,mas you say, drowning really isn't a risk and it's not unusual to leave children briefly of this age. If the door was locked, that time turned into longer out if the room and more damage. Question - why is there still a lock on the door that the kids can reach? I think you need to sort that out - them locking the door wasn't down to her.

Be honest with yourself......are you just A bit disappointed in her generally and want to get rid of her? If so, be honest with yourself and her - you can get rid of her and say something general, but don't make it into a serious neglect issue if it's really not. Your sandwich and washing comments at the start sound like you're just not thrilled , but also as if you haven't clearly addressed those issues.

And if you get someone else, be very clear bout bath time expectations and move that lock first.

Firstly, if you didn't want her to leave the room when bathing, was that made very clear to her?
Why would leave 2 kids in the bath alone.
8Secondly, are you sure the kids didn't lock the door, giving them more time to throw water out*?
If the au pair hadnt have left them alone,they couldnt have locked her out.

What next,i didnt know i had to hold their hand,while crossing the road.

At some point common sense should kick in.And op im not being smart,but why do you need MN to give you an answer to an obvious question.

Your kids deserve a minder who will look out for them,not someone who will do.And you "soldier on"

Yes safety issues are serious - I’d sack her. Lots of injuries potentially in baths young kids should never be left alone ever.