wwyd au pair sneaking food

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do all of you leave your medicine in a locked cabinet at all times?
I know I dont have and I have a 4yo. If your au pair takes this medicine on a daily basis it would be a pain in the ass to have to lock it up every day.
You also should not have gone in her drawers, you have control issues.

Yes. Everyone's daily meds included. We have a family lock box, she has a private lock bag we provided her to keep in her room.

We are safety conscious in that all poisons and meds are locked up, low placed 2nd floor windows have safety features, and bike helmets and carseats properly used are a must. Other than that we are pretty easy going, actually. My kids are tree climbing, knee scraping, free ranging adventurers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is insane. How did children ever survive until the mid to late 1980's? Minimal child seats or seat belts for that matter, drinking age and smoking age were lower; how did anyone survive these dark ages?

Oh, yeah - maybe parenting and teaching children there are things you should and should not do.
Do not climb out the window.
Do not eat medicine.
Do not touch a gun. These seem kind of basic.
It is not like AP has some freaky new medicine bottles that look like candy to kids, say like some laundry detergent products that have appeared that parents have to deal with now.

I would say do the AP a favor and rematch, drop out of the program and find some land in Wyoming to homestead on and live off the land; something a kin to 1800's style of life and put quill to paper (yes, it was around back then) so your great, great children can tweet about their crazy great grandparents.

Your post is exactly in the vein of "get off my lawn! I walked uphill in six feet of snow barefoot to go to school -- BOTH WAYS -- and look at me! I'm fine!" If you're a parent, I fear for your kids. If you're a nanny or an au pair troll, I hope devoutly you never work in childcare again.

The answer to your stupid rhetorical question is that kids DIED before the mid to late 1980s because of inadequate child safety laws for cars such as seat belts and carseat requirements. Those kids aren't around any more. Many kids but not all kids survived their childhood because of preventable, survivable accidents where carseats and seat belts could have saved their lives.

It is stupid and irresponsible for a parent NOT to take basic child safety precautions to prevent PREVENTABLE accidents. That includes supervising people you employ to keep your children safe to make sure they follow fundamental and basic safety precautions, as well as childproofing the most dangerous aspects of your house, particularly if you have young and therefore by definition impulsive children.

The idea that you can "teach kids not to touch guns" is so freaking stupid that I doubt your basic intelligence. In the US, small children shoot themselves or others roughly once a week, year in and year out. You cannot teach a young child to control his or her impulses every second of every day. The best and most basic safety precaution is never to have a gun in the home, because it's far more likely that you or your child will be harmed by it than protected by it.

Children fall out of windows all. the. time. About 5,000 a year in this country. It happened to a neighbor's kid -- under an au pair's watch, I might add. The little boy narrowly missed getting impaled on their fence. Literally a couple inches' difference made the difference between a normal life and death or permanent disability.

Kids poison themselves all the time with prescription medications. In the US 60,000 to 100,000 kids a year, are treated in ERs for prescription medication ingestion. That's not even counting the kids who poison themselves with household products -- that's more like 700,000 a year. Some of these kids will die. True story. I bet the parents of the children who die would have even stronger words for you than I do about how well the "teach children not to eat medicine"

To the OP -- I think you might have gone a bit overboard in looking in the AP's drawers, but your bigger issue here is not food in your AP's room but your ability to trust her to do her basic job, which is keeping your kids safe from preventable accidents. Not all accidents are preventable, but prescription medication poisonings and falls out of windows certainly are.

You need to have a hard reset conversation, preferably with your LCC involved, and you need to document your instructions to the AP on this issue in emails that your LCC gets. Then you need to install safety bars on all your second-floor windows if you haven't done so already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is insane. How did children ever survive until the mid to late 1980's? Minimal child seats or seat belts for that matter, drinking age and smoking age were lower; how did anyone survive these dark ages?

Oh, yeah - maybe parenting and teaching children there are things you should and should not do.
Do not climb out the window.
Do not eat medicine.
Do not touch a gun. These seem kind of basic.
It is not like AP has some freaky new medicine bottles that look like candy to kids, say like some laundry detergent products that have appeared that parents have to deal with now.

I would say do the AP a favor and rematch, drop out of the program and find some land in Wyoming to homestead on and live off the land; something a kin to 1800's style of life and put quill to paper (yes, it was around back then) so your great, great children can tweet about their crazy great grandparents.

