I divided my book into two books and brought the price way down. The first book is entitled “How to Make More Money Babysitting” and is intended for babysitters who want to learn how to make more money.

The second book is entitled “How to Get Kids to Behave” and is intended for anyone who is challenged by kids behaving badly. It shows how to change bad behavior into good behavior.

By having a choice of books, babysitters can choose what they need most and pay a lot less than when both books were combined into one.

The changes to my website were made to introduce and promote these two books.

Click on “eBooks” to see the two eBooks. How do you feel about the price?

Sayings about change

Speaking of change, here are some sayings regarding change that I like and thought you might like too:

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.

Just one act of kindness that you perform may turn the tide of another person’s life.

Your life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better by change.

If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.

Live is a reflection of thoughts. Change your thoughts and you’ll change your life.

It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t. It’s that some people are ready to change and others are not.

Sometimes it takes the worse pain to bring about the best change.

You can let your smile change people, but don’t let people change your smile.

Are there any sayings about change that you like?

You get paid for bringing value to the market place

This applies to every job you will ever have, including babysitting. The “market place” for you, is all the people who need babysitters. The value you bring, is everything you know about babysitting and all your experience taking care of children.

It takes time for you to babysit. But you don’t get paid for your time, you get paid for your value. If you only got paid for your time, you wouldn’t have to know anything about taking care of children. But parents have this concern that their babysitter should know a few things about child care. So they hire a babysitter based on how much “value” that babysitter brings to them. In other words, how much that babysitter knows about safety, and handling emergencies , and encouraging good behavior – stuff like that.

So that brings us to an important question.

Is it possible to become twice as valuable and make twice as much money in the same amount of time. The answer is… it depends. It depends on whether or not the customer is able to pay more. Some are and some aren’t. But the point is, if you want to make more, you must bring more value to the market place. You bring more value by reading and taking classes and getting experience. The more you learn about taking care of children, the more valuable you will become, and the more confident you will be about charging more.

As you increase your value, you will not only be able to charge more money, but your reputation about being a superstar babysitter will spread and you will get so busy babysitting that you will have to turn down  business. When I was a babysitter, I got to where I could charge more than any of my friends because I had a reputation for good customer service and I became pretty good at taking care of children. The parents liked me and trusted me, and didn’t mind paying me more than other babysitters. They knew they didn’t have to worry at all about their children – that their children would be safe and happy with me. I brought more value to them, so they didn’t mind paying me more. To them I was worth it.

If you’re not comfortable asking for more money, it might be  because you don’t feel you can bring a lot of value to the market place. Become more valuable and you will feel more comfortable.

So… Instead of asking, “How do I make more money”, you should be asking, “How can I increase my value? What books can I read? What classes can I take? Who can I babysit with that can teach me how to be a better babysitter?”

The reason I wrote my book and created this blog is to 1) help you bring more value to the market place, and 2) provide parents with good babysitters.

To begin with, when babysitting at someone else’s house, you should never answer the door. Of course, most babysitters have reached ages where, in their homes at least, they are comfortable opening the door for visitors, and at least talking to strangers to see what they want. However, when you are in someone else’s home, you are responsible for the home itself, and, more importantly, the children who live there. Remember, criminals like to keep a close eye on houses before attempting burglary or other crimes – this means that someone coming to the door may be perfectly aware that the parents are away, and that all that stands between them and their crimes is a babysitter and some kids. It seems simple, but it is vitally important – just do not open the door for anyone you don’t know and trust.
 
You should also have, in addition to standard emergency phone numbers, contact information for a neighbor or close friend of the family. Many babysitters feel very responsible and independent when taking care of children and managing households, and may also feel as if they can handle unforeseen problems or dangerous situations. However, in the event of an emergency it is important to seek help from someone who may have more experience, or even just more ability to help, than yourself. 
 
