I am part of several local mom’s groups on Facebook, and not a week goes by where I don’t see a post asking about babysitters or childcare. No matter who you are… a working mom, a stay-at-home mom, a single mom, a mom of one or a mom of more. We all need reliable and trustworthy childcare whether it’s for self-care, sanity, work or all of the above. When it comes to who takes care of your children, you really want to get to know who your sitter is – their experience, personality, interests and what qualifications they have.
At Carilly, we make it our job to find the perfect babysitter for your family and here are some of the things we look for when meeting with candidates:
- Experience with children: While more babysitters are high school or college age, we still look for some experience with young children. Whether that be caring for younger siblings, working in childcare at their local church or previous babysitting experience, we want to make sure that each sitter knows what to expect when being around children of different ages.
- Responsible and a level of maturity: Children thrive and work best in an environment of routine. Parents need to know that the sitter will maintain rules and routines from bed times to screen time rules.
- Professional: Babysitting is a job and should be treated like one. Just as in any job, the sitter should prove to be punctual, reliable and dedicated to the tasks at hand. Their full attention should be on the child(ren) at all times.
- Enthusiastic: Sitters need to bring a certain energy and mindset to the job. Kids are pros at feeding off the energy of others, so their sitter should be truly interested in being there.
- Take initiative: Kids need a leader to care for them. Your sitter should be able to take initiative by engaging the kids in play, cleaning up, creative crafts while also anticipating their needs.
- Patience: We know kids will test boundaries, and ultimately the patience of their caregivers. One of the greatest traits a sitter can have is the patience to gently guide children to follow rules put in place for them.
- Authoritative: While this trait absolutely ties into patience, being authoritative requires a sitter to be able to enforce rules. If parents leave specific instruction – no screen time, go to bed by a certain time, or do homework – the sitter needs to have the confidence to enforce these rules.
- Safety skills: Parents want to make sure their children are as safe as possible when they aren’t around, so the more skills a sitter can check off the better. We look for sitters who are first aide and CPR certified or are willing to complete this training before their first babysitting job.
Having the right babysitter for your family can be fun for your kids, but also be a relief for you! When you start your search, write down questions you want to ask, keeping these 8 traits in mind… or just give us a call, we can help you find the perfect sitter match for your family 😉