Here are some of babysitter interview questions you may consider asking the potential nanny or babysitter for your child if you are not engaging babysitting services from agency or childcare centre in Singapore. Always use open-ended questions to ask babysitter applicants starting with “What?”, “When?”, “Why?”, “How?”, “Where?” to prompt babysitters for informative answers. Otherwise you may ask questions such as “Or tell me about it” when interviewing the babysitters to avoid just getting Yes and No answers.
Why Babysitter?
- Starting with What? When? Why? How? Where?
- What do you enjoy most about being a babysitter?
- What do you enjoy least about being a babysitter?
- Why do you leave your previous jobs?
- What is your hourly rate?
What Education and Development Activities?
- What areas of development would you be concentrating on for this age group and what sort of activities would be suitable if baby is now in this age group?
- What are your favourite activities with children?
- Do you have any experience of potty training and how do you go about potty training children?
Meals
- What kind of food would you cook for children?
- What is your approach to planning meal menus and buying the food?
- Have you used a sterilizer before? Weaned a baby onto solid food?
Discipline
- Have you managed a childcare issue before?
- What would you do with a child that threw a tantrum in the middle of a shop?
- How do you introduce good manners to children?
- (Discipline is an area that needs to be discussed up front to avoid any differences of opinion on how the children should be disciplined – as the parent you should be telling the nanny what you find acceptable or unacceptable in terms of disciplining your children)
Reading and television
- What type of books do you think would be appropriate for the children?
- How often would you use the library?
- How do you feel about children watching television?
Coping with an emergency
- What would you do if a young child locked themselves inside the car?
- What would you do if a child was choking?
- Do you have any special qualifications such as first aid or attended any courses?
- Have you ever experienced emergency situation and what do you do?
This is by no means an exhaustive list and is not set out in any particular order of priority.