Some of the tips mentioned in this article probably seem extremely obvious. However, as mentioned above, babysitters can often have false senses of security and ability simply because they are old enough to take care of themselves. If you babysit regularly, be sure to remember the difference between being able to take care of yourself and being in charge of the safety of someone else’s children. Adhere carefully to the basic safety precautions discussed in this article, and practice vigilance and common sense, and you should always be fine.

You already do jobs around your home like clean, run errands, buy groceries, cook, etc. Why can’t you do it for other people who will pay you to do it?

Rent yourself out to do odd jobs.

This is not a new idea. If you do a Google search on “rent a husband”, “rent a daughter”,  “rent a son” or “rent a helper”, you’ll get lots of hits.

Everyone has things they don’t like doing, don’t have time to do, or just plain don’t know how to do. There is a market out there for doing odd jobs, and people tend to feel safer hiring someone who lives nearby.

List of Odd Jobs

Here is a list of odd jobs to start you thinking about what you can do to help someone:

• Yard work – mow grass, water the grass, pull weeds, fertilize the grass, trim bushes, paint fence, rake leaves, degrease driveway or garage floor, clean up dog poop
• Light house work – vacuum, dust, change light bulbs, wash windows, make beds, scour bathroom, wash laundry, fold laundry, iron, sweep, mop, clean bathtub and sink
• Paint a room
• Pet sitting
• Walk the dog
• Mother’s helper
• Run errands
• Pick up or drop off children
• Help with meals – plan a menu, buy groceries, cook meals, clean up after meals
• Tutor
• Give lessons – piano, swimming, bread-making, social media like Facebook and Twitter, etc.
• Wash the car
• Snow removal – shovel walks and driveways
• Clean and organize garages
• Clean and maintain swimming pools
• Fix a leaking faucet
• Help sell stuff on eBay

Create a Flier

Now create a flyer, listing all the odd jobs you are capable and willing to do. Include your contact information. Then give them out.

Start with people you know: friends, family, neighbors. Then market yourself to the elderly, single mothers and busy couples. Then canvas your neighborhood, going door to door leaving your flyers.

A Story of Two Girls

Charlotte Edson and Margaret Taggart, both 19, could have returned to summer jobs where they worked the previous summer. But Edson found herself hoping for an experience that offered more than folding clothes.

During their first month home from freshman year at college, the young women mostly stayed at home helping their mothers, until they had a revelation.

“If we can do this for our moms, then why can’t we do it for everyone?” Edson said.
The duo quickly drew together a flier offering their services: babysitting, running errands, picking up and dropping off children, buying groceries, organizing, even going on runs to the dump, all for a flat rate of $15 per hour. They posted fliers around town and sent out emails about their venture.

Their idea “spread like wildfire,” Edson said. Soon after posting the fliers, Edson and Taggart were receiving a steady stream of job offers. Currently, they have a healthy list of clients.

The pair hope to continue the business on breaks from school and are considering moving to Martha’s Vineyard next summer, taking with their business plan with them.

To read the original article, go to http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/A-summer-to-remember-Greenwich-students-bulk-up-1646261.php#ixzz1TzZbhWCy

How Much to Charge

How much you charge is up to you. You can charge by the hour or by the job. You need to decide before people call you. You might charge for a minimum of 1 hour and then in 15 minute increments. The girls in the story charged $15 per hour.

Make Sure You Understand the Customer

Make sure you know the scope of the project before accepting the job. That is, make sure you are clear about everything your customer expects you to do, and what your customer does not want you to do.
 
If someone hires you to drive their child to piano lessons, do they expect you to wait for the child for a half hour and then drive the child home? Do they intend to pay you for the time you wait?

If someone hires you to clean their car, are they expecting just a wash, or for you to clean the inside of the car too.
 
Don’t assume anything. Ask all the questions you need to understand the customer’s expectations.

Make Sure the Customer Understands You

Make sure your customer is clear about everything you expect before accepting the job:

• How you charge (by the hour or by the job)
• How much you charge
• When you expect to be paid (Yes. This is important)

Be Safe

Don’t give fliers to people for whom you would not feel comfortable working. Always let your parents know where you will be working and how they can call you.

