The Evolution of Childcare in Private Homes with Dr. Virginia Schwager — Part 2

Join Adventure Nannies for an insightful summit session with Dr. Virginia Schwager, also known as Ginny, who shares her journey and expertise in the childcare industry. With over 15 years of experience, Ginny discusses the evolution of childcare, the importance of establishing systems and protocols, and the emerging role of the childcare manager. The session covers everything from communication protocols to handling high net worth families, making it invaluable for both nannies and parents. Tune in for practical advice on navigating the complexities of modern nannying.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Live Session Setup
• 3:57 Ginny’s Path From Psychology To Nannying
• 8:07 The Panic Button Story And Onboarding Gaps
• 13:27 Systems That Make Nannies Succeed
• 21:27 Communication Protocols And Reducing Turnover
• 28:57 Managing Teams And The Childcare Manager Role
• 36:27 Scope, Strengths, And Hierarchies In Care
• 44:27 Boundaries, Mediation, And Family Dynamics

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:27

Welcome to Adventure Nannies on Air. Today's episode was recorded live during one of our summit sessions as a part of our free ongoing educational webinar series to support nannies and professional child care providers to elevate their careers and enhance their skills. If you like what you hear, you can catch the full episode on our YouTube channel or register for our next summit session at adventurennies.com slash summit dash sessions.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50

Let's get started. I am so excited for tonight's summit session. Welcome, welcome. My name is Regan Fulton. I'm the marketing director here at Adventure Nanny. And before I introduce you to our incredible guests, I just want to take two a few housekeeping notes. Tonight's session is a live podcast recording. So this will be going up after the fact onto our podcast. So please keep mics muted at all times. If you have questions, pop them in the chat and we will ask Ginny at the end. If you joined us back in July, you might have or have heard the replay. We have a wonderful part two today. We have the amazing Virginia Schwager here, who has over 15 years of experience in the childcare industry, not only as a nanny herself, operating in super complex roles with high net worth families and really with dynamic roles and an ability to create systems. And she now helps other nannies to join the ranks of professional nannies and really professionalized there. I'll let her tell you a little bit more about the Formatur Institute and what she does there, but it's really incredible work. But overall, we are just so, so grateful to welcome Dr. Virginia Schwager or Ginny as she goes by. We love Ginny and welcome, welcome back.

SPEAKER_02: 3:12

Thank you. So excited to be here and I'm excited to see so many people. I'm really curious how many have been affected by the East Coast storm and because of that, could attend. So happy snow day. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 3:25

We got lots of DC folk. Did we see any of you at our event a few weeks ago? Let us know if we saw you. That way we can make sure I'm trying to look at all the faces. All three of us got to come DC last week. So it was so wonderful to meet so many amazing DC nannies. Let's get started. Ginny, if you're just joining us, you didn't get a chance to listen to part two. I highly remember part one. I highly recommend you go and listen to that when you get a chance afterwards, because it'll set a good foundation for our conversation today. But also, you can join in and I'm sure you'll be able to gather a ton without having it. We did talk a lot about your journey the last time and kind of your background. And today we really want to break down the evolution of childcare. So I do want you to give a super brief, if you want the long version, go listen to part one, but a super brief, just your nanny journey for everyone here today and how you got to where you are.

SPEAKER_02: 4:20

Sure. So super brief elevator pitch, but elevator version is I started nanny as a teenager and I fell in love with it. And I continued nannying throughout all my education. And there were two things I was good at. And then that was taking care of infants and toddlers and children and coursework, school. So I kept doing both of those for as long as I possibly could. And then I was six months out of graduating with my doctorate in psychology. And I love psychology. I love how much insight it has given me into the world, into how people think, how I think, how I engage with the world. And that's what my doctorate was in. But I was six months out from graduating, and I decided that I wanted to go back to nannying full-time. And I had to figure out how to make it more of a living. It, you know, it couldn't just be something that patched me over from semester to semester or year to year. And so that's when I started working with staffing agencies and found high net worth, ultra-high net worth, and high profile positions. And I found out very quickly that my psychology degrees were extremely useful. And now I am marrying everything together because I realized after job after job that if I'm experiencing such a high learning curve in the ultra high net worth space, and I feel like I'm pretty good at meeting the demands of like a high learning curve, I can only imagine what other people are going through. And not even imagine. I know what my colleagues were going through. And so that was a big motivation for me to start the Formatter Institute. And I also started another company in the past year, and the two are marrying. The next month, we will be combining the two companies right under the umbrella of the Formator Institute. So that's short and sweet. My specialty was always pretty much infants and toddlers, although I do work effectively with elementary age kids as well because mainly of my psychology degrees.

