Questions to ask potential babysitters: 7 Questions Every Parent Needs to Ask a Potential Babysitter

7 Questions Every Parent Needs to Ask a Potential Babysitter

Looking for a nanny to care for your baby following maternity leave? Need some help covering the afterschool gap until you can get home from work? Overdue for a date night or time with your friends? As a parent, at some point or another, you’ll probably turn to a babysitter for help. For most, the first choice is going to be a family member or trusted friend but due to various circumstances that may not always be possible. So, how do you find a trustworthy person to care for your child? Here are seven questions every parent needs to ask a potential babysitter: 

1. How much experience do you have?

This one may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s important to ask not how much experience a potential babysitter has but the context of their experience. If you have an infant or toddler, but they’ve only cared for school-age or adolescent children, that person may not be a good fit. 

2. Do you have any training?

If you’re going to trust someone to care for your child, it’s important that they know what to do in an emergency. At a minimum, the babysitter that you choose to hire should have some basic first aid training. 

We also suggest that every childcare provider become CPR-certified, including parents. Don’t be afraid to ask for proof of certification to verify that it is current. If they aren’t certified, ask if they would be willing to get certified prior to watching your child.

A great follow-up question to get a feel for their training would be: what was your scariest/most challenging babysitting situation? How did you respond?

3. Can you provide references?

An experienced, trustworthy babysitter should be able to provide names and telephone numbers of families who have hired them before. They may even have an online profile on Care.com where you can easily read reviews. 

4. What is your availability?

Of course, you’ll want to make sure a babysitter’s availability matches up with your childcare needs, but be sure to ask whether they have any time constraints that would prevent them from staying later if something came up.

5. Are your immunizations current?

It may seem like an invasive question, but don’t be afraid whether a potential babysitter is up-to-date on required vaccinations. You may also want to ask about vaccinations that aren’t necessarily required but recommended, such as the flu shot. This question can be especially important for parents of infants and immunosuppressed children. 

6. What is your rate?

In most cases, a babysitter will have an hourly rate. But you may negotiate a salary for a nanny or long-term care provider. Does he/she offer a discounted rate for multiple children? Will they be performing any household chores that might warrant a higher rate? Do they charge a higher rate for staying late in the event something comes up?

7. Would you be willing to schedule a trial?

Before you leave your child unattended with a new babysitter, ask if they would be willing to come over for a “visit” while you are home. Pay them for an hour to two so that you can see how he/she interacts with your child and whether they are a good fit. If your child is old enough, ask if it is someone they feel comfortable staying with. Trust yours and your child’s instincts.

Other Topics to Consider

While these questions are in no way comprehensive, they are certainly a good starting point for what to ask a potential babysitter. Depending on your needs and circumstances, other topics you may want to discuss during an interview include: 

• Overall childcare philosophy
• Transportation
• Discipline
• Household tasks
• Special needs such as medication, allergies, etc.
• Smoking/non-smoking
• Having guests
• Health restrictions (ex. You have cats, but they are allergic)

If you have any concerns or need advice, don’t be afraid to reach out to your child’s pediatrician. At Kernodle Pediatrics, we want you to think of our providers as partners in your child’s health. Call us at 919-563-2500 (Mebane) or 336-539-2416 (Elon), or send a secure message through our convenient online patient portal.

The Ultimate Checklist of Questions to Ask Babysitters Before Hiring Them

It’s the time of year when many working parents are turning to babysitters and nannies to help them with childcare. It’s not easy to entrust your children to someone else’s care no matter how old they are. We’ve gathered the interview questions that every parent should ask a babysitter before hiring them to make the process easier for you. By taking the time to interview a babysitting candidate in person with these questions, as well as the most important element of trusting your parental gut instincts about a person, you’ll be able to feel good about the process and the choice you make.

More: Authoritative Parenting is On The Rise

1. What is your previous childcare experience?

This is an obvious question, but it’s all about the details the candidate can provide on the spot. Anyone can make up experience on a resume, but you’ll be able to tell how much the person enjoyed being with the children and how close they were to the family by listening carefully and asking follow up questions. Asking about the previous clients’ children as far as personalities, likes and dislikes, and how they did with sleeping and eating should bring out candid stories that will give you a window into the candidate’s interactions as well as their emotional investment in the families.

2. Why do you want to work in childcare?

It’s easy to respond with a statement about loving kids. Be prepared to push candidates a bit on this and find out what really appeals to them about being a babysitter.

3. Are you certified in first aid and CPR?

This is important, especially if the babysitter will be spending long and regular periods of time with your kids. If you really like the candidate and they have not yet been certified, ask them if they would be willing to do so before they begin working for you. There are typically many options for one-day courses. If the candidate has already completed a first aid and CPR course, ask them to provide evidence of this certification.

4.

Can you provide references?

