Have a New Kid by Friday - Dr Kevin Leman [36]
When your kid does something stupid to get attention, simply say calmly, “Oh, honey, do that again! You haven’t done that in a long time. Oh, my, you must really need Mom’s attention. Come on over here. Let’s talk about that.”
Babysitting
“Friends ask me all the time if my 11-year-old daughter will babysit for their 3-year-old. I just don’t feel comfortable letting Lexi do it since it feels like a lot of responsibility for a young child. What if something went wrong?”
“A girl down the block has always watched our 2 children. But now she’s 17, and she always brings her boyfriend. I keep wondering who she’s paying attention to: our kids or her boyfriend? Should we switch babysitters or just tell her she can’t bring her boyfriend?”
Babysitting is a two-way street—choosing a babysitter for your children and deciding when your child can babysit other children, if she has interest.
When should you let your child babysit? Kids can babysit at age 10 or 11 if they are children who show a high level of responsibility in other areas of life, but I usually suggest no younger than age 12.
Sure, the money they can earn may sound good, but they are also agreeing to a great deal of responsibility—especially if the child they are babysitting is younger than age 2 and can’t express feelings and needs in words. Also, how many children would your child babysit? How well behaved are the children? A lot also depends on the personality of your child. Emily, for example, didn’t start babysitting until she was 16. Before that, she wasn’t ready for the responsibility, and she wouldn’t have been able to keep track of more than 1 child. Jill began babysitting at 11. She had a natural affinity for younger children since she had 4 younger siblings of her own, and she was used to juggling multiple needs.
No child should be pushed to babysit children from outside her own family unless she wants to. If she has an interest, offer the opportunities in bits and pieces so she can develop the responsibility for babysitting without being overwhelmed or potentially getting herself and the children into danger. I know two families on the same block who have 11-year-old and 13-year-old girls who trade babysitting responsibilities for the younger children in their families. On two Fridays a month Stacey, the 11-year-old, goes out for a movie with friends while her parents also go out for a date night. Kendra, the 13-year-old, watches the 3 younger children from both families at Stacey’s home, while Kendra’s parents have a date night at their own home. The next Friday, the two girls and the two parents switch roles. This way both girls earn money for summer camp, yetboth are just three houses away from a set of parents (the ones having the date night at home), should there be any concerns with the younger children. It’s a plan that works well for all parties involved. And the emergency plan has been used only once—when all the power went out in the house because of a storm, and Stacey didn’t know how to work the electrical panel to get the lights back on.
If your child is the babysitter, be careful about where you let her babysit. It’s best, if possible, for you to personallyknow the family. Either way, make sure that you are the one who takes your daughter to the home and that you are the one who picks her up. Sadly, I’ve heard way too many stories of grown men—fathers—hitting on teenage girls when they take them home after babysitting. If we had a teenage girl or woman babysitting for our family, Sande always drove that babysitter home. Because it’s easy for kids to make up stories about what adults do with and to them, Sande and I adopted this policy early on: I take boys home; Sande takes girls home. We’ve never deviated from