SPEAKER_01: 6:26

So yeah, amazing. Thank you so much, Jose. That really was the short and sweet version, I promise, guys, because Jinny's amazing. She's done so much throughout her career. And that is why she is going to talk to us today about the evolution of childcare and really more of a big, we kind of did a little bit of a deep dive on your career the last time. And we're going to kind of zoom out a little bit more on the industry general, kind of how it's changing, especially in the past 10 years or so, and and kind of where it's moving toward. So welcome. And let's start with what really sparked your passion for changing the way that, you know, households really approach their childcare? Was there a specific moment in your career really that took it from I just need to, you know, do this for my career and my family to, oh, this is a bigger industry-wide issue? What was that moment for you?

SPEAKER_02: 7:23

There were two, two distinct moments. One was a questionable onboarding experience I had with a very high profile, like all the means in the world, a staff of 200 people, and I didn't get onboarded well enough. And I love telling this story because it's a great example. And I think a lot of people resonate with it. It might not be to this degree, but it's, you know, I was working with this family and I was their infant nanny. And we had just transitioned from one of their residences to another within the first month of me starting with this family. And I'm at this new kitchen sink in this new home that I'm trying to get lay the land of. And the sink starts backing up. Now I don't know why, because this is the designated baby sink, right? Like the only bottle and milk are supposed to be going down this drain. So I'm looking for the garbage disposal switch, and I cannot find it. I end up under the kitchen sink, looking for a switch under there. I find a button and I push it. And I'm getting irritated at this point. I'm like, it's nap time. I just want to get these bottles done. I have so many other things I want to do. And I push the button again. And then I push it like five more times because you know it's it's gotta work once. So within kid you not 10, 15 seconds, I had a security detail at that window knocking and saying, Are you okay? Are you okay? And I was like, Oh, well it was a silent alarm, wasn't it? It was a panic button. And I had been pushing it. I think the security team said I pushed it like eight. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:00

They thought you were dying. Yeah. They thought there was somebody in that house.

SPEAKER_02: 9:05

Yeah. And so I'm like, wow, okay. So this is enlightening. I had no clue that the logically, yes, in hindsight, it makes sense. This was a very high-profile environment. And I and I was working with security teams, and so it made sense that there were pant buttons in the house, but I just wasn't told about it. And so there is that moment, and then I had a and this I'm gonna blank on it. Bang.

SPEAKER_01: 9:30

All good. I was saying while you think about it, because that's like you said, like if this family with all the means in the world and this giant staff, let there be like if you know a family like that can really take your time, I can vamp. If a family like that can miss those things, like where's the panic button? And telling the nanny those things, what are the families who don't have a chief of staff and a house manager and an estate manager? What are they missing too? Yeah, that that's a great example of just like how industry-wide it is, and it's at all levels of families. It's not just families that it's their first time hiring a nanny or their first time hiring staff that need these systems and need the support. It's all levels of families.

SPEAKER_02: 10:14

Yeah, and thankfully that light dropping reminded me of the second. So that's it.

SPEAKER_01: 10:21

It might bring it back up for you. Right.

