we had to sack our nanny!

[SindyW]

Hi everybody. This is my first post (sorry long). I am hoping to get some advice on hiring a new nanny as we sacked ours today. I was a SAHM for 12 years have 4 lovely daughters aged 14, 12, 10 and 8. The 10 year old is severely autistic. All are home educated. They are lovely, polite and well behaved girls (apart from the usual problems with the autistic child who is quite demanding). Our nanny had been with us for 18 months and I thought everthing was fine till last night. I work away from home most of the time, spend a quarter of my time abroad but my husband is off work on long term sick so is around most of the time. Until recently, nanny had sole care of children 8am - 5pm but the last few months my husband has been renovating a house so we can move and has been away as well for 3 days a week. The nanny had to work 4 days, 3 nights. She had her own room and bathroom. On her days off she stays with friends in London. Yesterday evening we rang the children and asked in passing what they had eaten. It turned out after much stalling that my youngest had cereal in the morning (made herself) and a frozen pizza in the evening, made by 12 year old. The nanny has been refusing to cook for them and only cooking for the disabled child. We came home last night and sacked the nanny this morning. I just cant believe that she didnt feed my children. I feel so angry and upset. I just couldnt even talk to her or look at her. We paid her until the end of the week and told her she had 2 weeks to remove her things. I just dont understand why the children didnt tell us. They are very upset at losing their nanny. How can you tell if your children are covering for a bad nanny?

Husband was apparently home-edding although is apparently away three days a week (came home last night so presumably away since Mon?) So indeed, who provided the education for four children on Mon, Tues, Wed of this week - and on three days of every other week he is away?!

How did you spend 12 years as a SAHM and then go back to an 80 hour a week / well paying abroad job 18 (?) months ago? How did you manage that? (genuinely curious and impressed)

I thought that if you home ed'ed(?) you had to actually educate your children.

Who was she? Bloody Mary Poppins?

Im surprised she hung about this long.

??? So aswell as looking after YOUR children through the day- she is also responsible for them through the night?

£250 is a pittance and a joke when your work involves looking after 4 children, one of which is SN and being expected to be a teaching assistant to a builder.

Im sure this is a wind up- if not- do people really live like this? How do your children cope with you being away from home this much?

One story I remember was for a family in the country who couldn;t see there being a problem with the children going through the nanny;s bedroom to get to theirs (well she starts work when they get up and finishes when they go to bed - hello what about privacy and weekends!) oh and she also had to help out with in the lambing season - all for £150 a week and that was the top end of what they were prepared to pay. Unfortunately I was unable to help them.

In fact there were many families who thought that the nanny should do the job because she loved children not for any money at all just pocket money. Oh and all these people also wanted someone qualified with at least 5 years exp - I promise I am deadly serious

snip, snap, snout this tale's told out!

Thanks to everybody who replied. It seems we were asking too much of her. i just wish she had said she found the job too much. i spoke to her on Tuesday afternoon before my husband and i left. i asked her if she had any problems. she went on about a load of trouble with her boyfriends flat and her stuff going missing. i told her to speak to the landlord who had probably put it in storage and offered to pick it up for her if she gave us a few days notice. she never once complained of overwork. i tried to stay out of the day to day running of things, not wishing to stand on her toes. i think this was a mistake. we tried to look after her. shortly after she came, she became very ill and had to have medical treatment which i arranged and took her to appointments and the chemist to pick up perscriptions. she spent 2 weeks in bed only getting up for medical reasons. we paid her in full even though i couldnt work. we didnt force her to accept the job. we explained that it was a demanding role, i should know, i did it myself. she is 46 and has worked as a teacher and brought up a family of her own. if she wasnt coping why didnt she discuss it rather than doing her own thing? whenever i spoke to her about the children she assured me that everything was fine. the job was very flexible as i work for myself and if ever she needed anything it was there for her, she only needed to ask. she had lots of holidays, all paid and many at short notice. it has put me off relying on staff and i think i will cut down my hours now my business is established although i would have liked to help my husband with his a bit longer. oh well, life just gets in the way sometimes. the children are doing very well in their education. we educate them ourselves but dont work to normal school timetables. they are all numerate and literate. we are inspected by the local authority who have no concerns.

I would suggest that you post over in Home Ed as you may get more support there, from people who understand your situation better.

I don't feel you had sufficient grounds to immediately sack your nanny, so I would not be surprised if your nanny decided to take legal action against you and win at tribunal. I'm not a lawyer, this is just my view. You don't seem to have followed disciplinary procedures.