Your post is exactly in the vein of "get off my lawn! I walked uphill in six feet of snow barefoot to go to school -- BOTH WAYS -- and look at me! I'm fine!" If you're a parent, I fear for your kids. If you're a nanny or an au pair troll, I hope devoutly you never work in childcare again.

The answer to your stupid rhetorical question is that kids DIED before the mid to late 1980s because of inadequate child safety laws for cars such as seat belts and carseat requirements. Those kids aren't around any more. Many kids but not all kids survived their childhood because of preventable, survivable accidents where carseats and seat belts could have saved their lives.

It is stupid and irresponsible for a parent NOT to take basic child safety precautions to prevent PREVENTABLE accidents. That includes supervising people you employ to keep your children safe to make sure they follow fundamental and basic safety precautions, as well as childproofing the most dangerous aspects of your house, particularly if you have young and therefore by definition impulsive children.

The idea that you can "teach kids not to touch guns" is so freaking stupid that I doubt your basic intelligence. In the US, small children shoot themselves or others roughly once a week, year in and year out. You cannot teach a young child to control his or her impulses every second of every day. The best and most basic safety precaution is never to have a gun in the home, because it's far more likely that you or your child will be harmed by it than protected by it.

Children fall out of windows all. the. time. About 5,000 a year in this country. It happened to a neighbor's kid -- under an au pair's watch, I might add. The little boy narrowly missed getting impaled on their fence. Literally a couple inches' difference made the difference between a normal life and death or permanent disability.

Kids poison themselves all the time with prescription medications. In the US 60,000 to 100,000 kids a year, are treated in ERs for prescription medication ingestion. That's not even counting the kids who poison themselves with household products -- that's more like 700,000 a year. Some of these kids will die. True story. I bet the parents of the children who die would have even stronger words for you than I do about how well the "teach children not to eat medicine"

To the OP -- I think you might have gone a bit overboard in looking in the AP's drawers, but your bigger issue here is not food in your AP's room but your ability to trust her to do her basic job, which is keeping your kids safe from preventable accidents. Not all accidents are preventable, but prescription medication poisonings and falls out of windows certainly are.

You need to have a hard reset conversation, preferably with your LCC involved, and you need to document your instructions to the AP on this issue in emails that your LCC gets. Then you need to install safety bars on all your second-floor windows if you haven't done so already.

Well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is insane. How did children ever survive until the mid to late 1980's? Minimal child seats or seat belts for that matter, drinking age and smoking age were lower; how did anyone survive these dark ages?

Oh, yeah - maybe parenting and teaching children there are things you should and should not do.
Do not climb out the window.
Do not eat medicine.
Do not touch a gun. These seem kind of basic.
It is not like AP has some freaky new medicine bottles that look like candy to kids, say like some laundry detergent products that have appeared that parents have to deal with now.

I would say do the AP a favor and rematch, drop out of the program and find some land in Wyoming to homestead on and live off the land; something a kin to 1800's style of life and put quill to paper (yes, it was around back then) so your great, great children can tweet about their crazy great grandparents.

Your post is exactly in the vein of "get off my lawn! I walked uphill in six feet of snow barefoot to go to school -- BOTH WAYS -- and look at me! I'm fine!" If you're a parent, I fear for your kids. If you're a nanny or an au pair troll, I hope devoutly you never work in childcare again.

The answer to your stupid rhetorical question is that kids DIED before the mid to late 1980s because of inadequate child safety laws for cars such as seat belts and carseat requirements. Those kids aren't around any more. Many kids but not all kids survived their childhood because of preventable, survivable accidents where carseats and seat belts could have saved their lives.

It is stupid and irresponsible for a parent NOT to take basic child safety precautions to prevent PREVENTABLE accidents. That includes supervising people you employ to keep your children safe to make sure they follow fundamental and basic safety precautions, as well as childproofing the most dangerous aspects of your house, particularly if you have young and therefore by definition impulsive children.

The idea that you can "teach kids not to touch guns" is so freaking stupid that I doubt your basic intelligence. In the US, small children shoot themselves or others roughly once a week, year in and year out. You cannot teach a young child to control his or her impulses every second of every day. The best and most basic safety precaution is never to have a gun in the home, because it's far more likely that you or your child will be harmed by it than protected by it.

