Would you hire an almost 12 year old to babysit your children?

Question

If the babysitter was

a) a smart/responsible/mature kid

b) Knows how to have fun

c) Has taken a Red Cross babysitting course and gotten his/her certification. (The course covers CPR, health emergencies, babysitting scenarios, all kinds of basic injuries, proper play, how to have fun with the kids, and how to get babysitting jobs.)

ok:

the kids would be school-aged (5 and up)

it would be a very safe area

this is just a hypothetical situation that I was wondering about. i am a kid and I was wondering if parents would trust me as a babysitter. The stuff i was saying below was about me

Answer 1

SOrry that seems a bit young yet. There are some things like driving and voting that are restricted by age regardless of maturity etc. and babysitting by an 11/12 year old seems too young to be allowed regardless of certification and maturity. nneed to wait until 13 when i was growing up and these days 14 might be better.

Call your local dept of children's welfare and ask them what age they would think is acceptable since they are the ones who would blame you if something happened to your kids while in the care of someone they think is too young to be watching other kids.

Answer 2

No, where I live the law is that if children are left alone at least one of them must be 14 or older. Some 12 year olds certainly are responsible and trustworthy but you never know what could happen. I had a situation when I was babysitting at 15 and someone tried to break into the house where I was. The kids were asleep and I freaked out a little bit and then called the police. At that time we did not have 9-1-1 service. I think if something like that happened most 12 year olds, no matter how responsible would have trouble with the situation.

Answer 3

A 12 year old, no matter how responsible and mature, is still a very young child. I would proceed with caution. If they are school age children, it's probably okay, but I wouldn't trust someone this young with an infant or a toddler.

Other things to consider:

If something did happen and the authorities got involved, would it be seen as neglect (leaving your child with a child) in your state? What is the legal age for a babysitter?

How many children are there to watch? Will the babysitter be overwhelmed?

How confident am I that the babysitter will make the right decisions when faced with a panic situation? (Classes are great for preparation, but there's no substitute for real-llife experience).

Does the babysitter have references?

A sidebar comment on the "mature, responsible" part: remember that with kids/teens there's the side that they show parents and adults, and the side they show everyone else. Nothing against them, but kids know how to put up a front just as well as adults do.

Hope this helps!

Answer 4

ABSOLUTELY NOT! The only skill a person has to care for children is EXPERIENCE!

A 12 year old will not know how to react in an emergency- I know several adults who also would not be able to keep their composure long enough to perform CPR or the Heimlich maneuver.

Also, if a small fire broke out, an 11 year old child would be more concerned with getting in trouble than seeing this as the only chance to call 911 before the fire blazed out of control.

I am 37 years old and have been a parent for 16 years and have run an at home daycare for 11 years. Having dealt with burns, broken arms, fire, strangers at the door, choking kids- I can assure you that EXPERIENCE is the only thing that gets you through those tough times.

I even had a rabid dog in my yard once and had to throw 2 small children on top of my car and beat him off with a golf club- know any kid that could handle that?

Answer 5

Yes, in fact I have a neighbor that lives across the street from me and is 12, she took the red cross babysitting course. I have three children too and I trust her with them. She cleans up all the mess that her and the kids make while she babysits, and she knows her first aid. She also plays with the children and doesn't watch TV or talk on the phone or anything like that. So if you do that they probably will trust you.

Answer 6

To be honest, l don't know! l guess l'd have to meet the girl/boy myself and get a gut feeling about them....12 just seems awfully young, doesn't it? l realise they have a lot of background behind them, but l'm a firm believer that you can't always put an old head on young shoulders. Just because they've practised emergency scenarios doesn't mean they'll keep their heads in a real emergency, you know what l mean? On the other hand, l guess during the day, with older children might be ok. l'm not much help am l? Trust your own instincts as a parent, that's my best advice!

Answer 7

I wouldn't NOT hire this person, but I would have them spend some interactive time with my kids and see what happens. Does s/he keep my kids busy, do they let my kids know who is in charge (with that person preferably being the sitter), and how well do they get along in general? This can be hard to accomplish if the kids know that the sitter-to-be is being graded. They will, of course, act up, act out, act anything but normal during this process. If the sitter gets along reasonably well with the kids, lets them know who is in charge, and makes sure they stay busy with something (meaning in a supervised situation, not left alone) then I would hire this person. I work in a crisis center and would also make sure they have a plan with phone numbers of what to do in different types of emergency situations. Hope this helped.

Answer 8

I babysat at that age, but I lived next door and my mother was available in an emergency. So unless you have a back-up adult nearby, I would say no. The youngest I would leave my kids with would be a very mature 14.

Answer 9

No, an 11 year old is too young to babysit. My daughter is 11, and the most mature, responsible kid I know, but I wouldn't even let her babysit.

Answer 10

except you have been somewhat mature on your age and that i knew you in my opinion, i would not even evaluate it. in case you have been somewhat mature and that i knew you in my opinion i could evaluate it with some policies. i could hire you to observe an older new child and basically one new child at a time. i could want to be waiting to call you on the telephone every time i wanted and get ahold of you. Plus, i could sense a lot extra mushy in case you extra a make certain or older relative with you, whether they only watch television on an identical time as you watch my new child. because of the fact then somebody else could be there in case of an emergency. Even then i would not do it for extra beneficial than an hour or 2 at a time and basically in daylight hours, and that i would not evaluate letting you watch an toddler. yet, i could probably permit you watch a youthful new child or extra beneficial than one on your house, presented I knew your loved ones and provided that I additionally knew a make certain or older sibling grow to be around to assist if choose be. To babysit on your very own, you're able to probably could be fairly older and take a number of those childcare type training.