I would be surprised if you are able to get another nanny, on the same/similar terms to the one you sacked. I feel you were expecting too much. I work with Autistic children and that work alone is paid more and is on a 1:1 basis. You may find that you can get DP, DLA etc to help pay for a 1:1 carer... post over at Special Needs for more information that, and about caring and educating Autistic children in general.

Is £250 net a week after board and bills paid really a "pittance"? I'm surprised tbh, as I would have expected to have £1,000 a month clear after rent and bills would have actually been a decent wage in London. I know some nannies can get more than that (but would be actually working longer hours for it), but I don't think that it is a pittance.

£250 per week nett for a live in job is perfectly legal and, in my opinion, is not a pittance. I don't have £1000 a month for disposable income after paying taxes, buy groceries, paying rent, paying the nanny, etc.

As for children cooking for themselves... well, quite frankly, I think it is a good thing. Perhaps the ingredients should monitored omore closely (like make sure some veg gets under the cheese on the pizza). My 4 year old can make pizza and I encourage this. But I do have coax her into adding spinach.

I agree with nannynick that it doesn't sound like you followed normal disciplinary procedures. My nanny would have to have done something far more serious than letting the children cook for themselves to be fired on the spot. If I walked in and found her snorting cocaine with kids, or I came home and found she wasn't even there, then I'd send her packing on the spot. I think you have gotten a rough ride on this thread (and I'm impressed with how calm you have been in response), but I'm sorry to say I do think you overreacted in firing her. What I probably would have done is asked her to implement a nanny diary / meal planner the week before so you can buy the proper ingredients at the store.

Now, are her duties a resonable expectation? I think they are, actually. Several people have mention her long 24 hour day. But considering that none of your children are toddler/babies I don't think that is that much work, especially if someone else is educating them and she is supervising homework like any other nanny would likely do after the kids got home for school. Anything that relates to the welfare, education, care of the children is pretty much fair game for nanny duties.

Let's see. What are your options now? You mentioned reducing your hours. But do you really want to do this and is it really an option if you run your own business? You could perhaps hire a live-in nanny and an au pair. The au pair could pick up the less interesting work like laundry, cleaning, she could run to the store when your nanny needs to stay home with the SN child. And she could generally be an extra pair of hands. She would work about 25 hours per week so possibly just mornings or just afternoons. And it would cost you oh I don't know maybe £60 per week, tax free.

I Home Educated my children, also while my then partner was long term incapacitated. We also had an au pair and I ran my own business. Nevertheless, our au pair was merely a back up, doing laundry and preparing light lunches as well as playing with the children and helping keep their toys tidy. I think you are asking too much of yourselves as a family and certainly have excessive expectations of the Nanny role. Perhpas some time out will be good, I'm sure the children will appreciate your presence.

I think sacking the nanny for getting the older children to make their own meals is a bit harsh! As a couple of other posts have said I too was able to make myself a substantial meal from around 10 (obviously was supervised with cooker etc). Did you not think that perhaps this was part of the home ed' so the children are not constantly relying on others to do things for them??
Children need to learn how to do things for themselves - it also helps stop them becoming spoilt.

My OH's son (he is 6) stops with us at weekends and he is expected to at least try and help with chores - granted, he doesnt do them well but at least he tries. He makes his own bed, keeps his room tidy and puts away toys after he has finished playing with them. He LOVES making his own pizza and putting on all sorts of toppings (he knows he is not allowed to touch the cooker but can see it cooking in the oven through the glass so long as me or his dad is with him)

This nanny sounded golden and I doubt you will be able to find one who will do all the duties you expect for the wage you offer.

On a different note, I trust that as your husband is able to do things such as renovate a new house (very hard, manual labour) he is not claiming benefits.

I can understand how the lines between employee and family member can get blurred when someone is living with you and looking after your children.

But you have badly mistreated your nanny and you will be very lucky if she doesn't take you to court. She is your employee. She is not your wife.

sindy Im so sorry to hear this story, its waful. I just want to reasure you that there are plenty of wonderful nanies out there so dont give up hope, or woory about trusting anyone again.

This nanny was obviuosly unproffesional and a bit of a nutter, you poor thing.

i would advise you to go through the registration system ( the new ofsted approved nannies) here you will find a fantastic nany that is qualified (educated),first aid trained, and CRB checked.In your case with an Autistic child, its best to get an experienced nanny too. There are lots of nannies who specialise in special needs, I myself spent a day a week over 2 years as part of my nneb training in an Autistic home.

