Problematic reasons for firing a nanny:

A nanny breaks house rules.

A nanny is violent or abusive.

A nanny steals.

A nanny drives dangerously or doesn’t take good care of the children.

A nanny is unreliable.

Under these circumstances, it is better to get the nanny out of your house immediately. Pay the nanny for the time she worked that week, or for the whole week, and have her say her goodbyes to the children.

You cannot have someone in your house that breaks the law or is unreliable and puts your children at any kind of safety risk.

This will be difficult for your children to adjust to, and they probably will have some separation anxiety. However, the bigger lesson is that this is life – and employees can be wonderful people, but they are different than family. It is not a bad lesson for the children to learn this truth. It breaks all the fairy tales of Mary Poppins and Tony Danza in the television show, Who’s The Boss, but reality is important, and the fact that you do not lie to your children is also important as a building block for trust.

Other ways that you may lose a nanny:

Some nannies just do not show up for work, and never return. It sounds extremely hard to believe, but it’s true. These are women who, for whatever reason, have enormous trouble with confrontation. They can’t even quit without just disappearing! Eventually, you may get them on the telephone, and they will either tell you the truth that they’ve gotten another job or they don’t want to come back – whatever the reason they tell you. Even worse are the ones who say, that they will be back, and then just don’t show up ever again.

Some neighbors are not so neighborly. They may see that you have a great nanny, and covertly woo them to come work for them. They may offer them a deal that you can’t match – or don’t want to. This is a particularly distressing situation because it creates mistrust between your family and the other neighbor, as well as between your family and the nanny, who will be working in your neighborhood, at worst, with one of your child’s peers. You may find yourself feeling that other neighbors would resort to the same methods of “poaching” your nanny when you do get another one.