Cameras are legal in all 50 states amd, do not need to be disclosed. However, you cannot record in private places.

I am a bit surprised to see so many people opposed to them or at least demanding disclosure. I have worked in Children and Youth and the court systems. Sadly your gut is not always correct about caregivers, and thus I am all for monitoring, no matter how you feel about the caregiver, especially when your child is too young to communicate. However, we do disclose that we have cameras, and I have never had a caregiver object to them (we also keep the volume turned off).

We have a camera tied into our security system located at the front and back door. The cameras are outside not inside the house. If your husband is worried about parties, this would let you know who,is coming and going without being invasive.

Responding to the AP, we have cameras in and outside of our house. In my experience, the German APs we had were very upset about and suspicious of the cameras. The Mexicans APs we had loved them and used them (to see who's at the door, determine if we had gone to bed yet, etc). My main piece of advice is to disclose the locations of the cameras, and give the AP full access to the camera feed so that you're on even footing.

Anonymous wrote:Congrats, you are going to monitor Au program using cameras.
It is illegal without participant full consent. It is illegal also when the Au pair is taking care of the children. Of course HP don't have to tell.

Laws about cameras vary by state and in every state, it is legal for a homeowner to use cameras in common areas without the consent of anyone else. It would be illegal to put a camera in the bathroom or an AP's bedroom. But doors, living rooms, etc. do not require consent in any state.

Face it, your DH probably hopes she'll strut around in the nude while you're gone.

Anonymous wrote:Having cameras inside the house for the purpose of monitoring the AP is starting the relationship on the wrong foot - already mistrusting the AP before there is any reason to. That's not a good attitude.

I think it is valid to have exterior cameras to monitor the OUTSIDE of the house as part of a house security system, which would tell who comes and goes or loiter outside the house doing suspicious things, regardless if anyone (you, DH, AP, anyone) is home or not. It is actually a good way to safely check who is at the door without opening the door.

We also have a weekend home and do not have cameras inside the house. AP had on occasion been in the house all weekend by herself. We set very clear guidelines about visitors, guests etc. and we never had any issues. Start with trust but clearly sit down with her to go over all of your expectations so that there is no miscommunication or misinterpretation about what you allow or not allow. Make your rules ABSOLUTE so that there are no gray areas. We even say in our handbook that she needs to ask every time she wants to invite someone over - even a friend who we have allowed before - we make it very clear that by allowing a particular friend to enter in the past does not been this friend is cleared to visit anytime in the future without asking again. One time approval does not mean a lifetime approval.

If you want, have a trusted neighbor go over to your house while you are away and see if anything is up, like a house party or other disruptive activities. Take an inventory of important things or areas that AP is not allowed to be in or use, even take photos if you need to record the state of affairs before leaving and then see if anything is disturbed when you come back. I do that the first couple of times and then stop once I feel comfortable. I also installed locks on certain closets where we store important papers (financial and confidential) or precious things to keep it from prying eyes (not so much worry about AP, but really anyone like a house cleaner, repairman etc) to reduce chance of identity theft. My security measures are not targeted specifically to AP. Watching the AP, especially during off hours is crossing the line.

We all have our lines. Personally, I'd rather have a camera and look in on occasion than bug our neighbor to check up on AP, take pics like this, and install locks.

Having cameras inside the house for the purpose of monitoring the AP is starting the relationship on the wrong foot - already mistrusting the AP before there is any reason to. That's not a good attitude.

I think it is valid to have exterior cameras to monitor the OUTSIDE of the house as part of a house security system, which would tell who comes and goes or loiter outside the house doing suspicious things, regardless if anyone (you, DH, AP, anyone) is home or not. It is actually a good way to safely check who is at the door without opening the door.

We also have a weekend home and do not have cameras inside the house. AP had on occasion been in the house all weekend by herself. We set very clear guidelines about visitors, guests etc. and we never had any issues. Start with trust but clearly sit down with her to go over all of your expectations so that there is no miscommunication or misinterpretation about what you allow or not allow. Make your rules ABSOLUTE so that there are no gray areas. We even say in our handbook that she needs to ask every time she wants to invite someone over - even a friend who we have allowed before - we make it very clear that by allowing a particular friend to enter in the past does not been this friend is cleared to visit anytime in the future without asking again. One time approval does not mean a lifetime approval.

If you want, have a trusted neighbor go over to your house while you are away and see if anything is up, like a house party or other disruptive activities. Take an inventory of important things or areas that AP is not allowed to be in or use, even take photos if you need to record the state of affairs before leaving and then see if anything is disturbed when you come back. I do that the first couple of times and then stop once I feel comfortable. I also installed locks on certain closets where we store important papers (financial and confidential) or precious things to keep it from prying eyes (not so much worry about AP, but really anyone like a house cleaner, repairman etc) to reduce chance of identity theft. My security measures are not targeted specifically to AP. Watching the AP, especially during off hours is crossing the line.

Anonymous wrote:Op - we do have a camera outside that we can check to see who is coming and going, as well as a security system. I don't think a camera is necessary and am not totally sure why dh does, I think maybe he's just testing out the idea.

As a parent I don't think I would leave my kids alone with someone I didn't trust, so having a camera to spy on my childcare provider doesn't seem like a good way to show or establish trust. As a former nanny I know that if you have a gut feeling issue causing you concern you should not leave that person alone with your kids.

Disclose that you have security cameras and check periodically when you're out of town. Mention that this means that you will see unauthorized visitors, so it is very important that AP follows the rules (that she has already agreed to by matching, right??) and you won't end up accidentally calling authorities on her friends.

There's nothing wrong with security cams/nanny cams and you can trust someone with or without them. But they should always be disclosed, so you don't create a new trust issue (for AP trusting HP). However, this doesn't mean that you have to point out where they are or be very specific to enable someone to get around them.

We have baby monitors set up in common areas (rather than the kids' rooms) that we disclosed and never pointed out. AP hasn't had an issue or mentioned to us that she does have an issue. However, we specifically say we don't watch all the time or record, and also have never brought up anything we saw. It's creepy to say, oh, I saw that HK took a nap on the couch today at 1pm for 1.5 hours. No, I check for a few sec at a time to make sure that I can't hear endless screaming or other warning indicators. These cameras preexisted AP and will probably remain even as the kids age because it's more work to remove them from our network.