Just be careful. If a man wants you to work inside his home, and he is the only one there, say, “My parents won’t let me work in a home alone with a man”. The best time to do this is before you agree to do the work.

The price of everything is going up.

Except babysitting.

Babysitting rates have fallen three percent in a year to $11.55 an hour, according to Sittercity. I would point out that’s still higher than the minimum wage earned while flipping burgers.

Still, it’s a sign of the trickle-down theory in this economy. Parents who have enough money to go out for the night may not have as much money as they used to, and maybe they won’t go out if the sitter’s too expensive. At the same time, there may be a glut of babysitters, as people out of work fall back on their teenage profession.

Sittercity says the cheapest babysitter rates in the country are in Mesa, Arizona, outside Phoenix. Didn’t think anyone in that retirement area was young enough to have babies…

Perhaps that’s why the 5,000 babysitters there can be had for less than the price of an Early Bird Special.

Sittercity has a rate calculator on its website which helps you determine what you should be paying in your area. After Mesa, the second cheapest babysitters can be found in Cleveland ($10.31/hr), Ft. Worth ($10.56/hr), Orlando ($10.60/hr — in the shadow of Disney World!), and St. Paul ($10.87).

A friend in the Bay Area is about to have a baby. The site’s rate calculator says she should expect to pay $12.75/hr for a babysitter. Well, she’s already paying $22 per HALF hour for a dog walker, so the baby’s a steal.

Published: Friday, 29 July, 2011 on cnbc.com
By: Jane Wells, CNBC Correspondent

To read the entire article, go to http://www.cnbc.com/id/43948169

A lady was shopping at a grocery store and couldn’t help but notice a young mother and her little girl, who was about two years old. The little girl was crying loudly as she sat in the child seat in the shopping cart, but the mother seemed remarkably composed under the pressure. As the lady passed the mother in the isle, she heard the mother calmly say, “It’s okay, Patty, we’re going to be out of here pretty soon and then we can go home.”

The little girl’s crying did not stop. When the lady passed the mother in another aisle, she heard the mother say, “Calm down Patty. We’re almost done and then we can go.”

As luck would have it, the lady found herself behind the mother at the checkout stand, her child still screaming. She overheard the mother say, “Look Patty, all we have to do is pay for our groceries and we’re out of here, won’t that be nice?”

The lady, impressed with the mother’s self-control, couldn’t help but comment to the mother, “I must say, I am impressed at how well you are handling your daughter Patty’s tantrum.” “Oh, thank you,” said the mother, “But my daughter’s name is Jennifer. I’m Patty.”

What Not to Say

This little story reminds me of the many times I’ve seen children misbehave at the supermarket (and other public places) and  how parents mishandle their misbehavior. Have you ever heard someone say to a child:

“I’m so sick and tired of you acting like this.”
“You’re driving me crazy.”
“Aren’t you ever going to learn to behave?”
“Why did you hit your sister?”
“I’m going to count to three…”
“If you do that one more time, I’m going to put you in timeout!”
“If you do that one more time, I’m going to put you in timeout – and I mean it this time!”
“Okay, stop crying. You can have the candy.”
“Go to your room and don’t come out ’till Thursday.”

Come on. Tell me you haven’t used some of those “discipline techniques”. I know I have. I’ve used them all. Funny… they never got me the long-term result I was shooting for – and I doubt they do for anyone else.

Out of desperation I sought advice: I read books, experimented with discipline techniques, made mistakes, gave up trying, resumed trying, and eventually… I became a perfect mom.

Just kidding. Not so perfect, but not so crazy either. What makes me crazy now, is to watch other parents, babysitters, and child care givers mishandle children’s misbehavior, when I know there’s a better way. I want to scream at them, “There’s a better way – and it’s actually pretty simple!”