Be sure to ask for references from other families they have worked with. If you are giving a young babysitter a first chance, you can ask them for references from coaches, club leaders, or other trusted adults. There is nothing like a phone conversation to truly hear how a previous employer feels about your candidate.

5. Provide them with various hypothetical scenarios and ask how they would handle each situation.

These kinds of questions may put the candidate on the spot a bit, but it’s important for you to see how quickly a babysitter can think and respond in case of emergency. Possible scenarios include fevers, cuts and bruises, tantrums, refusal to go to bed, anxiety over you leaving, and sibling arguments. You know what happens in your house better than anyone, so don’t be afraid to put those real scenarios out there as a problem solving scenario.

If you have an anxious child, this type of question can be especially important to ask. “I would suggest that a parent with a child suffering from separation anxiety ask the babysitter: “How do you handle children who cling to their parents when they are leaving? Do you feel comfortable holding on to my child while we leave? How will you help my child settle down once we have left, yet he or she is still crying for us?,” says Colleen Wildenheaus, mother of a 13-year-old girl suffering from severe anxiety and OCD, and blogger at Good Bye Anxiety, Hello Joy.

6. Ask questions related to transportation.

If your babysitting job doesn’t involve the candidate transporting the kids anywhere, ask questions to understand how reliable their transportation will be to and from your house. If you do need a babysitter who can drive, ask to see their driver’s license and ask detailed questions about their driving record. If your children use a car seat or booster seat, take the time to show them how it works and then ask them to show you the process on their own. 

7.

Describe some of your favorite activities that involve interacting with kids in the age range of yours.

Getting details related to this topic will help you determine whether this is a babysitter who relies on TV or screen time. Listen for familiarity with games and crafts and outdoor play. This will give you a window into how familiar they really are with play and how creative they can be with your children.

8. Share your general household guidelines and ask them if they are comfortable with all.

This can include guidelines for the adults as well as the children relating to things like not smoking, changing diapers regularly, discipline, screen time, snacking, and sleep or down time. Don’t hesitate to share too much upfront. You want to know sooner rather than later if there’s a potential problem.

After you’ve asked all of your questions and feel thoroughly satisfied, have them spend some supervised time with your kids. This is the ultimate way to see if they are compatible.  

Most importantly, trust your gut! If you feel good about the interview and the candidate’s time spent with your kids, you can feel confident in setting up a trial babysitting time. It’s also a quick and easy way to get in a short and local date night or bit of time to take care of you.

Still getting in the swing of things this summer? Here are our top tips on transitioning from the school schedule to summer mode.

list of questions that will reveal the “true face” of the candidate

July 24, 2018

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Many people think that the evaluation methods presented in my books are only needed by HR. Some, already advanced, understand that for a leader who recruits people into his team and then manages them, this is no less important. Already very, very smart, they know that a lot is useful for building relationships with colleagues and for any kind of effective communication. But in fact, for everyday tasks, the ability to correctly assess a person can be very important. Many of us have been in the situation of selecting a nanny, a tutor, the so-called domestic staff. So, all the methods that I talk about in my books, at trainings, all projective questions, cases, metaprograms – can be applied in everyday cases.

One of my co-workers could be in a pro-fertility movie: She looked great during her pregnancy, felt even better. Her last business trip fell on the eighth month, and she stopped appearing in the office only 2 weeks before the birth. Then everything, fortunately, was also very good: a healthy boy with a wonderful character was born. Everything would be fine, but breastfeeding soon had to be stopped and the idea of ​​​​returning to business appeared.

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The natural course of events was that my colleague decided to return to work two or three months later. For some time, her mother agreed to “cover” her. She also worked, so she could only help temporarily. So a babysitter was needed. This is where a difficult task arose: there are enough offers from nannies, including through specialized agencies. But how to understand whether the nanny will cope, how she will treat her pupil, how she will behave in a difficult situation. In general, there are many questions.

It was at this moment that I was puzzled by an unusual request: “You conduct the selection of personnel for the company and rarely make mistakes, which means you can evaluate the nanny. Make me an interview for the nanny. The task seemed interesting to me, for which only positions I did not make an interview. Agreed.

Before composing the questions we will ask potential candidates, we need to understand what exactly we want to evaluate and what our expectations are. Therefore, the first thing we did was agree on what qualities you want to see in a future nanny and understand what exactly is important to evaluate. Moreover, they tried to avoid both minimalism (anything will do) and excessive idealization: there are simply no such candidates in nature. After quite a long conversation, we decided:

• It is important that the nanny has a positive attitude, especially towards children. Toddlers are often capricious, can be very tiring, behave, from the point of view of an adult, like a fool. And with regard to such behavior, there are two extreme approaches: negative (all children are capricious, angry, they must be kept in strictness, punishment is the best way to educate, it is necessary to point out the bad, etc.) and “lisping” (no matter what child, that’s good, let him get it for now and do whatever he wants). Remember the classic approach of most schools and kindergartens: “Only a complete idiot can behave like you!”. The second approach is more often characteristic of relatives, especially the elderly, but can also come from strangers. We want the child to grow up in a friendly atmosphere, and he had adequate self-esteem, so we decided that it is best
  
  balanced, friendly, positive, but without lisping, approach to children, their whims and pranks.
  

