AIBU with nanny who left my son on his own for 20 minutes?

[WonderingMama]

Our nanny has been with us for 3 months.She brings her son to work and all has been going well until today.Our younger son(6 year old) was unwell.She stayed with him yesterday all day long and was supposed to pick up older one from school.Apparently, younger one felt unwell to go for the school run,so she left him in his bed for 20 minutes.
I found out this from the older one this morning ,whilst walking him to school.I was absolutely livid when I've heard it.
Me and my husband had a chat with her tonight and explained the seriousness of the situation,I don't think she was trying to hide it but it was even worse finding out from the older one, not from her.She feels remorseful and explained that it happened all of sudden and she had to pick up the older one and didn't want us to worry.
To be honest I have no idea where to go from here.Am I being unreasonable to feel furious about this?

above all else on your post, your nanny is a mum herself, correct. she should know better of course.

tbh I think this is pretty bad, after all the most you can expect from child care is that the carer is actually THERE and not elsewhere, what if there had been a fire, what if your child had fitted due to a high temp, its not acceptable at all.

again she is a mum, and a nanny not an aupair kid, ot sure I could trust this one again.

Are you in the UK OP?

The reason I ask is that we have occasionally had threads in the past where parents (rather than nannies) have asked AIBU to leave a child (having a nap or in bed or whatever) for a few minutes while they collect another child.

Iirc in some European countries it is fairly common for this to happen (?Germany but I may be wrong). I appreciate that a nanny is different to a parent. Nanny should have rung you imo.

The general mnet consensus in the past is that the risk is too high, particularly if the parent/carer was delayed and no one knew there was a young vulnerable child in the house. Also a lesser (imo) risk that the child could wake/vomit/fall down stairs or whatever.

My former cm told me that she was warned that even if a parent felt something was safe, if she felt it was a "grey" area she should not do it with someone else's child.

Imo if a child is too ill to go to school run then he is too ill to be left alone.

Also, she is not the mum she is the nanny. She has to do things proffesionally. I was 10 times more cautious when i was looking after other people's children than i am with my own.

I think you should have given her a contingency plan of what to do if your youngest wasn't well enough to do the walk to school. She probably had to make a snap decision - you said she didn't know that the older one could have stayed in the after school club. Yes, she could have phoned you, but she was probably worried about being late. I think this is a bit lack of judgement on her side, but you also need to take some responsibility for not being clear on what she should have done if he couldn't make the walk. I don't think it's a sacking offence - I doubt she'll do it again.

I think you are being a bit OTT. Is she a trained nanny? Or someone you know and employed to look after your kids? I think if she was trained, she would know how to handle a situation like that. But she would be a lot more expensive than someone who is looking after your kids.

If she is the latter then I think the problem is yours really. You should probably have left her with clearer instructions. It's obviously something she would feel ok to do with her own child (I believe).

If it were me, I would do this tbh rather than drag a sick child out in the cold and damp.

I am sorry I would half carry walk orput child in the pushchair and get to the school better than leaving home alone.

agree Redglow so would I and Merry the point is its not the nannys child is it? its the ops so nanny had no right to make that decision.

I am 10 times more careful with my mindees than was with my own dcs and I was careful with them. its not fair or right to gamble with other peoples kids..

Blimey, is it "nannies leave their charges on their own day"? Sorry to be flippant op... I'm struggling with a similar dilemma myself today. I'll be watching this with interest to see how things develop.

nannies shouldnt need contingency plans - they should use their brains

you take child to school/ring a neighbour/get another school mum to bring older one home etc

the op shouldnt expect or need her nanny to ring her and ask what she wants done - the whole point of having a sc nanny is for them to look after and make decisions in the parents absence

He is 6y. He should not have been left alone in this way.

As a parent would I ever make that decision fr my own child? No. I wouldn't leave them.

As an employed childcarer - then no, she most definitely should not have done so.

Yes you are right thebody I give my own kids a lot more freedom than ones I look after. I still think it is wrong that a mother would make this decision. Why would you leave an ill child home alone?

I think my 15 year old would not have even done this.

