Professional Nannies Provide Quality Care Not Just Custodial Care

Respecting Professional Boundaries for Nannies and Parents

All parents know they want to hire loving and caring nannies that can protect their kids. But, nannies must provide more than just custodial care: merely keeping kids safe, warm, and fed. Professional nannies, the best nannies, provide quality care. Parents want to hire caregivers that have a good character that will help the children in their care develop good self-esteems, love of learning, courage, confidence, perseverance, and optimism.

Anne Merchant Geissler, author of The Child Care Textbook, explains that sub-standard childcare seems to have become the norm rather than the exception. She says, research shows that custodial care is sub-standard care that does not consistently include planned age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate social, physical, cognitive, and psychological care.

Ms. Geissler explains that children cared for by educated caregivers have better language skills, score higher in school readiness tests, have better social skills, fewer behavioral problems, and are more likely to become literate, gainfully employed, and enrolled in college, (Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, and Mann).

Gone are the days when experts believed that all infants and toddlers needed was someone to nurture them. As important as it is to cuddle and love children, if children are to grow to their full potential they must also receive developmentally appropriate cognitive, social, physical, and emotional stimulation, explains Ms. Geissler.

To demand a higher salary and better respect nannies must provide quality care. Nannies with good character are honest, patient, tolerant, helpful, responsible, and forgiving. Ask yourself if you are truly providing quality care. If you are only providing custodial care, this is the time to step-it-up and start providing quality care.

The Child Care Textbook: Required Reading in the Nation’s First Tuition-free, College Credit, Child Care Training Program