“Why do you think children are often naughty and cry?”, “Why do children indulge?”, “Why do adults not obey?” You can ask any of these questions, or all of them in turn, to understand the person’s mood: aggressive answers (“badly brought up”, “naughty”, “do not know how to behave”, “something is always wrong”, etc.) say about the fact that Freken Bok can come to us. Do we need it?

There are still indifferent nannies (remember the hero Papanov in the film “For Family Reasons”: “I’m nursing someone else’s child, because I’ll be too worried about my own”). Such people answer something like: “Well, it always happens like that”, “It’s a common thing”. The most optimal answer is to look for reasons, moreover, real and balanced ones: “Why are they acting up and crying? Maybe something hurts, maybe he asks for something, or maybe he’s just tired.” There are a lot of options for such answers, the common thing is that there are real reasons, moreover, rather positive and objective than negative ones.

• Of course, the nanny needs to watch over a small child, cook something for him, load the washing machine, you never know what other things arise. Therefore, we need a person who can easily switch from one thing to another, who can do two or three in parallel. A small digression into the field of psychology: objectively, the speed of switching attention is different for all people. In the same way, there is a tendency to sequential or parallel actions: some of us easily and naturally discuss work matters on the phone while typing a business letter, read a book and watch TV, while none of the cases suffers. We would like our future nanny
  
  easily shifted attention and had a tendency to parallel work.
  

Therefore, it is worth asking such a question, for example: “Tell me, if you are preparing a festive dinner, do you do several dishes in parallel or sequentially?” (At the same time, it is necessary to comment that we will not have to cook holiday dinners, otherwise they may misunderstand). You can ask a similar question about watching TV and reading a magazine, ironing clothes and a new movie, and so on. The main thing is to clarify not how a person CAN, but in which case he feels MORE COMFORTABLE. We are more suitable for a nanny who likes to do several things in parallel and easily switches from one to another: after all, then you can be calm: nothing will be left without attention.

• One friend once told me that her rather serious health problem, which still requires very careful attention, is due to the fact that her grandmother was once afraid to tell her parents about the girl’s fall and a rather severe bruise, as a result – vertebral displacement cured in time. Unfortunately, the risk of such a situation with a nanny is even greater. Therefore, we decided to check
  
  the ability to take responsibility for your mistakes.
  

“Did you have any mistakes/failures in your work? What were they connected to? The question can be rephrased, specified, the main thing is that the potential nanny should be able to admit her mistakes, and everyone has them. So the positive answer will be the recognition that, like everyone else, there were mistakes, including those due to their own oversight. Although the excesses and self-flagellation also do not bode well.

• Speaking to adults, in a business language, it is important that the nanny is set to receive feedback from the child, respond to his emotions, strive to ensure that he is attached to her. In addition, it is important to understand how the nanny will determine the attitude of the child and parents towards themselves and their actions. And here is another checkpoint defined:
  
  whether the nanny seeks feedback, and how she does it.
  

“Do the kids love you? Why do you think so?” or “Are you a good babysitter? Why do you think so?”

The answer to the second part of each of the questions is important: the opinion of the parents must be heard (“my parents always praise me”, “they ask me to extend the term of work”), the attitude of the child (“he is happy when I come”, “he laughs with me more often”) , objective signs (“never got sick”). If there is no such or similar component in the answer, then we risk getting a nanny who “knows best how to raise a child, and his parents too.”

• Of course, being next to the child, the nanny has an impact on the formation of his values, views and ideas. Let not as purposeful as parents, but still. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate those
  
  the nanny’s attitudes and values, which can have a significant impact on a young child.
  

One possible question is: “What do you like most about people?” or “In what situations do you think it’s acceptable to cheat?” or whatever you think is important. There are no tips here. You just have to like the answer.

• Young children often get sick, all sorts of stressful situations can arise. We decided to evaluate
  
  prospects b
  

  quick and competent response, the ability to make decisions and find a way out of difficult situations.

  
  
  

“The child is ill, you cannot contact the parents. The child has

heat. Your actions”. “The child does not want to take the medicine. Why (as many options as possible). Your actions”.

A good answer is one that contains as many ACTION options as possible, the main thing is that there is a willingness to solve difficult situations and take responsibility. In the second part of the second question (about the medicine), we can also evaluate goodwill and the ability to look at the world through children’s eyes (“bitter”, “tasteless”, “it hurts to swallow”, and not evil “yes, it’s just whims”).