SPEAKER_02: 10:22

And to and to put it all into a little bit more context, I'm in an Airbnb right now because I'm doing an intensive nanny training in DC. So I have this makeshift light bulb giving me a little bit more light for this video. And my dog decided to walk under the desk and trip the line. And there you go. Sun is snow day slash ice day here in DC. So, but anyway, so systems. I think we're today we're going to talk a lot about systems. And one thing, even with this family, that I realized was the nanny team doesn't have the systems in place for it to succeed. And it made me reflect on all of the jobs that I had. And I realized that was the theme. The infrastructure and the systems are failing the nanny teams. And I would come in and I would create these systems, calendar. I would create communication protocols with the parents and the estate manager, and I would do it naturally because I knew these protocols would help everybody work better and work well together and collaborate. And it would give the parents what they're seeking, which is more content and more content caregivers. And so with this family, I ended up becoming the operational lead. I created the standard operating procedures for our nanny team. We had a nanny team of six. So it wasn't like I was creating protocols for two or three nannies. It was we had a childcare team of six. We had a private school, we had a lot of moving pieces for the children. And I just my brain, I started to realize my brain works in systems. And my brain works in family systems and in team management. And that's when when I was thinking of what do I want to do after nannying? Because I did get to a point where for me and my life goals, nannying at that level wasn't sustainable. With ultra-high net worth, multiple property positions, I think you have to be ready to dedicate a lot to it. And that's great. But for me, again, that required a little bit of a pivot. But I still wanted to serve our nanny industry and to help kind of turn the tides on some of the more negative, maybe pain points we're seeing in the industry.

SPEAKER_01: 12:37

Absolutely. You mentioned like families wanting to retain that staff and have that happy staff. Because I think that's one of a huge pain points, both for nannies and families, especially at this level, is turnover, is families hiring nannies and thinking they're great or knowing they're great because they are great, and it not working out for one reason or another. And can you talk a little bit of what that disconnect is in terms of what are the systems and what are some of the, you know, obviously the systems are huge, but what are some of the main tools that you try to give parents and nannies when they're working together that are those huge turning points that really make a difference and help bridge that gap in between what families want in terms of being able to just have their children taken care of and know that they have peace of mind and what nannies need to be supported. What are some of those things that you put in place, the top ones for you?

SPEAKER_02: 13:33

Yeah. So so I want to start with a quote that I love because I encourage any parent, any estate manager, anybody to really reflect on this. And the quote is a bad system will beat a good person every time. And that quote is by W. Edwards Deming. And so my question to everybody is first and foremost, what systems do you have for your child care team, for your nannies? And if you can't readily think of them, or if you think of payroll, like I'm talking about beyond payroll, what systems do you have in place to help your nanny team succeed? Oftentimes I walk into a house into a family and they they don't have systems. They don't have communication protocols, don't have team meetings. They it's funny because once I start talking with parents and estate managers, they're like, oh yeah, these systems make sense and I can see why they would be beneficial. And I think I get frustrated sometimes because I'm like, how did you think these nannies would succeed without any support, without any systems? And and it does like you said, parents recognize these nannies are great. These nannies are caring for my children the way I want them to care for my children, and yet oftentimes nannies are leaving. I'm like, yes. So let's figure this out together. So what systems? Communication protocols, that's number one. But often in staffed homes, there are just so many there's telephone. If there is a game of telephone going on in a home, it's going to do disservice to everybody, especially the children. And I say that because a bad system, meaning no systems at all, often leads to turnover. And what does that do to the children in your home? And and or nannies are coming into work disgruntled. And what is that doing? When a nanny is feeling overly stressed, their ability to co-regulate goes down the tubes because they can't regulate themselves. If you can't, if you're showing up to work so stressed that you can't have the semblance of a poker face, and not even the semblance of a poker base, but if you're coming in stress to work, children have this uncanny ability to pick up on it. And yeah, even if you have the best poker face in the world, they'll still pick up on something. Yeah. Yes. And so that's yeah. So communication systems.

SPEAKER_01: 16:10

And even with I say you, you know, you talk about even with fully staffed homes, but I think that that's so important. Even if you're just a one nanny working with parents, even if it was just one parent or a two-parent household, you're looking at that dynamic of, you know, I've even had it happen where dad boss says one thing, mom boss expects a different thing. There was a lack, there was that telephone, like you said, in between us, and expectations weren't set. So yeah, even if you're talking about just a one nanny system, you still need those protocols. It's so important.

SPEAKER_02: 16:41

Or, you know, sometimes it's not even a telephone. Sometimes it's downright like expecting mind reading. And it's funny because what comes naturally or what seems natural to one family can be vastly different to another family. And so you have to understand, especially if you're hiring professional nannies, proper onboarding, proper discussions about your parenting style, about where you want the dirty laundry to go. Like it seems so silly and it seems they seem like small and irritating question often questions oftentimes to parents initially. But once these are like documented and once they're you have all these clarifying questions, like everybody knows the protocol, everybody knows the expectations. Then the real work and real fun starts. But if nannies are coming into your home and they're worried about, oh, do I put the dishes into the dishwasher, or is that the cook's job or the housekeeper's job? I don't know. Like we the number of little decision points that you want to take off from the nanny because childcare is so messy and it shifts so much in any given day, that we want very clear protocols so that the micro decisions throughout the day that that person is making is smaller, so that they have more cognitive energy to put towards your children.

