Red flags in interviews

[Momof4]

Oh yes, it's very important to perfect your pre-screening skills so you don't waste your time interviewing people who really won't work out. Either by phone or email, ask all the important questions and get them out of the way. I even ask people their parenting philosophies in prescreening now because I've had an experience with an attachment parenting family, wow did I learn a lesson!

Then at the interview I'm watching the family like a hawk to see if the parents are relaxed and open to suggestions and willing to work with me as a team for the next several years. Ours will be a business relationship. I'm watching how they interact with their child, if the child seems like a healthy, happy, content individual who doesn't have to be attached to their parents necks and have the ability to go off and play with a toy and smile, you know, the family dynamic. I'm clear with the parents that I have a nurturing relationship with the child but I need to be able to help them raise their child as the secondary important person on their child's life, so we will have to solve problems together.

I've had a woman show up a day early for her interview, no, a lady with a clipboard and crazy questions, no, a woman speaking another language to her child between the father and me conducting an interview, no, a woman who wanted to know why I have plastic toys and how I clean my house in details, no.

You see, if I don't like the family I don't accept the family, period. Once you learn that, you won't be angry and upset with your families, you will be like me, mostly happy and contented and without major complaints. It's a great life and a great way to make a living once you get through the learning curve in the beginning years of this job. Of course, there is always something that comes up and throws a wrench in the best laid plans. But once you have interviewing down to a science you will do much better.

I've only a few families who have brought their little sibling to me, the rest have all been first time parents going back from mat leave with their first baby. But as I said, in the beginning I accepted parents who I shouldn't have accepted into care and now I'm more careful about that. If I didn't interview first time parents I wouldn't have any interviews.