I very much doubt this lady is a trained nanny or even an OFSTED registered childminder. But please do let us know on that one OP.

Just saying a) you get what you pay for (so don't get upset about it) and b) I don't personally think it's that bad so perhaps the 'nanny' didn't either. [If a 6yr old is ill enough to be in bed in the afternoon, they probably won't get up to much mischief, and if he was vomiting I doubt she would have left him. He was probably just quite under the weather and able to walk in the damp/ cold to school and back. Or she felt that would be more damaging to his health than leaving him in bed).

Merry if she had a temp she could have a convulsion, or there couold have been a fire. Might not be good for his health to get him up but better than leaving him in danger.

She is a trained nanny and OFSTED registered too. I had a time to calm down now and seeing why she would have done that. My son wasn't vomiting on the day,he did feel under weather according to her.I don't think she thought it was a bad idea at the time and she has stressed few time that she hasn't assessed the situation in the best possible way and that scenario has never happened to her before.She also mentioned that she understands I need a peace of mind and be able to trust her with her children and feeling very bad she made us worried.My husband went bit further and said social services could have taken children away,but after having a look there are no 'exact' guidelines at what age you should leave children on their own and how long(obviously depending on circumstances).I still think we should have been notified and if we couldn't find a solution,we would have to possibly resort to' leaving home' scenario but after consulting with us.

do you want your nanny to call you every time she is unsure about something

or use her own judgement

which in this case, prob wasnt the best judgement, but do you still trust her

agreed there is no legal safe limit to leave children alone - if guidelines said say not under 8 etc then be easier

there is no way i would trust my 6yr dc boy to stay alone in a house for 20mins and do no damage to self or house lol

but prob could have trusted his sister at same age

If she is trained and OFSTED then she should have been more 'ultra careful'...

Yes redlglow, I know all the 'what if's' but if I entertained them I would never drive on the motorway to see my parents. I think we constantly take AVOIDABLE risks (I could drive on less fast roads, but it would take me twice as long for example), it's just that we do some of them so frequently that we don't think twice about them (even if they are actually 'riskier' than leaving an unwell but not severely ill child at home for 20mins).

Out of interest if she had of rung you what would you have advised?

I would probably advised to ring a school and leave older one in after school club or he could even walk home(he is 10),rather than leaving younger one at home.Also,we have another friend living nearby she knows,older one friend.She could have called his dad.I should have discussed the scenario if he doesn't get better but he seemed ok in the morning.She mentioned few times,if he has deteriorated in the afternoon,she would have arranged things differently.If I can't get over this incident,does this count as a gross misconduct(nannytax contract)?

So she had a few options and could not think of them herself. Really you should be able to go to work and not worry if your nanny is doing her job properly. You will not be able to do this now.

I know...but she has been doing her job with boys ok until this incident.Anyway,I have to sleep on it and then decide.I appreciate she hasn't known of all the options but still..there are things I am concerned about.Will update you on the situation soon.

Not a sackable offence. She didn't do what you would have done but just goes to show you need to leave clear instructions for every possible scenario.

I'm getting confused. Was he ill at school run time or not?

If not, she should drag him out, children shouldn't decide what they are going to do.

If he was ill, then one more reason to not leave him alone.

I'm going to ask again: do you leave emergency money in the jar? It would all have taken 5 min with a cab. Would you have been happy with that?

I think leaving a child on its own probably counts as gross misconduct, yes. And I bet the NSPCC advice is NOT to leave a 6yo home alone. The law doesn't specify an age but the adult is responsible should anything go wrong and if anything had, your nanny would facing a police investigation, at the very least.

I would find another nanny, tbh. Even if she's lovely, even if it's a hassle, this is such a huge breach of trust, I'd worry about her judgment if she's ever in another tricky situation. Especially because she didn't tell you. My old nanny would never have dreamed of doing anything like that (and in the job after working for me, she was juggling baby twins with a toddler who was going to school nursery), while my current childminder has discussed various options with me - in an emergency, if she can't get hold of me/dh or our emergency contact, she'd ask one of the other mothers we both know to collect ds (e.g. if her own child was rushed to A&E) and she would call us to let us know.