Babysitting Guide

     If you are in the need of money, and great with kids, babysitting would be a great job for you. Find a neighbor or close family to babysit for weekly, and stick with that job. Here are some tricks to have a successful babysitting job.

Courtesy of Cache Valley Parenting Magazine

     Entertain the kids. If you play with the kids and entertain them, they will like you a lot better and act more mature around you; after all, they look up to you and want to be just like you. Make up games to play with them, or go outside and play. Kidshealth.org believes that "Before you begin your job, consider the age and gender of the kids you are babysitting." This can extremely help you once you arrive at the house and don't know what to do with the children.

     Be nice, but discipline them if they are being bad to you, or any siblings. Good punishments are timeouts, low ratings (see below), or getting something taken away from them. Every time I babysit my neighbors they have me rate them 1-10 (10 being the best) and if they get a 8-10 they get something special. I now use this method with all of the kids I babysit, and it works great. If they find that they have a bad score they usually act better so they get a higher score. You can bring a bag of prizes, and if they are good they get to pick one. You could put items like small toys, candy, bouncy balls, bracelets, and more.

     Don't charge too much, or too little. You never want to over charge, because the parents won't want you to babysit anymore. A good price is seven dollars an hour for one kid, plus one more dollar per kid (if it is two kids it will be eight per hour, and for three kids it would be nine an hour).

     If you are babysitting at night, make sure you know the bedtime, and try to get them to bed half an hour before that time.  Usually it is difficult to get kids to bed because they don't want to sleep when you are there. If the kids are younger, bring a nice smelling perfume or lavender spray and say it is "magic fairy spray". I have tried this before and it really does work. You should always clean up any messes before the parents get home like dishes, toys, and books. "It may sound obvious, but don't leave anything lying around that may embarrass you," says parenting.com.

     Make sure you have a way to get in touch with the parents. Always ask the parents questions before they leave. Here are some good questions to ask. Do the children have any allergies? What time will you be coming home? What time do they have to go to bed? Is there anything specific that I should know about them? Another helpful tip from kidshealth.org, "Make sure you know the details for each child. Make a ring of index cards, one for each family you babysit. On each card, write the basic information: the parents' cell-phone numbers, children's allergies and medical information, preferred activities or interests, etc."

     One last tip would be to always be kind. Be kind to the parents, and especially to the kids. Your attitude changes the babysitting experience. If you show up with a bad attitude, and sit on the couch the whole time not even talking to the kids, they won't like you. On the other hand, if you show up with a fun and outgoing attitude and play games and talk to the kids, they will admire you.