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[quote=Anonymous]We hired a new nanny just over a month ago. She'd babysat for us several times and seemed like she got along well with the kids and was able to manage them well. We have four: two elementary age, two preschool. We are paying the nanny the rate she requested (market).

Our oldest has ADHD and can be a real handful to deal with. He is truly inattentive and struggles A LOT with task initiation, staying on task, and prioritizing. When he's overwhelmed, he resists. He's by no means an easy kid to deal with, but if you take the time to understand where he's coming from and what's behind how he behaves, you can usually manage the situation and get him on track.

New nanny has decided he is just disrespectful because he doesn't listen to her. Well, he doesn't HEAR her half the time because he's too absorbed in what he's doing, and even if he does hear her, it takes him a lot longer to shift gears than his super compliant brother. New nanny just believes he is disrespectful to her when not listening quickly. She can't seem to understand that the inattention/hyperfocus is part of who he is and is not intentional defiance. This week, he was awful one day after school. Called her an idiot as she tried to get him to do homework (this was after she pressed him on it for quite a while; not his first response). She has pretty much concluded that he is just a terribly disrespectful child and she has no control over him.

She has informed me that she wants me to come up with a plan of some sort that involves her not having to be independently responsible for all four of them, like I have to be home from work every day after school or she never has to try to get him to do homework. She seems like she's decided she just doesn't like him because he's not "good".  I fully admit he can be a hard kid to deal with, but he's also incredibly kind and genuine and wonderful and funny, but she seems to have entirely ignored that side of him.

What to do? It's not feasible for me to be home after school every day, though I do try to be home as often as possible. Do I let her go and just try to start fresh? Hire a second person for after school just to help my son with school work? If I hire another person for homework, I would not be inclined to have two paid childcare providers at home while I'm home (for those days I'm able to be home after school - which is anywhere from 2-4 days/wk usually), so I would really be disinclined to pay new nanny for those hours, as she has essentially declared she refused to take responsibility for the job she was hired for during those hours.

Any advice from wiser parents? I am at a loss here. I don't want to switch nannies so quickly for the sake of my younger ones, but I also don't want to continue to employ someone who clearly resents the presence of one of my children. To be clear, he's not violent, and  from what I hear from other parents, I don't even think he's outside the range of normal for surly tween.  Not sure what to do next. Nanny has basically given me until Monday to come up with my "plan".[/quote]

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