Nanny cam? To film or not to film...

I said in my first post, as a Mom, I totally understand wanting the nanny-cam. However, as a nanny (and a good one at that), I would have quit the job had I found out that they didn't trust me with their children. It would be the principle of the thing. If you don't trust me, don't hire me. Hiding a nanny-cam may cause the original poster to lose a good nanny. Like I said, I had a friend who was a good nanny and loved her little child she cared for-and yet quit over the tape recording. It hurt her immensely that they didn't trust her. If it was me, I would quit as well. I would have the felt the same way YOU would feel if you found out your employer was filming you in the office. You were hired because you were capable of the job and your references checked out. You had the experience and the qualifications. If that's not enough for your boss, he needs to keep looking. But hiring you and secretly videotaping you would be an outrage. Nannies are employees of the family. They deserve to be treated like professional employees. Telling the nanny she is being filmed may cause her to not behavior like herself. If you have a bad nanny who is going to abuse the kids, having a camera isn't going to solve things. A knock on the head while the child is out of camera range might be due to a nanny knuckling the child. Or it might be that the child stood up under the coffee table and banged his head. Either way you have a crying child and no real explanation for what happened. A nanny can hit a child in the car or in the bathroom. You can't film every room at every angle. And despite wanting to, you can't protect your child at every moment. You hire the best nanny you can find, call her references, make sure she has a good employment history and doesn't fly from job to job, and put your trust in her. If you can't do that, if you honestly can't trust someone to mind the kids, stay home and take care of the kids yourself. Otherwise, you'll be miserable, and the nanny will end up quitting.

I said in my first post, as a Mom, I totally understand wanting the nanny-cam. However, as a nanny (and a good one at that), I would have quit the job had I found out that they didn't trust me with their children. It would be the principle of the thing. If you don't trust me, don't hire me. Hiding a nanny-cam may cause the original poster to lose a good nanny. Like I said, I had a friend who was a good nanny and loved her little child she cared for-and yet quit over the tape recording. It hurt her immensely that they didn't trust her. If it was me, I would quit as well. I wouldn't work for someone who didn't trust me alone with her child. I would have the felt the same way YOU would feel if you found out your husband was filming you at home. He married you because he loves you. What if you found out he was videotaping you in the house to make sure you were faithful and good to the kids? Are you okay with that? Is his right to know you aren't abusing the kids more important than your right to privacy in your own home? You are AWARE of the video camera at your job. What if you found out there was one hiding in the employee break room in case you say or do something that is considered racist or off color (to protect the company's image). You were hired because you were capable of the job and your references checked out. You had the experience and the qualifications. If that's not enough for your boss, he needs to keep looking. But hiring you and secretly videotaping you would be an outrage. Nannies are employees of the family. They deserve to be treated like professional employees. If you don't trust her, why are you hiring her? Telling the nanny she is being filmed may cause her to not behave like herself. If you have a bad nanny who is going to abuse the kids, having a camera isn't going to solve things. A knock on the head while the child is out of camera range might be due to a nanny knuckling the child. Or it might be that the child stood up under the coffee table and banged his head. Either way you have a crying child and no real explanation for what happened. A nanny can hit a child in the car or in the bathroom. You can't film every room at every angle. And despite wanting to, you can't protect your child at every moment. You hire the best nanny you can find, call her references, make sure she has a good employment history and doesn't fly from job to job, and put your trust in her. If you can't do that, if you honestly can't trust someone to mind the kids, then stay home and take care of the kids yourself. Otherwise, you'll be miserable and the nanny will end up quitting. As a mom, I totally understand the overwhelming desire to protect your kids from every possible bad thing that could ever happen. But if you can't trust another person that you've met, interviewed, talked to references, had no criminal history and have dropped in to visit unexpectedly and observed how she was interacting with the kids (along with other relatives/neighbors), then you will NEVER trust that person. So what is that person doing in your home minding your kids? __________________ To the OP, if you decide on the camera, have a back up childcare plan in place so you don't have to miss work while searching for a replacement. And if you absolutely love the nanny you chose (and I can't imagine you choosing someone you didn't absolutely love), make sure that the camera is worth the loss of the nanny. Good nannies are hard to come by. AND GO THRU AN AGENCY: Don't, whatever you do, hire a nanny based on a newspaper advertisement or online search. Real, professional nannies go through agencies. I wouldn't work for a family that wasn't first screened by an agency. And agencies take care of all the background/fingerprint checks and make sure to collect references that you can call. Also, before you call agencies, have a friend or neighbor call the agency and ask for a nanny application. See what kind of information the agency is asking for. It should be more than a name, address & reference request. It should be a long detailed application asking questions about everything from views on discipline to expectations the nanny has of life in her employer's home. The more they want to know about the nanny, the better the agency. A good agency wants real CHILDCARE references that can be verified-not just personal references that a friend can give. A good nanny agency doesn't just send you a list of their latest applicants. They try to match a nanny who meets your expectations and can live comfortably with your lifestyle and rules. AND, the agency should have a long history. You don't want a new agency who doesn't have a long history of placing nannies. Expensive route? Yes. But if you're going to hire a nanny, hire a real nanny from a real agency. By taking the less expensive route to avoid agency fees, you really ARE putting your child in a potentially dangerous situation. Nannies=professional employeeBabysitters=someone who likes kids and will mind your child while you work. If want an actual nanny, hire a nanny-not a babysitter. I'm in the DC metro area. I went through one agency for my first family (I stayed with them 5 years) and I went through another agency for my second family (I stayed with them 2 years). Both agencies have been in business forever and I would highly recommend them. If you pm me, I'd be glad to give you the agency names.

