Kaitlyn Sandvik
Reporter
While most students’ weeknights can be fairly uneventful, senior Alex Rose’s typical night involves negotiating with toddlers over bedtime stories. From rainbow loom disasters to following in depth lists made by controlling parents, student babysitters, like Alex, have to overcome some serious mishaps while trying to conquer the job. “We’ve all had bad babysitters, the ones who non-stop text, can’t hold a conversation, and are boring,” she said. “If you just put yourselves in the kids position and make an effort to connect with them, the whole thing will be way easier.”
While working on what appeared to be a typical babysitting job, Alex was confronted with a problem. “The carbon monoxide alarm started to go off right as I was putting the three little girls to bed,” she said. “I had to take them outside- in the middle of January, and we waited in my car. I called the parents and they had to rush home just to find out that the batteries were low.”
Alex has also been faced with difficult parents. “I had this really neurotic mother who left me a page long list of things I had to remember,” she said. “Her kids were just as crazy, crying over nothing and fighting all the time.”
Sometimes the most difficult situations can arise on the first night as a babysitter. “I was 13 and the kids flipped out when I told them to go to bed,” junior Corrine Vietorisz said. “They just started running around the house screaming and they wouldn’t stop. I knew chasing them wouldn’t help and eventually they calmed down.”
From her difficult experiences, Alex has learned how to manage a variety of troublesome situations. “Kids love when they get to do something they normally wouldn’t be allowed to do,” she said. “Although the rules may be only one oreo after dinner, giving them that second oreo makes them wrapped around your finger.”
Sometimes student babysitters have to improvise on the job. “The children are probably more scared of their parents than they are of you,” junior Emma Patch said. “The best bet to get them to behave is to threaten to tell their mother, sometimes I make rules as I go. I’ll say that their mother wanted them to do something even if she never mentioned it.”
Alex has also developed an approach to dealing with kids who will not listen, especially when they miss their parents. “I usually try and read them a book or make a joke to take their mind off it,” she said.
Some students even experience disagreements with the kids they are babysitting that last longer than expected. “It can get very intense when you cannot give the child what they want,” sophomore Zoe Jensen said. “I have spent an entire babysitting job just telling a child that they cannot have ice cream or candy, which entails lots of screaming and crying.”
From these screaming fits, Zoe has learned successful methods to mitigate dissatisfied children. “Little kids just need a happy distraction, I have to keep them in a good mood,” she said. “I have learned many different ways to keep them at their happiest even in tough situations. For example, if they are upset that they can’t have ice cream, I try to distract them by playing a game or trying to make them laugh.”
Although the job can be difficult, Alex continues to babysit. “Even though they’re such a pain to deal with, their early bedtimes and the cash flow keep me saying yes, even though I end up regretting it every time.”
