Precautions To Be Observed While Engaging Babysitters

Many parents’ today engage babysitters and nannies to not only look after their children when they are busy at work, but also for going for a much wanted date with their spouse. It is a challenge to find and keep babysitters and ensure the safety and security of your kids.

Here are a few precautions that are to be taken while engaging and keeping babysitters:

• Spend time looking for a babysitter; get the name of potential babysitters and check on the references. Also invite the babysitter to the home and check up how the child/children and the babysitter interact with each other. Ensure that the babysitter understands that he/she is responsible for the child/children.

• Once the babysitter is engaged make sure he/ she understands the rules of the house. The babysitter needs to know how many friends are allowed in the house and the time for which they can stay. They also need to know if they can take the child out to the park or a place to eat and when they need to put the child to bed. It would help to have these household rules written down and posted.  

• Both male and female babysitters have their own risk. It is risky to engage a male babysitter considering that they could be sexually abusive; every 3 out of 4 sex assaults on children are committed by male babysitters. This calls for special attention to be paid to teenage boys, especially those below 18 years as most sexual offenses are committed by them.

• Female babysitters are not necessarily safe; about 64 percent of them reported physical assaults-hitting, slapping-against kids are committed by female babysitters. It is however significant to find that many assaults, sexual or physical, against children are committed more by family members or acquaintances and not necessarily by babysitters.

• It is best to check on the babysitter once in a while by making unannounced visits on some pretext or the other. It is best to trust your instincts at times; in case you predict something wrong it is best to investigate and get to the bottom of the problem and not talk yourself out of it. 

• It would also help to have nanny cams that could be hidden in the room; these wireless cameras or those attached to computers would send images. You can buy one or rent one out; these cameras cost $200 each or can be rented for about $50 for a trial period of 7 days from knowyournanny.com.   

• If the babysitter is given the responsibility of feeding the child make sure he/she knows what is to be given and where the food can be found. Also special dietary considerations are also to be told to the babysitter. 

• Ensure you always leave a list  of  emergency  phone  numbers   like fire department, police department, hospital, doctors, Poison Control Center, Monitoring Central  Station,  relatives  or  friends  to  contact  with  questions  or  in  the  event  of problems by  the  phone. Also leave your phone numbers and cell numbers to be contacted in an emergency.    

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