SPEAKER_01: 18:04

I love that. That that is such a great way to form it of just like making sure that yeah, you're not having to make those little micro decisions that should be already made, should already have a plan.

SPEAKER_02: 18:15

And if they if they don't, if they don't collaborate with the nanny, like nannies have great ideas and oftentimes they they love giving their suggestions. If you as the parent want those suggestions, make that clear. And also if you have a preference for how those suggestions are delivered to you, whether that's an email, whether that's a group chat, like I think it's okay to express your preferences and build systems around that. In fact, I would highly recommend it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 18:43

Okay, I think this is a great question, both segueing from that and our next topic of kind of the child care manager role of how do you navigate micromanaging and insecurity amongst co-workers? So you've got multiple nannies, those personality dynamics and maybe insecurities or or wanting to be kind of, you know, how do you navigate that? And is there a role that potentially could help with those dynamics in a big team?

SPEAKER_02: 19:14

There are let me think about that. So I will say I was very blessed as a nanny to have parents and have managers who saw my strengths. And again, that was operational household operations. I can create systems all day long. Again, I was very blessed to have work environments that embraced that. I will be honest, not every household is going to embrace even not even just that as a strength. But if you have a strength, like I'm working with this family right now, and one nanny is very much like me. She thinks 10 steps ahead. Anyway, up until now, she wasn't given she wasn't given the feedback that those skills were valued. And then also she was kind of shot down when she asked to do projects, even simple projects like cleaning the the arts and crafts room or organizing the arts and crafts room. So I think there is a role, and it's an up-and-coming role, and it's one that I'm in, and it's child care manager. So for those of you who know a little bit about the private service industry, their estate managers manage the whole estate. And that oftentimes does include the child care department. But childcare department is oftentimes the hotbed of issues, which is frustrating.

SPEAKER_01: 20:41

State managers hate nannies. They hate we're the state managers hate dealing with nannies.

SPEAKER_02: 20:47

They hate us so much. And I feel for them I can put myself in their shoes and be like, yeah, the last thing as an estate manager or house manager that I would want to deal with is the childcare staff. It's so much more dynamic and personal and and in my last episode, I think, or session, I think I said this, but I think it's very interesting that the staff in a home that is the most intimately connected, not only with the principals, but obviously with the children, and the staff that spend the most time with the principals are oftentimes the ones with the least amount of structure and support from house managers and estate managers. And it is because it is messy, it is interpersonal, it changes on a dime. Kid can get sick, school can get canceled because of snow. Nannies cannot be able to get to work because they're snowed in.

SPEAKER_01: 21:44

You know, it just kids grow. They're constantly changing. I think that's the most complex part is kids are constantly changing. Yeah. Your job a year ago is not the same just because the kid's different.

SPEAKER_02: 21:55

Yes. And so I'd bring this up because I don't feel that the expectation of managing a childcare team, a nanny team, should be placed on an estate manager or a house manager in a lot of circumstances. If that person truly has the bandwidth and a little bit of the background to make it work and make it work well and give them, give the team systems and structure to succeed, great. But if they don't have the bandwidth, again, a bad system will beat a good person every time. So are there resources you can give the nanny team that create a good system for good people? And that's really my motivation behind what I'm doing now. And I like to compare it to fractional estate management. So in the estate management world, you've you have house managers and estate managers who manage just one family. And then you have it's called fractional estate management, where one estate manager can actually be managing multiple families because the need is a little bit lower. So a lot of families who have nannies don't need a full time childcare manager. There are certain examples. Like I worked in a role where I had a child care manager as my boss, and it opened my eyes to this world of like, wow, having this person in between me and the estate manager and HR helped so much. And it doesn't have to just be for an old. Ultra high net worth, high profile situation. So, yes, there is a role for it. And again, it is an up-and-coming role. And I've met a few others like myself who are taking it on, and we enjoy the work. I think that's another thing is like estate managers often don't enjoy it. But I personally love what I do because it is so messy and children grow and develop, and you have to think 10 steps ahead. And you're working with everybody. You're working with the parents, you're working with the estate managers and nannies and the children. And I think it takes a very dynamic person and a very I'm like, I'm tooting my own horn. I was gonna say I'm on a very skilled person to do it. But you know, I'm learning every single day I'm on this job. And interpersonally, yeah, I feel like you have to be ready to hold your ground, but also see the world of this family system from everybody's perspective in order to create good systems.