Children fall out of windows all. the. time. About 5,000 a year in this country. It happened to a neighbor's kid -- under an au pair's watch, I might add. The little boy narrowly missed getting impaled on their fence. Literally a couple inches' difference made the difference between a normal life and death or permanent disability.

Kids poison themselves all the time with prescription medications. In the US 60,000 to 100,000 kids a year, are treated in ERs for prescription medication ingestion. That's not even counting the kids who poison themselves with household products -- that's more like 700,000 a year. Some of these kids will die. True story. I bet the parents of the children who die would have even stronger words for you than I do about how well the "teach children not to eat medicine"

To the OP -- I think you might have gone a bit overboard in looking in the AP's drawers, but your bigger issue here is not food in your AP's room but your ability to trust her to do her basic job, which is keeping your kids safe from preventable accidents. Not all accidents are preventable, but prescription medication poisonings and falls out of windows certainly are.

You need to have a hard reset conversation, preferably with your LCC involved, and you need to document your instructions to the AP on this issue in emails that your LCC gets. Then you need to install safety bars on all your second-floor windows if you haven't done so already.

Well said.

+1,000

[Anonymous]

Nanny here- Counting reason #4785257 I'm grateful not to be an aupair anymore. Wow.

[Anonymous]

Wait...what?? Your kids go into your APs room? YOUR ENTIER FAMILY HAS MAJOR BOUNDARY PROBLEMS. You sneak around and rifle through your AP drawers and you are incapable of setting basic rules of privacy for your children and YOU are the one who doesn't trust your AP? Lady, you are the untrustworthy person here with absolutly no ethical or moral compass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is insane. How did children ever survive until the mid to late 1980's? Minimal child seats or seat belts for that matter, drinking age and smoking age were lower; how did anyone survive these dark ages?

Oh, yeah - maybe parenting and teaching children there are things you should and should not do.
Do not climb out the window.
Do not eat medicine.
Do not touch a gun. These seem kind of basic.
It is not like AP has some freaky new medicine bottles that look like candy to kids, say like some laundry detergent products that have appeared that parents have to deal with now.

I would say do the AP a favor and rematch, drop out of the program and find some land in Wyoming to homestead on and live off the land; something a kin to 1800's style of life and put quill to paper (yes, it was around back then) so your great, great children can tweet about their crazy great grandparents.

Your post is exactly in the vein of "get off my lawn! I walked uphill in six feet of snow barefoot to go to school -- BOTH WAYS -- and look at me! I'm fine!" If you're a parent, I fear for your kids. If you're a nanny or an au pair troll, I hope devoutly you never work in childcare again.

The answer to your stupid rhetorical question is that kids DIED before the mid to late 1980s because of inadequate child safety laws for cars such as seat belts and carseat requirements. Those kids aren't around any more. Many kids but not all kids survived their childhood because of preventable, survivable accidents where carseats and seat belts could have saved their lives.

It is stupid and irresponsible for a parent NOT to take basic child safety precautions to prevent PREVENTABLE accidents. That includes supervising people you employ to keep your children safe to make sure they follow fundamental and basic safety precautions, as well as childproofing the most dangerous aspects of your house, particularly if you have young and therefore by definition impulsive children.

The idea that you can "teach kids not to touch guns" is so freaking stupid that I doubt your basic intelligence. In the US, small children shoot themselves or others roughly once a week, year in and year out. You cannot teach a young child to control his or her impulses every second of every day. The best and most basic safety precaution is never to have a gun in the home, because it's far more likely that you or your child will be harmed by it than protected by it.

Children fall out of windows all. the. time. About 5,000 a year in this country. It happened to a neighbor's kid -- under an au pair's watch, I might add. The little boy narrowly missed getting impaled on their fence. Literally a couple inches' difference made the difference between a normal life and death or permanent disability.

Kids poison themselves all the time with prescription medications. In the US 60,000 to 100,000 kids a year, are treated in ERs for prescription medication ingestion. That's not even counting the kids who poison themselves with household products -- that's more like 700,000 a year. Some of these kids will die. True story. I bet the parents of the children who die would have even stronger words for you than I do about how well the "teach children not to eat medicine"

To the OP -- I think you might have gone a bit overboard in looking in the AP's drawers, but your bigger issue here is not food in your AP's room but your ability to trust her to do her basic job, which is keeping your kids safe from preventable accidents. Not all accidents are preventable, but prescription medication poisonings and falls out of windows certainly are.
.