Any Agency or individual can be fooled if that is what the Nanny wants. After all, they often have training, and it's pretty easy to keep a good rep if nothing has ever been witnessed. Perhaps it's just little things, nothing major, but the thing is, those kinds of things tend to escalate eventually. Do you want it to be in your home that it escalates to a dangerous level? Is your child's safety worth losing a potentially good Nanny, IMHO - absolutely. If Nanny's want to be treated professionally, then they should understand security is just good business. If she wants to be treated like a member of the family, then she probably shouldn't work for someone who wants to use a Nanny cam, her choice, we all have them.

If she can fool the agency, she can fool you AND your secret camera, too. And if she knows she's being videotaped, and she's NOT a good person, she will just do her dirty work in a place that won't be filmed (like the car, a bathroom or some other place).Like I said, a videocamera is only a small portion of the day. And if you hire someone you don't trust and decide to use a camera to babysit, your child could be abused before you have a chance to intervene. How helpless would you be watching your child on a tape being abused and neglected knowing you can't go back and change anything. You can't do anything AFTER your child is abused to remove the experience from them..A videocamera does not provide protection from shoddy hiring. If you do your job in hiring the right professional nanny, you should feel confident in your choice. If there is any doubt at all-even the tiniest doubt, then you have the WRONG nanny. And using a video camera to babysit a nanny you don't trust make no sense at all. If you don't trust her, she doesn't belong in your home or anywhere near your children. If you do trust her, then what are you hoping to "catch"? If she's a good nanny, you'll catch nothing but will probably lose a good nanny who feels deceived. If you tell her your videotaping, she'll find the camera and then be EXTRA careful whenever in that area of the home. If you use a video camera to babysit your nanny instead of spending the time & money to hire the right person in the first place, by the time you realize you have the wrong nanny, your kids will have suffered. A camera isn't a substitute for doing the leg work required for hiring a good nanny. After a year, a family KNOWS their nanny-the good, the bad and the ugly. The first month is usually "honeymooning"..then you spend about 2 to 3 months ironing out differences in parenting style, discipline & lifestyle..After that, you and the nanny settle into a "groove". If that family gives a good reference to the new family (warts & all), then it's paranoid to think that this nanny has been "pretending" to be kind and good for the past year, fooling the family she lived with , fooling her agency and fooling all her references, only so she can torture your child on your secret videotape. You can spend the money & time and hire the right person up front. Or you can hire someone you find in a newspaper who barely speaks English and will work for practically nothing -and then spend your days at work worrying about what's going on in your home..and spend your nights watching a videotape that might reveal nothing (when in reality, the nanny is pinching your child or pulling her hair outside on the swingset). People want the best of both worlds. They want a "nanny" without the agency fee. They want the "professional" but they don't want to pay the actual nanny wages & benefits that agencies require families to pay for an experienced nanny. If you want a real nanny and you can afford a real nanny, then don't cut corners. Go to a reputable agency and get a "nanny". If you can't afford a nanny, please put your child in a licensed daycare center. But don't cut corners by hiring someone from a newspaper or internet site in order to save money- and then use a camera to babysit. The status of having a nanny isn't worth it if your cutting corners in order to have one. By the time you realize your kids are in danger, the damage will already be done.

