Advice re nanny/mother's help role

[vvviola]

(usual not-in-the-UK disclaimer)

We're looking into employing someone in a nanny/mother's help type role for a few hours a week. Essentially the idea is to get someone who is a native French speaker to interact with DD1 a bit (fluent in French, but neither DH nor I are), and to maybe let me get out of the house occasionally for a run or to get some thing done.

I'm totally new to all of this, even previous babysitters were found through DDs crèche so I've never had to interview.

What sort of questions should I be asking? And how much detail should I go into about the role? I'm going to be around a lot of the time I would imagine, and we haven't got a huge house - so how do I organise things?

Also, are there any things that I might not have considered about a role like this?

I'm totally confused about the whole thing. I interviewed someone this afternoon and felt I made a total mess of it (she wasn't suitable anyway). If it wasn't for really feeling that DD needs the French, I'd give up.

Anyone with any advice? Or even just some hand holding?

Are you in France?

The first thing is to be very clear on what you want them to do and the qualifications or experience you want them to have. If you aren't clear you can't be clear to them. You need to really emphasise that this is 'soutien' for language not just watching the kids do they need to be playing and interacting all the time, not just being there. This may come as a surprise to some applicants.

Do an advanced search in here for questions. I would be focusing on discipline, what activities they could propose, first aid knowledge and nutrition if they're doing any cooking.

French nounous tend to expect a lot of micromanagement IME and quite set tasks. Students looking for extra cash will be happier to go with the flow and play with you around. It's also better if you can leave them alone so either they go out (which opens up more language learning opportunities) or you do if you're really on top of each other.

Are you also familiar, if in France, with the various obligations re payment and payment methods?

Thank very much - some good places to start thinking.

No, we're not in France. We're in NZ, but have just moved from a French speaking country, which is where DD picked up the language. So, in reality it will be a French/Belgian that we will hopefully get - so it's useful to think about the cultural side of things too.

Thanks again!