SPEAKER_01: 24:26

So it takes a lot of emotional intelligence, I think is the biggest thing. Not just skill, but like the emotional intelligence to know and be able to manage those different personalities is huge.

SPEAKER_02: 24:38

And then allowing yourself to have a day where every other word out of my mouth is gonna be BF bong. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 24:47

I love it. So I'm curious, does the scope of this role, and obviously, you know, it can manage different family to family and what's needed, does it just encompass managing the nannies? Or is there other would it encompass OTs or you know, medical? Is there anything else kind of like when I think about like how would it make sense to pitch to a family why this role makes sense? What all does it encompass? And you know, what are they getting out of it? Obviously, if you're doing part-time with multiple families, it's a little different, but you know, especially for a full-time, what could be encompassed and for that?

SPEAKER_02: 25:19

Yeah, I think it's so children have a whole ecosystem all of their own. They have school often. So I'm thinking maybe let's talk about a family with three children, two elementary age kids, and one infant budding toddler, right? So every child has their own unique development and needs. Oftentimes we're talking about children who might require birth to three services, speech, OT. Maybe an elementary kid is experiencing anxiety. So they're also in therapy. Maybe the parents are in therapy, or the parents have a very specific parenting philosophy that they want all of their caregivers to be trained on and a way to care for their children and engage with their children. And so I think you hit the nail on the head that this is a very unique role and it depends on the scope, and it depends on each individual family's needs and each individual's child's needs. So, what a childcare manager can help with is scheduling and backup on-call coverage plans. So for the nannies, we can also help with scheduling the kids' events. We can take on communicating with the schools, communicating with PT, OT, scheduling camps. It's think of if you're a family, if you're a parent and you have a personal assistant who you send a lot of this information to, or you ask, hey, personal assistant, can you help me get the kids registered for camp? That's something that you can take off of that person's plate and put onto a child care manager's plate.

SPEAKER_01: 26:56

It sounds like a lot of the stuff that often nannies step in and are able to support families with. However, especially with multiple children, that often takes them away from being able to provide quality child care because they are having split priority. So I can really see a value in really allowing the nannies to do what they do best and focus on the care for the children and not have to spend that emotional energy on the calling the school and finding the camps and really having somebody dedicated to that is really amazing.

SPEAKER_02: 27:28

And also then just talk about scope creep. How many nannies actually do these duties and it's in their job description? And that's another piece that I thought in the first some session is scope and how many nannies find themselves doing jobs that are well outside their job description and why that's bad long term for a family, especially if it's not recognized during an annual review or something like that, where you know, it will wear on you. Even if you're good at it, it will wear on you that you're doing essentially two jobs, and one of those jobs is not recognized on paper.

SPEAKER_01: 28:08

And often I'll say not only is it wearing on you, but if you step away from the role and somebody else steps in, that's not documented, and those things are gonna fall through the cracks for that family.

SPEAKER_02: 28:18

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 28:18

That's not gonna get done because no one knows it's being done.

SPEAKER_02: 28:21

Right. And I think it's also, especially when we talk about scheduling and hierarchies within a team, a lot of times parents, not just parents, but maybe even, you know, estate managers, but whoever, whoever is in charge doesn't feel comfortable having a heart hierarchical arrangement within a child care department. And it's understandable. I often do encourage as a child care manager that we have dedicated skill sets for each caregiver. So, like I was saying, this one nanny here in DC, operational. Like every international domestic trip that this family goes on, this nanny should be included simply because she thinks 10 steps ahead and she executes it all. And that's so crucial when you travel with multiple children. Another is if a nanny is really great at like interpersonal engagement with the kids, take some of the household operations off of her plate. But that skill set is no less important than the household operations, right? And so maybe that nanny takes on training other nannies, okay, this is how I show up to work and this is how I get emotionally attuned with kids. Or I found that this way to engage with little Jimmy works really well.