From a nanny's perspective, would the nanny NOT want to be filmed? If I were to be a nanny in this day and age I would WANT a camera on me. So that if a child is being abused by parents or other family member and they instantly accuse the "sitter" I would have proof that I did NOT do anything wrong. Kim

As a nanny for many years myself, I agree with others that secretly taping a nanny can back-fire and you could loose a really good nanny because of it. I was also able to get to know many other nannies myself (some were great, and some where NOT), and I can tell you some of the scariest things about them were things that wouldn't have been caught on camera. I met two different nannies who told me they would leave the children with their boyfriends whenever they had a doctors appointment, and the parents never knew, and the children weren't old enough to tell them. I would definetly suggest making suprise visits, require that you know exactly where they will be if they leave the house, and if they do go somewhere, call her cell phone to "check in", and ask to say hi to your child.

That would work IF every room in the home, including the bathrooms, had cameras set up from all 4 angles and ran for the entire time the nanny was working. You'd also need cameras to catch all the different angles in the car. And a handi-cam that you can strap to the nanny's forehead so you can tape record potential abuse at the park. Not to mention, the cameras would have to run 24/7 so if, by chance, the child IS being abused by a relative or family friend, then it would be on tape. Otherwise, the parents could STILL accuse the nanny and say a black and blue mark is the result of a pinch to the arm outside the range of the camera. So, for the nanny's protection (if camera's are for the nanny's protection) the taping would have to run constantly and film the parents and any visitors to the home who interact with the child in any room in the house from every possible angle. Realistic? If people are that paranoid about their child's safety after doing a thorough check of a professional nanny, then they need to stay home and mind their own child-because NO ONE would ever be good enough.A camera isn't a subsititute for hiring a decent caregiver.

I was a nanny for every summer that I was in college. The family I was with had a different nanny during the year, and then she would have the summers off and I would work. I loved those kids. Man, did I love them! I would have been disturbed to find out that I was being filmed, mostly because I felt like a member of the family. I had keys and a garage door opener! I would never film my mom when she is watching my kids, so if I was a pseudo family member, I would feel so sad if I had been taped. I think a nanny cam can instill a false sense of security for parents. If you don't see anything wrong there, you are going to be more apt to dismiss your gut feelings that something is wrong.

Nanny cams are very essential while hiring a nanny. We have seen lot many cases where nanny cams proved useful. The child safety is ensured by using nanny cams. We can have regular checks on the [URL="http://www.daycaresurvey.com"]childcare[/URL] provided by the nanny.