You see, it has to be simple for me. And it has to be simple for me to share. Which is why I’m writing this post – to let you know there is a way to inspire good behavior; a way that will make children WANT to behave – the problem is, it’s so simple you will doubt it works. But it does.

How to Inspire Good Behavior

I want to leave you parents and babysitters with something I’ve learned that has helped me inspire good behavior among my six children (and my husband). This will work on your own children or on the children you babysit.

This discussion is continued in my eBook in the chapter called “What Not to Do”.

One of my favorite ways to get inside you is to jump from your hands to your mouth. When you lick your finger, or touch your mouth, or touch food that goes into your mouth, that’s my ticket in. I get excited just thinking about it.

There are 5 places I love to hang out, waiting for you to touch so I can get on your hands. Some people call them the top 5 dirtiest everyday objects. That’s music to my ears. If you touch any of them, then I can hang out with you. Here they are:

Top 5 Dirtiest Everyday Objects

#5: Doorknobs and handles. You can’t avoid them! I love it, especially when someone with a cold opens the door right before you do.

#4: Light switches. No one thinks of light switches as being germy. After all, how often do you clean the light switches in <i>your home?

#3: Money. The money you have in your purse or wallet has probably been touched by hundreds of hands – hands that someone has coughed on or wiped their nose with. I love it when someone puts a dollar bill in their mouth.

#2: Keyboard and mouse. One of my favorite ways to get inside people is when they eat food while using the computer. I jump from mouse to food to mouth. Public computers are a great way for me to meet people.

#1: The kitchen sponge. Surprise! It’s warm and wet, and outside of you, one of the happiest places for me to hang out.

I also make my way to your hands when you:

• grab handles on subways
• push elevator buttons
• hold on to escalator hand rails
• touch handles on shopping carts (I love when babies put their mouths on them)
• shake hands with someone
• use someone else’s cell phone
• touch anything that someone else has touched

What I Hate

I hate when you wash your hands. Getting washed down the sink keeps me from getting in your mouth and making you sick – what I live for.

On the other hand, I love it when you DON’T wash your hands – makes my job so much easier.

Here’s My Warning

Let me into your body and I’ll make you sick. The best way to keep me out is to wash your hands often with warm soapy water for about 20 seconds, or about as long as it takes to sing the ABCs.

So you better look out for yourself and for the children you babysit.

I’m not worried. I’ll be back, and someday you’ll get careless and forget I’m there.

My name is Joe. I’m a germ.

To read the article that inspired this post, click here.

I also know that young teens don’t like to be told what to eat and what not to eat. So just store this information in the back of your brain. If you occasionally read articles or watch videos about healthy eating or weight loss, it won’t be the last time you hear about this.

So here goes. Introducing what are arguably the 10 worst snack foods. Drum roll.

The 10 Worst Snack Foods

1.  French Fries
2.  Donuts
3.  Chips (Potato or Corn)
4.  Soda
5.  Cupcakes and Snack Cakes
6.  Candy Bars
7.  Pork Rinds
8.  Fat-Free Cookies
9.  Crackers
10.  Pretzels
11. (Runner Up): Coffee Drinks

Want to know what makes these snacks so bad for you? Click here to be wisked off to a web site where you will see a video that will give all the dirt on snack foods. Don’t watch this alone. It may contain scenes too scary to watch by yourself.

Here’s the bottom line:

Too much sugar will add inches to your waist.

And, as far as babysitting goes, giving children too much sugar before bedtime can cause them to be hyper, keeping them awake, ready to go the rounds with you.

Sometimes you’ll hear someone knocking at the front door who turns out to be the two-year-old who only moments ago was safely in the back yard, or so you thought, and then he will point to his four-year-old brother who has climbed the neighbor’s tree and won’t come down.

Sometimes it will get real quiet and you can’t find the children because they’ve hidden somewhere in the house – or at least you hope they’re still in the house – and you want to strangle the person who said babysitting was easy money.