SPEAKER_01: 29:38

And so if you please, or they're in charge of curating the library because they know what books the kids will connect with. Oh exactly, what music they like.

SPEAKER_02: 29:46

Yeah, they're oh, they're the they're the DJ, they they know these these things that make the children tick in a different way, right? And so that's what I do as a manager. And I come in and I'm like, okay, you are not just a nanny. You every nanny I have worked with has skills and skills that go beyond childcare. And I use child care in quotes because it's again societally when well, this is a different conversation, but it is it's a loaded term. And I think the number of people I have conversations with, I'm like, do you know how many transferable skills a nanny has and I can use 10 right now for you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 30:28

And actually I had a job back in, you know, like I took a brief stint before I like really dove into professional nanny, and where I had been a nanny for a little bit and I got a managerial role because they were like, Oh, you've you've been a nanny. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you watch kids, you can do this. Yeah, they trusted that I had it was a mom. So she's like, I trust that you have these managerial skills because you work with kids.

SPEAKER_02: 30:48

So my favorite, my my favorite is always, oh, you're a nanny. You must be the most patient person in the world. I'm like, I guess I that's not the brightest thing that comes from my mind. I think my top skill, but you know, I guess I don't.

SPEAKER_01: 31:03

Yeah, but I love it. So incredible. So I am curious, you know, we talked a little bit about the the intimate nature of Manning and being in the homes with a system. Is there any tools or systems specifically that you have to help families and nannies to really navigate that messy area in between the professional standards and impersonal relationships and how how to really navigate that balance of, you know, you are in our home caring for our children and getting to know them on a personal level and maintaining those professional boundaries and standards. Is there any like specific systems or tips that you have for people on maintaining that balance?

SPEAKER_02: 31:50

I wish I could say yes, there's a system. There is one protocol that, you know, is cookie cutter, and this will help everybody figure this dynamic out. The hard truth is, and again, this is why estate managers often don't want to handle the nanny team. The hard truth of the matter is no, it's trial and error. It is good communication from every single party, it is mediation. One parent's way of communicating with or desires for communicating with the nannies is going to be vastly different than that nanny's next role. And unfortunately, it's almost like you're starting with a blank slate all over again and you have to figure out the family systems and you have to figure out the personalities. And it can be really frustrating as a nanny if you try different ways of communicating with a parent and you feel like you're not getting through. And that can be hard because oftentimes it can also be the parent's perception that or opinion that it's not your position to bring up concerns about my child's development or XYZ. And so knowing your role is really hard because you care so much about the children. And I think again, one of the reasons I like what I'm doing, and not like I love what I'm doing, is because I come in and I can kind of be that mediator. I can ask the parent specifically, like, how do you want to communicate with your nanny team? What feedback specifically are you open to? What feedback don't you want the nanny's input on? And I've been on that receiving end where you think that the children could benefit from XYZ, but your professional position is to care for the children within the dynamics of that family. And that is a hard pill to swallow, but it is one that gets more and more complex, I would say, with the more affluent the family is and the more demands that the parents have on them from extra sources. So now that there's no system aside from again communicating, if you're finding that you have high nanny turnover or that things aren't going well, or your hunches things aren't going well, then how can you open up a conversation and what space and arena is that appropriate in? And as the nanny, also understanding the harsh truth is oftentimes it's not your position to do that.

SPEAKER_01: 34:27

Absolutely. Yeah. No, the navigating the boundaries of these little ones that you love so much and you care about their development, that remembering that you aren't their parent is I think one of the hardest parts emotionally about nanny and why I always commend nannies. And one of the one of the beautiful things about career nannies who are able to step in and step out of these roles and be able to show up for the next family is really beautiful.

