You come home to discover your nanny signed your daughter up for a new activity without asking you. Or they changed your son’s bedtime because they decided it was better for him. Or they told the school your kids are allowed to participate in something you hadn’t discussed. Or they made a decision about discipline, food, schedule, or boundaries that was absolutely not theirs to make. Somewhere along the way, your nanny stopped seeing themselves as supportive help implementing your parenting approach and started seeing themselves as the person who makes the calls.
This is particularly insidious because it often develops gradually. First your nanny makes small suggestions that seem helpful. Then they start implementing those suggestions without asking. Then they’re making bigger decisions without consulting you. Before you realize it, they’re operating as if they’re the parent and you’re just the person who pays them and shows up occasionally. Your authority in your own home with your own children has been quietly undermined.
The dynamic gets complicated when your nanny is with your kids more hours per day than you are. They might genuinely think they know what’s best because they’re the ones managing daily realities. They see how tired your kids are, how they respond to different approaches, what works and what doesn’t in ways you might not observe if you’re working long hours. From their perspective, they’re the expert who understands your kids better, so of course they should be making decisions.
But that perspective is fundamentally wrong. Your nanny might spend more time with your kids than you do. They might have more childcare experience than you do. They might have excellent instincts about what kids need. None of that gives them the right to make parenting decisions without your input and approval. They’re staff, not co-parents, and understanding that boundary is essential.
At Seaside Staffing Company, we see this play out in Austin families where both parents work demanding jobs and nannies take on significant responsibility for daily child management. The line between implementing parents’ decisions and making decisions themselves gets blurry, and many nannies cross it without even realizing they’re overstepping.
Address it the first time you discover your nanny made a significant decision without consulting you. “I appreciate that you’re invested in the kids and that you’re thinking about what might be good for them. But enrolling her in gymnastics is a decision I needed to make. Please don’t sign the kids up for activities, change routines, or make other significant decisions without talking to me first.”
Pay attention to how they respond. Do they immediately apologize and understand why you’re upset? Or do they get defensive and explain all the reasons why their decision was right? The first response suggests someone who crossed a boundary without realizing it. The second suggests someone who thinks they have the authority to override you.
Make a list of decisions that require your input versus decisions your nanny can make independently. Everyday choices about what to have for snacks, which park to visit, what activities to do – fine for your nanny to decide. Anything involving money, commitments beyond the current day, changes to established routines, discipline escalation, or interaction with school and medical professionals – requires your approval. Being explicit about decision-making authority prevents confusion.
At Seaside Staffing Company, we tell families to err on the side of requiring consultation for anything significant. Your nanny should default to “let me check with parents” rather than making the call themselves when they’re not sure. Better to be asked about decisions you don’t care about than to discover they made decisions you very much care about without involving you.
Watch for whether your nanny is presenting decisions as if they’re already made rather than asking for input. “I signed Jimmy up for soccer” is very different from “I was thinking Jimmy might enjoy soccer – would you like me to look into teams?” The first is overstepping. The second is helpful suggestion that respects your authority.
Consider whether you’ve been accidentally delegating decision-making by being consistently unavailable or unresponsive. If your nanny can never reach you when they have questions, if you don’t respond to texts about schedule or activity options, if you’re generally too busy to discuss parenting decisions, they might have started making calls out of necessity. That doesn’t make it okay, but it helps you understand how the pattern developed.
Create systems for communication about decisions. Maybe you have a daily five-minute check-in where your nanny runs through anything they’re thinking about or that needs your input. Maybe you have a shared note app where they log questions and you respond by end of day. Maybe you carve out Sunday evening to discuss the week ahead and any decisions that need to be made. Making it easy to consult you reduces the likelihood they’ll just make decisions themselves.
Be responsive when your nanny does consult you. If they ask for your input on something and you take three days to respond, you’re teaching them that asking you is pointless and they might as well decide themselves. Timely responses to reasonable questions helps reinforce that you’re available and engaged in parenting decisions.
Watch for whether your nanny is making decisions that conveniently benefit them rather than genuinely focusing on what’s best for your kids. Maybe they changed bedtime to earlier because it makes their evening easier. Maybe they said yes to an activity that creates more work for you rather than for them. Maybe their decisions consistently align with what’s most convenient for them, which suggests self-interest rather than genuine advocacy for your children.
Pay attention to whether they’re making decisions in areas where you’ve been explicit about your preferences. If you’ve said you don’t want your kids doing certain activities and your nanny signs them up anyway, that’s deliberate insubordination. If they change routines you’ve established without even discussing it, they’re deciding that their judgment trumps your authority. That’s not okay.
At Seaside Staffing Company, we’ve seen families successfully address this by having very direct conversations about roles and authority. “I need you to understand that while you’re with the kids more hours than I am, I’m still the parent and I make the parenting decisions. Your role is to implement those decisions and to bring suggestions and observations to me so I can make informed choices. But you don’t get to make those choices yourself without my approval.”
If the pattern continues after you’ve been clear about boundaries, escalate. “We’ve talked about this, and you’re still making decisions without consulting me. This is the last time I’m going to address it before we have to have a serious conversation about whether this position is working out. I need you to check with me before making any significant decisions about the kids, and I need that to start happening consistently immediately.”
Some nannies will course-correct quickly once they understand they’ve overstepped. Others will continue to believe they know better and that checking with parents is unnecessary bureaucracy that slows down good decision-making. If you’ve got the second type, the employment relationship probably isn’t salvageable because the fundamental respect for your parental authority isn’t there.
Think about whether part of the issue is that you haven’t been clear about your parenting preferences, so your nanny is filling a vacuum with their own judgment. If you haven’t told them how you want things handled, they’ll make their own decisions by default. That’s solvable with better communication. But if you’ve been clear and they’re ignoring your preferences, that’s disrespect for your authority.
The goal is a nanny who brings their experience and observations to you, who makes thoughtful suggestions, who implements your parenting approach faithfully, and who checks with you before making significant decisions about your children’s lives. That’s professional childcare. Anything less is someone who’s forgotten whose children these are.