• Any person can really work well only when motivated by something, and not just doing work for the sake of income.
  
  Therefore, we want to know if there is something that attracts a future nanny in this job.
  

  
  

Why did you decide to become a nanny? What attracts you to this job? Will there be something attractive and positive? Or just the need to earn money (“I had to change jobs because you know how state employees are paid”). If it’s only necessary, it’s better not to get involved, because without a soul it’s good not to do anything, and even more so, not to win the love of a child.

We can, of course, evaluate many other things, but we decided to be realistic and solve problems as they come: make a preliminary decision based on the answers we get, then check the recommendations, ask our intuition, and only if all this is not enough, draw up additional evaluation criteria.

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This story has a happy continuation: from the very first call, from several nannies, we managed to choose the best one, and for a year and a half everyone is satisfied and happy. And I managed to make sure once again: you never know where your knowledge will be useful to you.

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How to choose a nanny for a preschooler

Headache of many mothers: with whom to leave the child when you go to work? Grandmothers do not always want to sit with their grandchildren, so you have to look for a nanny .

..

Medical consultation

You can get the advice of the necessary specialist online in the Doctis app

Laboratory

You can undergo a comprehensive examination of all major body systems

• Where to start looking for a nanny?
• Selection rules and questions for the nanny
• Babysitter and nanny – what’s the difference
• Nursing Medical Education

When choosing a nanny for a child, parents are most concerned not with money (although he, too), but with safety
child. After all, the baby will have to be left with a stranger! And who knows what’s in his head?..
This question is asked not only by our compatriots. For example, in the UK there are special
nanny screening services – they review letters of recommendation, call former nanny employers, and all
ask in detail. In Germany, only one who has received official permission from the authorities can work as a nanny.
And how are things going with us?

Questions looking for a babysitter

I want to find a nanny for a preschool child. Where to start searching?

Decide on goals and objectives. If you need a “taxi” nanny who will pick up the child from the nursery
gardening and driving around sections and circles is one thing. If you need a nanny assistant, whose
functions include not only bringing and taking the child, but preparing him for school, learning poetry with him,
reading books, as well as doing household chores is another thing. In the latter case, it’s not just
babysitter and mini tutor. Clearly state your requirements in the ad so that applicants for the role of a nanny
understand if they are right for you.

Do not stop at 1-2 candidates you like, choose
at least from 6-7 applicants. Sometimes it happens that a suitable nanny was found quickly, but at the last
moment found a better option. You must be able to maneuver.

How to choose the right nanny? What scares me the most is that I can’t completely
check on the nanny. What if she turns out to be inadequate?

Most domestic staffing agencies have “black lists” of nannies. We have
there is also a list. People with a bad reputation cannot place an ad on our site
– the system will not let them through. In addition, parents can (and should!) arrange additional
check for a future nanny.

It is better to conduct the first interview on neutral territory – in a park, cafe. Ask the applicant
talk about past work. If a potential nanny does not say anything specific, limited to general
phrases: “I did a lot for the development of the child”, specify what exactly. For example, potty trained,
taught to read, count… Do not hesitate to call former employers later and compare answers.

Ask how the nanny feels about the fact that there will be cameras and voice recorders in your house
absence. You have the right to install a camera at least in every corner, but by law you must warn about it.
Did the applicant take your words with understanding? This is a good sign. I began to violently resent that you were intruding
into her private life? It is better to look for another candidate. Especially if you are looking for a nanny for a child who
can’t speak yet. Cameras in this case are necessary!

If you like the applicant, invite her to the second interview
home to meet the child. It is desirable that other household members are also present. Perhaps they
will notice in the nanny disturbing qualities that you did not notice.

The next step is trial days. Typically a week. Try to be at home at this time so that
watch how the nanny communicates with the child. How patient, kind, and
quick reactions (and babies are curious and can stick their nose anywhere). Is it drawn to her
child?

It happens that a nanny has three higher educations, extensive work experience and a bunch of
letters of recommendation, but the baby doesn’t like her. And vice versa. The nanny may be young, without experience,
for example, a student, but so cheerful and groovy that the pupil does not want to let her go. Opinion
The child must be taken into account.

I heard that there are nannies – babysitters. How are they different from ordinary ones?

Babysitter is an hourly nanny. She is hired not for the whole day, but for several hours,
when parents need to leave. But if a permanent nanny has many responsibilities: pick up,
feed, take a walk, read, prepare for school, then the babysitter has one task –
look after the baby so that he does not fall and does not get hurt.

It is usually somewhat more difficult to find a babysitter for 2-3 hours a day or a week,
than for a whole day (most are looking for a permanent job and a stable income, not one-time
earnings). So keep that in mind while searching.

The child is often ill. Maybe we should look for a nanny-nurse?

If the nanny has a medical education, that’s good, of course.