SPEAKER_02: 34:55

Well, is there any yeah, and I will I will say one more thing about this because if you are an up-and-coming nanny and you get certifications in Montessori or any type of specialty, and you are hoping to get a family aligned with that philosophy, I urge you caution in the amount that you try to exercise that philosophy in the home. And I say that because oftentimes you'll see job posts that say, oh, a Montessori trained nanny, right? But Montessori is a based education program. And the reality is when you get into the home, you don't have the structure often to follow through on a lot of those things that you have been trained in. Or stepping back and observing and letting the kids do a little like risk taking might be theoretically what the parents want because it's within the Montessori philosophy or whatever. But in practice, that's a reaction point for the parents. And then like, why aren't you doing your job? Right. So if you have all these certifications, I want you to go into jobs thinking, okay, these are points that I can integrate when appropriate. But my number one job as a nanny is to figure out how to care for these children within the family systems, not within a theoretical educational philosophy. I see that mistake over and over again. But it's also, I understand, like you're you're seeing jobs that are posted about a wall door or some educational model or play, what is it, playtime on the floor or whatever? Like all these things, great. They're giving you tools to use when it's appropriate. But again, you're not in a school setting. You're in a messy home setting, which is great.

SPEAKER_01: 36:42

And the beautiful thing is that the those a lot of those velocities are designed for school systems to be able to meet the needs of a large group of children. The beautiful thing about a nanny is you're meeting the need of one, maybe two or three, but you know, in theory, one child. It's one-to-one care. You're able to customize their care in their environment to what that child needs. And Montessori's great. Montessori doesn't work for every child, though. And every part of it doesn't work. So don't you know online so you say don't forget that the beauty of what you're doing is that you get to take all your knowledge and make it custom exactly what this kid needs. Which I think is one of the most beautiful things about nannies and what we get to do.

SPEAKER_02: 37:26

Yeah, I think the level of depth that nannies get to have with the child, that's what always drew me to like, oh my goodness, I get to be emotionally attuned to one, one or two kids all day long. And that is so fulfilling. Cause I my whole job is to know what they need and meet those needs. Yeah. Right. And if I'm like, and I'm pretty good at my job. So I have a happy kid most of the time. But I like I'm not saying nannies don't get certifications. I'm saying get a plethora of certifications in a variety of theories. Because again, like each child's needs are different. And the way that all of these theories, like these certifications mesh together, if you can zoom out and say, oh, wow, what does Montessori? What does NCS, what do all of these things have in common, and focus on that and then bring in the microactions that you've been trained on, you're going to have so much more of a fulfilling experience than you are if you go into a job with the expectation that you're following one philosophical principle.

SPEAKER_01: 38:38

So good. And I think that just kind of brings it around to our whole thing of the modern family and modern, you know, the evolution of childcare is this really, if you want to be successful and at the top of the career and be able to land whatever role that you want, knowing all of those things really is part of what can set you apart from the pack. A lot, you know, I did Venture Nanny's. You saw a rap post, we received 15,000 applications last year. And you can bet the ones that are certified in this and this and this were for sure the ones that, you know, got seen and were at the top of those lists because that's what's most appealing to families and modern families who have the internet at their, at their and can learn about all of these different things. I think that's really the difference between now and you know being a nanny 20 years ago and the just the difference in how connected parents are. They want the nanny who can do it all, or the team of nannies who can do it all, hopefully. And so it's knowing and investing in your time and and knowing your strengths. And so that way, hopefully, that child care manager can step in and activate your strengths where where they'll be most useful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 39:46

But and I think there's if you want to set yourself apart in contract negotiations, be like continued education is really important to me. Little Jimmy struggles with dyslexia. I would love to take a course on dyslexia. Like, and it's truthful you should, and I don't like shoans, but like being curious about anything continued education related will set you apart from other nannies. Never lose that curiosity that oftentimes I think nannies get involved or professionally or whatever. Like working with children, you have to have that sense of curiosity. How can you not? Aren't you drawn to children because they're they're mind-blowing? I loved birth to three because so much happens developmentally between birth and three. I'm like, it I never it never ceased to amaze me. And every child was different. And I it's so never lose that curiosity and extend that curiosity on to continuing education. I know it is it can cost money, but in the long run, you're doing yourself and the world and the your children, the children that you're caring for a service. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 40:53

