Daughter Babysitting

[Cradle2crayons]

Good advice, thank you! I am very proud of her. She is a straight A student, a member of the pom pon team and has a huge heart! And gorgeous to boot!

:hug:

[Size18]

My daughter is 12, almost 13 and is babysitting for the first time for one of my daycare families. She is only babysitting for 2 - 2 1/2 hrs. The children she will be watching one is 8 and the other is 2. Both boys. The older 8 yr old will have a friend there also 8. The mom came today and asked what she charges. I said I don't know really what she's charging because she's just starting. I asked her what she pays her current sitter that just can't happen to make it that day. She is I think 16 yrs old. She said she pays her more per hour because she said that at that age she could be working for minimum wage somewhere. She said she pays her like $8 an hour. She was thinking of paying my daughter $5 an hour. She also has a babysitter that is 13. She said that she pays her less than the 16 yr old. I got irritated when she said that and said, oh so the 16 yr old works harder than the 13 yr old? She just kinda laughed. If my daughter takes time out of her day to ride her bike over there (in the same neighborhood) and she only pays her like $10 I'm not gonna be happy. She won't be babysitting again I tell ya that.

Any thoughts?

I can totally relate to the way you are feeling, but try not to be too defined and fine-lined regarding. Babysitting, from the standpoint of hands-on experience, is a good thing, and as new babysitting jobs arise and present themselves, chances are good, your daughter will land new babysitting work due to her previous babysitting experience, so I'd let her gain a foothold and use this job as a stepping stone.

[Play Care]

When my daughter started babysitting, I left it up to her to set her rate and discuss it with the parents. I felt that if she was old enough, mature enough and competent enough to babysit, then it was her responsibility to set her rate and collect the payment. If not, then she wasn't ready to do it.

No offense intended, but I don't think you can expect her to be paid as much as an older child, as the older child likely has more experience and is probably able to do other things with the children, like taking them to the park, etc. that a younger child cannot and should not do.

I do agree with PP that she is probably too young to babysit, especially three children at one time.

[Play Care]

Cradle2crayons, it was 2 kids of hers and 1 friend that was visiting so the other parent didn't pay. The dcm paid for all 3.

I really don't believe that my daughter is too young to babysit. I really dont' think that you can go by an age per se. She is exctremely advanced for her age and extremely responsible. She has been raised for her entire life with my daycare kids and helps me all the time. You won't find anyone her age with more experience. I don't believe it's fair to pay one age babysitter different from another. My daughter put the younger one down for a nap and played ball with the 2 other ones in the back yard. The lady does not allow the sitter to take the kids off the property, so I know that my daughter didn't do any less than an older sitter. This dcm is just cheaper than hell and took advantage in my opinion. She complains all the time that she has no money and actually just sold their house because they couldn't afford it, but yet takes her 8 yr old son to horse riding lessons once a week at $40 a pop and pays for a weekly house cleaner. So any chance she has to save money she will do it including shorting my daughter. I think that she will be busy from now on.

I think if your daughter is going to babysit in the future she needs to set her rate- just like we wouldn't want parents telling us how much they are going to pay us