LOL.
Thanks for the cliff notes on child safety advancements. You forgot to hit the big one of vaccines but clearly you are a literal sort who can only go so far and wants to excuse a beyond helicopter parent now in drone mode; approaching Orwell's, yours, and OPs apparent 1984ish perfect state of everything is preventable if someone else engineers it so I do not have to think about it thus justifying invasion of privacy and what the fuck you have in your dresser is my rational and logical progression to investigate.

Get real, try to fake a sense of humor if possible (really, a quill and homesteading?). Medicine in AP room is not probable cause to go through dressers and drawers. You and OP appear to have no value of child care providers or any service class level provider's dignity.

[Anonymous]

Wow. My mom's had epilepsy for my entire life and took pills for it four times a day throughout my entire childhood. I used to BRING her the anti-seizure pills with a glass of Coke as a little kid. I would check her pillbox and come running with it if I saw it was past the time she was supposed to take one and hadn't done it yet. They all lived on the lazy Susan above the kitchen sink.

And I was the impulsive, bad decision maker kid of the family. Yet I STILL never would have taken her medicine. And I didn't even know it was for epilepsy until I was in 12th grade. I just knew my dad made sure she took her pills, so we did too, to help him.

[Anonymous]

Id be curious to know the demographics around these answers... who is American born, who is still on infant/toddler phase. And remember that au pairs are in neither categories, so probably don't relate to what might appear as a zealous, over-protective philosophy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. My mom's had epilepsy for my entire life and took pills for it four times a day throughout my entire childhood. I used to BRING her the anti-seizure pills with a glass of Coke as a little kid. I would check her pillbox and come running with it if I saw it was past the time she was supposed to take one and hadn't done it yet. They all lived on the lazy Susan above the kitchen sink.

And I was the impulsive, bad decision maker kid of the family. Yet I STILL never would have taken her medicine. And I didn't even know it was for epilepsy until I was in 12th grade. I just knew my dad made sure she took her pills, so we did too, to help him.

Op's children are likely toddlers. I highly doubt you were doing this for your mom at age 2-3. And i also doubt you could reach the lazy Susan above the kitchen sink at that age. I doubt your mom kept her meds in your reach when you were 2-3.

My child is 10. I haven't had to worry about her taking medicine for years. With my permission she gets herself children's Advil when needed. But when she was a toddler you'd better believe we made sure all meds were locked or kept way out of her reach. Pp when you have kids I would hope you understand that toddlers don't have the impulse control or maturity to understand reliably that what looks like candy isn't candy and might kill them if they take it.

[Anonymous]

Our only house rule is no food outside the kitchen. We give her a shelf for anything she wants to get for herself. When you know she is home, collect trash from the upstairs bins and ask for hers. That's an easy way to see if she has wrappers in her room and to open the conversation.
Ask yourself WHY she is storing/eating food in her room instead of in your kitchen. Does she not feel comfortable, is it food that you don't allow the kids to eat? Problem solve WITH her how she can eat the foods she wants to but keep them out of her room.
With the season change, remind her of the rule and WHY - you have no bugs and don't want any!
The privacy invasion is a major blip, so you really can't act on that information unless you get it otherwise.

[Anonymous]

If she's sneaking food then she doesn't feel comfortable storing or taking what she wants in your home. Maybe you should give her a shelf on a cabinet or in the fridge for her stuff, but you should really be supplying all her food, including treats.

[Anonymous]

Maybe she keeps all that food in her room so the kids won't see it. Would you rather her eat her chips and candy and drink her Coke in front of the kids? What would you expect her to do if they asked for some. Feed the junk to your kids? She's an adult and deserves privacy. Pills were on thing because they were visible. Food was not.

[Anonymous]

It is just food who cares. She can eat what she wants. You shouldn't snoop.

[Anonymous]

I find it very interesting that with all of these "safety" issues -- the title of this thread is not, "Au pair leaving her medicine unsecured" or "au pair leaving food in her room"... instead it is: WWYD au pair SNEAKING food. That, to me, confirms you are bat shit crazy.

I'm a HM for 7 years, and I think you are crazy, and have no sense of boundaries. Perhaps you should unlock your lockbox of meds and try taking some of them.

Preposterous.

Your whole issue is probably that she's 'gasp' eating junk food, or eating more than you allow. The rest of this is just cover for your snooping and neurosis.