Smart Babysitting

Some parents don’t like the idea of “kids taking care of other kids”. Some parents prefer their babysitters be old enough to have a driver’s license and be a responsible driver. The Red Cross teaches babysitting classes to kids as young as 11 years old. So, what’s the answer?

In my opinion, age doesn’t matter as much as ability and responsibility. Ability is what you know. Responsibility is how you act when I’m not looking.

Let’s do a little interview. You be the babysitter. I’ll be the parent. And I’ll try not to make you cry. Are you ready? Here goes.

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Here’s what a parent with a special needs child or a child with a disability will NOT tell you:

“There are times when I really need a babysitter for my child. Occasionally I need a night out, a break, some one-on-one time with my other children, or some quality time with my spouse. But I need a babysitter who can handle my child; someone who knows about her health challenges, her behavioral struggles, and her daily care. Where am I ever going to find someone like that?”

The answer is… nowhere. Parents are not going to find anyone who knows how to take care of their disabled child exactly like they do. That’s why they are going to have to train someone. Someone like YOU.

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I just got done writing my post about seizures. After I wrote the last line I thought, “This is a lot to remember. How are my babysitters (you guys) supposed to remember everything in the posts, the website, and the eBook?”

I try to make all the subjects short and to the point, but still, it all adds up to be a lot. So, in this post, I am going to show you how to remember things that you read. You can apply this to anything you read, whether it be information from me or from a school text-book.

I never know what I’m going to say until I start typing. Let’s see where this takes us.

First, there is some preparation you can do to get your brain in the mood to learn. I want to suggest 3 ways:

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“Move over, dear. I need to sit down.”, said fairy godmother Kayanne as she sat at the foot of Melissa’s bed. “Is all this making sense?”

“You say I need to show more interest in other people, smile more, and remember names.”

“Yes, you are already getting wiser,” said fairy godmother Kayanne. “You will notice that all 6 of these suggestions make you focus your attention on another person and off of yourself. Now pay close attention while I explain the next way to make people like you.”

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Once upon a time, there was a young teenage girl named Melissa who wanted to be liked. “Is that too much to ask?” she thought. “If more people liked me I would have more friends to hang out with, be invited to more activities, have more babysitting customers, feel better about myself – not to mention having more friends to network with later on in life. What am I to do? *sob, sob*”

One night as Melissa was trying to sleep, her room filled with light and there – standing next to her bed – was a beautiful woman with brown hair and red highlights holding a wand. “Who are you?” Melissa asked in amazement.

“I’m your fairy godmother, Kayanne,” said the beautiful woman. “I’ve come to grant you your wish.”

“Oh, fairy godmother, how wonderful. Are you going to wave your wand and make people like me?”

“No, no, my dear. That only happens in fairytales. This is reality. What I am going to do is show you what YOU can do to get people to like you. Now, listen carefully, as I enlighten you with 6 ways to make people like you. Perhaps you should take notes.”

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Hi. Kayanne here. I’ve been thinking about this subject for a while and the only way I can get it out of my head is to write it down. See if you think it is as important to read as I think it is to write.

I’ve known people who have high self-confidence. They expect to be successful in whatever they try to do. They don’t let the possibility of failure keep them from trying. If they fail at something (and they often do), they try again. People with high self-confidence enjoy life.

I’ve also known people with low self-confidence. They are afraid to fail. They live by the slogan: “If I don’t try, I can’t fail.” As true as that might be, people with low self-confidence do not enjoy life as much as they could.

Building self-confidence requires 2 things.

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Parents are always looking for the perfect babysitter. Perfect babysitters do exist. There are not very many of them. So if a parent finds one, they consider themselves lucky and will gladly trade their average babysitter for the perfect one – even if it means having to pay the perfect babysitter more.

A parent will even brag to her friends about her find. “Oh, I have found the best babysitter. She’s great with the kids, smart, knows how to handle emergencies, is dependable. You don’t find babysitters like that every day.”

“You must give me her phone number,” the friends will say.

“Well,” says the parent, “I guess I can do that, but she keeps pretty busy babysitting for us.”

What the parent doesn’t tell is that she has to book her perfect babysitter three or four weeks in advance because she’s in such high demand.

In my book, I let you overhear two parents talking about their perfect babysitters. Find out what they consider the ”perfect babysitter” to be. Do you stack up?

My little sister used to babysit my children. I’d call her the day before and ask, “Are you still planning on coming to babysitting tomorrow?” She’d say, “I’m not coming to babysit. I’m coming to party!”

And when she came, she and the children did party. She’d bring games to play or activities to do. She’d bring music to dance to or a workout video for everyone to work out to. She’d bring a brownie mix and have the children help make brownies. She’d bring books to read or a movie to watch. My kids loved having her babysit.

Learn more about partying from my book. I’ll give you some resources for activities and list some games I’ve found kids love.