These experiences (and others like them) made me want to do one of two things: either have nothing more to do with little kids – EVER, or, figure them out. I chose to figure them out. And I’m glad I did.

In this post I’m going to teach you what I learned, something that will change the way you discipline children forever – and make your life a whole lot easier.

Why Children Misbehave

If you know why children misbehave, then it’s easier to know what to do about it.

Children are always looking for ways to feel good. It’s wired into their brains. They can’t help it. It’s what they were born to do. It’s one thing you can always count on. Knowing that can be very helpful.

Let’s start with babies. What makes babies feel good? How about a diaper change, a bottle when they’re hungry, getting a burp out, or receiving attention from other people? The only way they know how to tell you they want to feel better is by crying. Soon they learn that crying leads to feeling good.

How about toddlers? What makes toddlers feel good? Some of the things are food, candy, attention from others, watching TV, and to feel a sense of power and control. Sometimes they learn they can get those rewards by hitting, teasing, throwing tantrums, whining, arguing, getting into mischief, and ignoring you. We call that “misbehavior”. They call it “how to get what makes me feel good”.

Same with older children – always looking for ways that lead to feeling good. So here is why children misbehave:

Children misbehave because it results in them feeling good

Children learn that when they hit or tease, it gives them a sense of power and control over another child, and gets your attention. (Even though it’s angry attention, it’s better than no attention). They learn that when they throw a tantrum, they get the candy; when they whine, they get out of having to go to bed; when they ignore you, they get out of having to clean up their mess. And that feels good.

But wait a minute. What about well-behaved children? What makes them want to behave? What makes them choose to be nice, or do what you ask them? What makes them different from misbehaved children?

Children are well-behaved because their behavior results in a good feeling. YES, that’s right. Well behaved children behave for the same reason that misbehaved children misbehave – because the result is a good feeling.

Isn’t that interesting? Children practice good behavior if that’s what leads to feeling good. They practice bad behavior if that’s what leads to feeling good. When you stop to think about it, it makes sense – the goal of children is to find out what makes them feel good and keep doing it, and find out what doesn’t make them feel good and stop doing it.

Kids are Little Scientists

Kids a are like little scientists, always experimenting. Next time you go babysitting, look at the children and say to yourself, “I know something about you little scientists – always experimenting, looking for ways to feel good. If you find something that works, you continue to do it. If you find something that doesn’t work, you avoid doing it. Well, I’m on to you. I know how you think, and I know how to use that to get what I want.”

Question: Now that we know why some kids behave while others misbehave (because it leads to a good feeling in both cases) what can we do to make kids want to behave and stop misbehaving?

This discussion is continued in my eBook in the chapter called “Why Children Misbehave”.

This is my daughter with her St. Patrick's Day 3-leaf clover

When I was a babysitter I did some fun things with the children I tended. One of the things I did was to give the girls a glamour treatment. I did their hair and nails. The girls loved it and the parents were impressed – with both my talent, and the extra attention I gave their children.

I remember times when the mom and dad walked into the house and the girls ran screaming to them, “Mom, look at my hair. And look at my nails. Cool, huh?” The girls had fun. I had fun. Mom and dad were impressed. And I got paid. Is this a great job or what?

I didn’t let on how easy it was.

I grew up with four sisters. We did each other’s hair and shared fingernail polish and glitters. My dad jokes that we bought hair spray by the case.

So, it was only natural to use my glamour skills while babysitting.

Hair

I’m always trying new hair styles on my three daughters. There are lots of ways to style hair. I like the styles that look complicated but are really pretty easy.

I’m not going to give you any hair styling advice. Instead I’m going to point you to one of my favorite websites that has videos showing how to do lots of different hair designs on kids.

www.cutegirlshairstyles.com

In my book I continue with some suggestions regarding hair design and give you a beginner’s lesson on fingernail painting. I end the chapter with an idea that could make you some extra money using these 2 skills.