I was a nanny for six years. In February I started my first governess job.
(back story: That was the title. The job description read pretty much the same as most nanny jobs. There are four children. The two younger have a nanny and I have the two older children. They hired me knowing I had never officially been a governess. I found this description of a governess online: A governess is an educationally qualified individual employed by the parents to educate the children in their private household. Governesses typically hold a bachelor’s degree. Generally governesses are not responsible for the general care giving tasks but are primarily focused on education.
I however, do provide care for the children. My hours are 2-8, Sun-Friday. The nanny's hours end at 8. I am also a live-in. I make dinner for the kids, and do everything for them the nanny does for the younger child. The housekeeper handles the laundry of the whole family. The housekeeper cleans, dusts, vacuums, etc the children's room, but they and I are responsible for keeping their beds made and their rooms organized. I also take them to playdates, appointments, parks and activities.)
The children I care for are 9 and 11. The 11 year old is a type A worrier, who requires little oversight and direction to exceed in school assignments and extra curricular learning activities.He doesn't need to be reminded to practice piano, he is always reading and he meets our weekly educational activities with genuine enthusiasm. When the parents review his school work and our extra curricular work, they have been complimentary and seem generally so. He is easy to work with because he wants to learn and is open to any project or subject I put forth.
The girl is 9 years old and started out third grading reading at a 2.9 level. She is now at a 4.0 level with 3 weeks left of school. I thought that good. The parents do not. They think this is "barely average" and will cause her to struggle with "competitive peers". In the past two weeks, they have made it known that they are very unhappy with her and I. One problem we have is spelling words. The teacher sends the spelling words home on Friday a test the following Friday. There are 25 spelling words. The teacher has made several suggestions on how to get the child to learn the words. We use ALL of them. I use pinterest and educational resources where I get still more ideas, where I enter spelling words into a list and they give her tests on it. We play cards with the spelling words. We write poetry with it. She is spending so much time on homework every day (about three hours) and when I brought this to her parent's attention, they said, "well clearly it isn't enough".
They removed her from soccer as of this weekend. She didn't love playing soccer, but loved being with friends and doing normal things.
I am not hear to bash the parents but to ask for help. I don't want to lose my job because I love the hours and pay and I love the kids. I think I understand this girl. I know the parents are basically saying, be harder on her, and while I will work harder with her, I would never be harder on her. I do fear though, that should I be replaced they would chose someone without empathy for the child solely focused on measuring their job performance by her educational performance.
I understand my job and I know it is not to judge the parents. I am responsible for checking all of their work for 100% accuracy, They are expected to perform at 100% at school. The spelling test is an example of where the girl is not, having scored 22/25. 23/25 and 22/25 in the past three weeks. For a point of reference, before I started, she was scoring 19 & 20 out of 25. So while there is progress being made, it isn't as fast as it should be.
Does anyone have experience working for highly competitive parents? a 22 on a test in 88% and 23 is 92, which is an A, but it is absolutely not acceptable. I want to know how to help her get to the 100% . She works really hard. When we do reports and book reports, she revises and rewrites them multiple times. It isn't a matter of effort, but at the same time, I feel the need to secretly soften the blow. I want to tell her she is perfect and wonderful but that her parents have asked for x,y,z and so that is what I am working on, but it isn't a reflection of who she is.
Starting this week, we are to start practice tests on Tuesday, again Wednesday, and a final on Thursday. Then, she will go and take the real test at school on Friday. It isn't as if we hadn't done practice tests before. She does quite well on those, usually missing none or zero. This is another problems the parents brought up. If she is not able to repeat the performance of the home testing at school, I must be allowing her to review the words too close to the tests because she doesn't "really know them".
In one of our activities last week, we went to the library and picked out some books for non fiction reading and book reports and she found some chapter books on faeries which she loves. This was in addition to the books checked out for my time with her. This morning, there was a note on the three faerie books that said, "return these. ___ is distracted by them". I want to do my job well, but I guess I am wrestling with the mentality. From this I understood, there is no time for reading for pleasure at 9 years old?
I am looking to hear back from other governesses or persons experienced with this sort of family. I am in the New Haven area of CT. I appreciate any advice on how to help her succede educationally without totally sacrificing her self worth. The parents have scheduled a next meeting with me on 6/14. I think that this next two weeks is going to be my sink or swim window.
(back story: That was the title. The job description read pretty much the same as most nanny jobs. There are four children. The two younger have a nanny and I have the two older children. They hired me knowing I had never officially been a governess. I found this description of a governess online: A governess is an educationally qualified individual employed by the parents to educate the children in their private household. Governesses typically hold a bachelor’s degree. Generally governesses are not responsible for the general care giving tasks but are primarily focused on education.
I however, do provide care for the children. My hours are 2-8, Sun-Friday. The nanny's hours end at 8. I am also a live-in. I make dinner for the kids, and do everything for them the nanny does for the younger child. The housekeeper handles the laundry of the whole family. The housekeeper cleans, dusts, vacuums, etc the children's room, but they and I are responsible for keeping their beds made and their rooms organized. I also take them to playdates, appointments, parks and activities.)
The children I care for are 9 and 11. The 11 year old is a type A worrier, who requires little oversight and direction to exceed in school assignments and extra curricular learning activities.He doesn't need to be reminded to practice piano, he is always reading and he meets our weekly educational activities with genuine enthusiasm. When the parents review his school work and our extra curricular work, they have been complimentary and seem generally so. He is easy to work with because he wants to learn and is open to any project or subject I put forth.
 |
| Julianna Swaney |
They removed her from soccer as of this weekend. She didn't love playing soccer, but loved being with friends and doing normal things.
I am not hear to bash the parents but to ask for help. I don't want to lose my job because I love the hours and pay and I love the kids. I think I understand this girl. I know the parents are basically saying, be harder on her, and while I will work harder with her, I would never be harder on her. I do fear though, that should I be replaced they would chose someone without empathy for the child solely focused on measuring their job performance by her educational performance.
I understand my job and I know it is not to judge the parents. I am responsible for checking all of their work for 100% accuracy, They are expected to perform at 100% at school. The spelling test is an example of where the girl is not, having scored 22/25. 23/25 and 22/25 in the past three weeks. For a point of reference, before I started, she was scoring 19 & 20 out of 25. So while there is progress being made, it isn't as fast as it should be.
Does anyone have experience working for highly competitive parents? a 22 on a test in 88% and 23 is 92, which is an A, but it is absolutely not acceptable. I want to know how to help her get to the 100% . She works really hard. When we do reports and book reports, she revises and rewrites them multiple times. It isn't a matter of effort, but at the same time, I feel the need to secretly soften the blow. I want to tell her she is perfect and wonderful but that her parents have asked for x,y,z and so that is what I am working on, but it isn't a reflection of who she is.
 |
| Julianna Swaney |
In one of our activities last week, we went to the library and picked out some books for non fiction reading and book reports and she found some chapter books on faeries which she loves. This was in addition to the books checked out for my time with her. This morning, there was a note on the three faerie books that said, "return these. ___ is distracted by them". I want to do my job well, but I guess I am wrestling with the mentality. From this I understood, there is no time for reading for pleasure at 9 years old?
I am looking to hear back from other governesses or persons experienced with this sort of family. I am in the New Haven area of CT. I appreciate any advice on how to help her succede educationally without totally sacrificing her self worth. The parents have scheduled a next meeting with me on 6/14. I think that this next two weeks is going to be my sink or swim window.
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