A Nanny Can Teach Us a Thing or Two
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
My recent post on an episode of Supernanny, the comments that ensued, and some comments on other blogs talking about this episode have got the wheels turning…
I have heard several times recently that the Supernanny, Jo Frost, is not qualified to give parenting advice because she doesn’t have children. I disagree with this….a lot. And here is why…I was a nanny (home daycare) for some 5 years before I started my first secular job and NOTHING trained me better for parenthood than that. Did I feel that because I was not the actual mom that I wasn’t qualified to offer advice to the moms and dads I worked for? Heck no! I offered ooodles of advice and was asked for it constantly. Why? Because parents saw that what I was doing worked and that many times what they were doing was not working.
It was not because I had superior knowledge it was because I had better skills. I was “honing” my parenting skills for 10 plus hours a day with multiple children from different families. These were not my kids so under no circumstances was I going to resort to physical punishments or yelling. I couldn’t let someone else’s child they trusted me with CIO (cry-it-out). I had to get creative to get the desired outcome. I had to be uber patient. Nannies have to deal with the same issues that parents do but without as many options. AND not only that…nannies have someone (the parents) potentially breathing down their neck, watching every move they make. Let me tell you…it gives you some motivation to develop some mad skills. And by golly I loved those kids and they loved me. I had parents visiting me and writing to me for years after I quit because they felt as though I was part of the family.
I don’t think being a nanny turned me into the perfect parent…far from it. But I think those years as a nanny were actually an intensive parenting training course. So that is why I think a Nanny might be in the perfect position to offer parenting advice…despite their childless status. And I think being a nanny is valuable experience for young women.
- Posted in Family Life, Parenting, TidBits on March 4th, 2008
March 5th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I totally agree with you Tiffany! In fact there have been moments with my own kids where I asked myself, “What would I do right now if this was not my child?”
It’s a good way to avoid hitting and yelling, lol You have to get creative.
And part of good discipline is remaining objective - cool, calm and collected. (And maybe a teensy bit calculating too) That’s much easier to do if you are not a parent and aren’t emotionally intertwined with your child.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
She is great at being creative with way son solving problems most parents will run into over there time as parents and I totally like her style of dealing problems as the arise.