I wish you all the best!

can i also say here that its a nannies responsability to make sure the children are eating a well balanced diet, and while i agree they are old enough to cook simple meaks for themselves, this is not their responsability. This is why sindy employed her- to ensure her children were well fed and looked after.

Fifilou you should maybe do it, I don't think anyone else would.

Soak, being incapacitated does not have to mean one has a physical disability you know. I see you don't realise that, so just putting the point across.

nnn - I do realize that - my OH has just started working again after being off sick since Feb with stress, anxiety and depression - according to the DWP if you are capable of doing the sort of work OP's husband has been doing then you are capable of doing various other jobs.
I just asking if they were claiming for something they shouldn't. if he is claiming incapacity benefit when he is obviously capable of doing quite a lot is wrong IMO. same as if I was his employer I would be quite p!ssed off at paying his sick pay while he was actually renovating a house

DWP may like to make people think that but it is about the sustainability of such effort and therefore such a person may not be able to hold down a 'real' job. If your OH was anything like my ex in that respect then you will both appreciate how rong DWP are about this. This is why it helps to have the CMHT on side when applying!

i think we were right to sack our nanny. how could she cook a meal for herself and one child and leave the others out. the children have got over the shock of it all and have told me more. it seems that for weeks she has been taking a bath at 4pm, the cooking for herself and autistic child and then going to her room and making it quite clear that she did not want to be disturbed. the children covered for her because they wanted to spend summer holidays here to be with their friends. my children are all naturally quite thin and i always worry about their diet. i think what she did amounts to child neglect, which is a criminal act. if i allowed it to continue (after i found out about it) i too would have been guilty of child neglect. she can take me to court if she wants to. i;m just glad that she has gone.
my husband is on full pay from work, so we don;t claim benefits. he has regular meetings with the work doctor who encourages him to do any activity. it is our house he is renovating, but the builders were in for months, he is just finishing a few things off (very slowly - lol). i think he just misses me as i work from that house. We would had brought the children but they begged to stay behind to play with their friends and nanny agreed to look after them.

If your husband is on full sick pay, why cant he look after the children - if he's well enough to renovate a house then he should be well enough to look after the children. After all, you are supposed to be home educating them.

With regards to your nanny, i'm not surprised it all got too much for her - 4 days and 3 nights care of 4 children including one with special needs is a hell of a lot to ask of an employee. Especially is she had to home educate as well - i assume they do a set amount of maths, english etc a day.

I think you seriously need to look at your priorities and spend some time with your children. No wonder they covered for her, she was technically their primary carer whilst both her parents were away for days on end. I'm not against mothers working but I do wonder why you bothered to have children to leave them for most of the week inc nights.

Sindy - please can you clear up the question which a few posters have asked and I can't find your answer for: WHO EDUCATED THEM WHILST YOUR DH WAS AWAY FOR 3 DAYS? Or did they just 'not' get educated for those days? I am unclear as to how you would expect one person to cope with a severely autistic child and 3 others (albeit with 2 older ones)who are all stuck inside the house (as it takes 2 persons to take your autistic dd outside) Shopping and sanity comes to mind - a 4pm bath pretty much says it all for me - it was probably that or G&T.

What do you mean by severely autitistic? Non verbal? Surely he needs full time 1:1 (mine does)?. For comparison I have help in during school holidays to help with ds1 (8 severely autistic); ds2 (5) and ds3 (2). I would never leave someone to look after all3 alone as it's not safe ( yes I do it sometimes alone but I figure one of the kids having an accident under my supervision is different to someone else being responsible for them). I know your children are different ages, but I would have thought a severely autiustic 10 year old would need full time supervision.

Do you have a home program for your autistic son? I'm just trying to work out in my head how someone could home ed 4 children including 1 severely autistic. I can see high functioning without challenging behaviours, but severely autistic???? Did she have night duties as well? Does your autistic son sleep? Many often don't and I think that outside the scope of £250/week tbh.

The only way I could imagine a situation such as yours working would be a nanny for the children's care plus tutors/therapists for your autistic son. I really don't know any severely autistic child that doesn't require a very high ratio for care/education. For example ds1's class has 6 severely autistic boys aged 7-; they always have a staff ratio of at least 4 adults to the 6 children in the class, if they go out it's 1:1, if they want to teach something new/educational it's 1:1. I can't imagine how your set up would work tbh.