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[quote=Anonymous]I'm amazed by how many people are convinced this post is fake.  I think OP's gripe is pretty common among parents.  In fact, I've met a lot of highly educated parents who choose daycare over a nanny because they want their child to get more "teaching" than most nannies do.

OP, I'm in the same situation.  My nanny is great in most ways--I hear it all the time from neighbors and the leaders at a couple of classes DD takes.  Her personality is wonderful and I trust her completely.  However, she isn't particularly creative and DD is at the point where I think she needs more varied learning opportunities.

I've tried buying books with activity ideas and leaving them for our nanny to read during naptime, but when time allows, she reads magazines instead.  I've tried buying new supplies, but she just uses them in the obvious child-led ways.

When we sit down for an annual meeting in the next month or two, I plan to emphasize that I want DD outside getting some sort of exercise for at least one hour every day and being read to for at least twenty minutes every day.  I think those things are already happening most days, but I want her to know that I notice and it's important to me.

I will also require that she plan and implement one new creative "teaching" activity per day, which should be noted in her daily log.  She can come up with ideas on her own or by using the books I've bought.  The activities don't need to be complex and I definitely don't want formal instruction using flash cards or the like, but I do want the nanny to think about new adult-led ways to nurture DD's development.

Activities could include playing animal charades to promote "pretending."  Or making play-dough and treating it as a science experiment about what happens when we combine something wet with something dry and powdery.  Or making a weather wheel or chart for the refrigerator to help DD identify "hot," "cold," "sunny," "rainy," etc.  Or visiting the zoo to see the animals in her books.  Or having a scavenger hunt outside for ordinary things like a caterpillar, a red leaf, a gray rock, a yellow flower.  I realize that some attempted activities will fail and there may be days when it just isn't possible to attempt anything, and that's okay.

I'm sure a lot of the nannies on here will rail against this "micromanagement," but I prefer to see it as management designed to promote a good employee's growth in a critical area of her nanny skill set.  You just have to make sure she has enough down time to plan stuff.

Also, my current thinking is that stating expectations (rather than imposing a schedule with specific activities) should be enough.  The nanny should be able to read books and plan activities as well as I can.  She should also be able to figure out how to best schedule the day.  [/quote]

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