5 Useful Tips for You to Resolve Conflicts with Your Babysitter

It is important that you are able to trust your childcare provider with your children while you are away. However, many parents unknowingly allow a tension to build-up with the childcare providers.

Here are a few useful tips for you that you can use to avoid/resolve conflicts with your babysitter.

Try to understand her viewpoint

Rather than arguing with your babysitter on and on about viewpoints, try to be positive and accommodating. Be neutral and analyze the situation from her point of view. On many an occasion, may be you were being harsh on her.

Unless your child is exposed to a real threat of danger or the babysitter is opinionated on points of view, you can be accommodating.

When you keep an open mind, you may realize that your babysitter earnestly means to help you out; maybe she just tries to draw your attention to a different aspect that you’ve overlooked.

Stay calm

Stay calm, if you feel the childcare provider has gone against your style of parenting. Make sure that you communicate to her your concern about the discipline techniques she uses for managing your children; you can tell her why those techniques will not work.

Avoid yelling at her, or accusing her of serious damage done, as that can make the problem worse. Every childcare provider has her own ego, which you shouldn’t hurt. Different babysitters handle the same situation differently.

It is just fine if your children are reasonably comfortable and happy with the babysitter, the discipline techniques notwithstanding.

Talk it out

Your babysitter may not be clear about all of the guidelines you give her. Perhaps the tension build-up issues from the ambiguous nature of your instructions. Make sure that each of your guidelines is clearly communicated in writing.

Also, speak with the babysitter at the end of the day. Ask and answer questions and accept helpful suggestions. Clear communication is often the key to resolving issues.

Listen to the babysitter

Many parents overlook or ignore what the childcare provider has to say. Make sure you listen carefully to what she wants to say.  Accept constructive suggestions and feedback, and make her see the reason why certain other things are unacceptable.

If she is unhappy with the house rules, bed timings, or pay rates, you will have to negotiate and arrive at a mutually agreeable new schedule. However, you have to put your foot down as a parent, if the situation warrants it.

Explain the importance of certain rules

Unless you tell her, the babysitter may not realize the importance of certain routines for your family. In such a case, explain to her the reason why those routines matter. Once she understands the reason, the professional in her will make her oblige most certainly.

To avoid any potential tension with your babysitter, it is important that all your expectations are put across very clearly at the outset. Apart from this, you may find it helpful to train the childcare provider where necessary, and that may help in realizing your guidelines.

Remember, unambiguous two-way communication and warm relationship with the babysitter are extremely important in providing the best professional childcare.