Yeah, and you're not only building the value for your current family there, like you said, Jimmy has dyslexia, but then you've got that on your resin for the next one as well. Yeah, I love it. Before we wrap up, I just want to open up the floor for any questions in the audience. Please drop them in the chat. I know we got one during the thing, but if you have any questions for Ginny on nanny manager role or Formatur Institute, please drop them. And while you think of those and drop any in the chat, I want to give you the chance, Ginny, to just share a little bit more about Formature Institute in the course. I think some folks would be curious to hear about the course and kind of what it involves and kind of like what you learn in the course. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 41:33

Yeah. So one, yeah. So Formatter Institute started because nanny agencies were approaching me saying, Hey, do you do nanny trainings like more than just beyond the private families you contract with for private nanny trainings? I was like, no, but I could totally create a course. Why not? So that was my summer project. And the course is a 20-hour self-paced course. You have reflection prompts, quizzes, you have about 200 pages. I wrote a book that covers a lot of content in 200 pages, and that is yours to kind of keep and review. We go over everything from oh jeez. We're reading a comment. So we go over everything from kind of like legal structure, which is something we did not talk about today, which I'm kind of glad we didn't because it's tax season and I've been having a lot of conversations with a lot of nannies and families about appropriate compensation and blanking on the words, but like legal structure for a nanny to workers' comp. We also go over very broad psychologically based child development principles principles and theories and just general terms that you can sprinkle into your resume. For example, I use the word attunement today. We go over what is emotional attunement, why is it so critical for child development? So kind of I was talking about those overarching themes that a lot of these, you know, certifications have. So I go over a lot of those child development theories and principles that all of these courses touch on. And then we also talk heavily about what it means to work for high net worth, ultra high net worth, and fully staffed homes and what systems are great to have in place when you are working with a staffed home and how these systems you can try as a nanny to introduce. But yeah, again, may or may not be received well because of your position in family and in the home office and in the staffing arrangement.

SPEAKER_01: 43:33

So I say I think that leads because this is a really good segue just to the question we have. Yeah, is if somebody is trying to introduce that into like how do you work with the family? Is this something that if if you're working in a fully stepped home and they need this, it can can they introduce to you? You know, how do how do they connect their principals with you to help introduce some of these systems?

SPEAKER_02: 43:57

Wonderful question. So I mentioned that I have two companies and that end of February, early March, we are merging the two. So, and they will they will both be under the Formatter Institute. So Formatter Institute initially was just the training course and the training body that I've um start I've started to create. Um, and we have a couple other courses coming out this year, subject matter experts, really cool. So you can go to the website and the end of February, so in the month, you will be able to see more pages and more information. So not only do we help nannies that way, but we also help with these private family engagements. We can do consultations, we can fly out for a couple of days, we can find I'm here in DC for a month doing intensive training for a family. I do child care management. So that website currently is cultivated-care dot com. But if you want a family to reach out to me or you want to give them my information, you can give them Ginny G-I-N-N-Y at Formatter Institute. Let me see if I can spell that out. Institute.com. I didn't want to mess that up for people. And the etymal etymol etymology of Formatter is really interesting. So go and look it up. We don't have time today to go over it, but I encourage everybody to look up that word. Yeah, so you can reach me there. I have a calendar link on the Formatter Institute website. You can put yourself in my calendar, you can have your family, you know, your estate. manager, your parent, put put your put anybody can put themselves in my calendar. I'm here for nannies, for families, here for anybody who just needs to chat or wants a consultation.

SPEAKER_01: 45:41

So amazing. Thank you so much. This has been so, so wonderful. Thank you for being here. Thank you, everybody in the audience, for participating and listening and learning today. I'm gonna put you on the spot like I like to do. Give our nannies in the audience just one takeaway. If there's one thing that you want them one system or one tool that you would want them to go and try to implement, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02: 46:08

Okay. This is not related to what we were just talking about. I put you on the spot for a reason. Yep. No, okay. So we talked a lot about systems today. But before you can create good systems, you need good self-awareness and good situational awareness. So the one thing I would say to anybody listening is prior to implementing or thinking about problem solving with systems and solutions is do a nice hard look at yourself and the people around you and try to put yourself in as many people's shoes as possible prior to problem solving.

SPEAKER_01: 46:50

That's incredible. I'm gonna take that away I have things that I'm gonna take that for. So thank you so much for being here, Jenny. And yeah, thank you for being here.