Are you ready to pay the big bucks OP? Assuming there's even a candidate available, they get paid almost six figures plus benefits. At least I did when I was a nanny.

Anonymous wrote:Here are my two examples: two nannies who had bad grammar, both from foreign countries

1. our's -- she was loving. Never taught my kids their ABCs. Didn't need them to. That was our job. My older DC ended up in magnet programs throughout school.

2. neighbor's nanny -- one of the children was accepted to a top college

I had a co-worker who was looking for a nanny. This coworker (and I) used to work for a big name company, making big bucks. She did not care if the nanny spoke English well. Actually, both of us would've preferred the Spanish speaking nannies spoke to our children in Spanish. Alas, that didn't happen.

If you are expecting your nanny to also teach your kids to read and write as well, then yes, you want to get a nanny who has good grammar. But I will say, that many many real Americans also have terrible grammar, including some ES teachers from what I have seen. So, good luck to you.

I would say that if you read to your child every night (as we did), your kid will be fine. IMO, reading really helps with vocabulary and grammar.

As long as we're talking about vocabulary and grammar, it's "ours."

Op I agree with you. If my nanny had poor English I’d ask her to speak to my child exclusively in her native language.

Most nanny raised kids have delays, but the silver lining is that they are bilingual.

Yikes, so many children are having speech delays.

I don't care about grammar, I do care about the ability to communicate issues, particularly in an emergency

When I was getting my masters degree in English education and curriculum, I worked with two other students (science and math) to create a cross curricular nine week unit plan. I volunteered to piece it all together, and as I proofread their lesson plans, I was shocked at the number of grammatical and mechanical errors that were in their “final draft” of this work. Both were native English speakers who went on to become high school teachers.

The caregivers for both of our children didn’t speak English as a first language. My now 6 year old is above level in reading and math. But most importantly, they taught him to be caring and empathetic.

Didn't care. I wanted the nanny to have good language skills in our native language (not Spanish) and I did screen for that. Dd at 3 is now at preschool and has a couple funny things she says because the nanny said them that way.

There is a huge difference in a nanny who speaks English as a second language and doesn’t have perfect grammar versus a nanny who speaks English as a first language and has bad grammar. The former is fine. The latter is is not.

Here are my two examples: two nannies who had bad grammar, both from foreign countries

1. our's -- she was loving. Never taught my kids their ABCs. Didn't need them to. That was our job. My older DC ended up in magnet programs throughout school.

2. neighbor's nanny -- one of the children was accepted to a top college

I had a co-worker who was looking for a nanny. This coworker (and I) used to work for a big name company, making big bucks. She did not care if the nanny spoke English well. Actually, both of us would've preferred the Spanish speaking nannies spoke to our children in Spanish. Alas, that didn't happen.

If you are expecting your nanny to also teach your kids to read and write as well, then yes, you want to get a nanny who has good grammar. But I will say, that many many real Americans also have terrible grammar, including some ES teachers from what I have seen. So, good luck to you.

I would say that if you read to your child every night (as we did), your kid will be fine. IMO, reading really helps with vocabulary and grammar.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just. You suck.

x100. I bet that the kids who had limited vocabularies had parents who didn't talk to them at all, more than whether their nannies were English-dominant.

Maybe your child will be lucky and you won't speak much to them either.

This. If there was a gap in communication skills I’d look to the lack of engagement of the parents rather than the nanny’s second language skills.

Preschoolers need love and support not proper grammar.

Anonymous wrote:I just. You suck.

x100. I bet that the kids who had limited vocabularies had parents who didn't talk to them at all, more than whether their nannies were English-dominant.

Maybe your child will be lucky and you won't speak much to them either.

Anonymous wrote:I just. You suck.

+1

I just. You suck.

We're currently looking for a full-time nanny to replace our (amazing) part-time nanny since I'm going back to work full-time. I don't know if it's rational, but I've been automatically rejecting 95% of profiles I see or applications I get because the person writes badly/has terrible grammar/obviously has poor English skills. I used to teach at a very expensive private school in NYC and noticed that many of my students did not have as high level vocabularies as I would have expected - another teacher told me this was because many of them were essentially raised by nannies originally from another country who didn't speak English very well. I know that many foreign-born nannies are good down to their bones, love their charges, are capable, and do all kinds of fun and enriching activities with them. But ... I've read so many studies on the impact of surrounding children with high-level vocabulary and conversation. My children are in preschool, so it seems maybe more important than if I had an infant. I know I could ask a nanny to speak Spanish to my children, but for a few reasons that doesn't work well for our situation right now. Do you think my instincts (to insist on a nanny with great English) are reasonable, or am I missing out on better candidates? Is English ability important to you?