I don't trust anyone anymore. If that sounds harsh, then so be it. Too many children are abused, sexualized places where you don't think it would ever happen, etc. I'm not a perfect mom, I yell at times when I should find other ways to handle the stress. But, for now, I stay at home with my kids. I don't have to worry whether my kids are in their seatbelts in the sitters car, I don't have to worry whether they're getting sweet treats to keep them quiet, etc. I handle it myself. I certainly realize there are those parents that must work -- I was one myself for too long. I have mixed feelings about nanny cams. I would likely use one if I really had to get a "nanny". But I also understand the nanny feeling about not being trusted and what that could do to a relationship with parents. So my answer is that if you really can't trust anyone with your children, there may be a way you can reconfigure your budget and one parent stay at home with them. We only use my 24 year old daughter to sit for our kids and one or two friends that we trust implicitly. Otherwise, we stay home with them. We don't do "respite", we don't vacation without our kids -- we are parents.

As a former nanny/full time sitter/care giver I can honeslty tell you that I WOULD NOT have an issue with being nanny cammed. I'd hate to think that someone other than a toddler would be subjected to my best attempts at singing (ha), but that's ok! I was a special person in their lives, but in reality I was not a family member. Nanny's are paid employees hired to care for the most precious thing in their lives. Paid to care for and protect their child. Banks with precious dollars have cams how can I get upset with someone wanting to ensure that their child is safe while in an essential strangers care? Parents should be aware of every bad nanny red flag before using a cam. But if they want to see for themselves what's going on in their home day in and day out, why should I care if I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing with that child's best interest always leading me? Hours of feedings, changings, singing, blocks, coloring books, play dough, and nap times won't win me an Oscar, but again that's fine by me ;)

If I had concerns, I would have no problem using a cam. I worked in Admin. in the Security Dept. for a Casino several years ago, and we were all filmed. I am an honest person, so I had nothing to worry about. If anything, those cameras protected me because they accounted for my whereabouts at all times. Children are definitely our most precious gift...it is our job as parents to do all that we can to protect them. It's a very different world today from what I grew up in.

first and foremost...don't do it without telling them. Second, as a well qualified and respected nanny, I wouldn't want to work for someone with a Nanny cam. For me is shows a level of paranoia and distrust. No thanks. If I found out I was being taped and hadn't been told, I hope you have back up care for the next day, because I wouldn't be there. Your Nanny is all over your house while they care for your child. If you think you are so much smarter than her and can hide the camera, congrats...you've hired a stupid Nanny. I'm sure there are some Nanny's that have no issue. I'm used to being trusted while I work, so I would. Just because a nanny doesn't want to be taped, doesn't mean she's a child abuser. If a Nanny wants to abuse your child, and you are taping her, she will find a way to do it. All taping provides is a false sense of security. Taping will theoretically help you AFTER your child has been abused anyway. What good is it then? You haven't protected your child from anything? Do your work up front and hire a well qualified nanny with references. Meet with other families she has worked for. Do you back ground checks etc. Good Luck!

"Taping will theoretically help you AFTER your child has been abused anyway. What good is it then? You haven't protected your child from anything?"I see both sides of this issue and thankfully I work from home and care for my two boys so it is not a decision I have to make.However...this argument I've seen posted several times about nanny cams only helping after the fact...if I were the mom kelceesmom talked about, who hired the former daycare teacher (and we have to assume this person would have been through the appropriate background checks)...and this person had been in my home 8 months already when I found out about the abuse, I would be kicking myself for not reviewing those tapes earlier. So yes, it will not help you protect your child from ANY abuse, but it could help you protect a child from REPEATED abuse, and I think we can all agree that it would be far worse to know that an abusive caregiver had been in our home for 8 months. How heartbreaking.

Do it, and tell the nanny they are being filmed. As a respite provider I strongly prefer that families have cameras in their home. It protects the nanny, as well as the child. But I agree that it is invasive of privacy not to tell the nanny they are being filmed. Plus, if the point of the nanny cam is to reduce the risk of abuse (not just catch it on tape) it doesn't do much good if they don't know it's there, now does it??? Of course, hopefully they won't need that deterrent.