What’s the most (best) I can do to forge a decent relationship with other people’s children? (1) Tell the truth. (2) Keep my word. (3) Enforce the parents’ rules. (4) Report back.

Long Version. Recently I’ve had the privilege of looking after three kids in the “testing authority” years (ages 7 to 16). All of them have two active parents in their lives and just needed babysitting or looking-after (although sometimes of a complex sort, from helping with homework onwards).

I don’t pretend they’re my own kids. I don’t ask them to love or even like me (even though I have come to care about them “in a babysitterish kind of way,” as I hasten to emphasize in a world where “paedophile” has become a common term of abuse – among teenagers for awhile there “paedo” was the new “faggot” – but I digress). These are the hard-won guidelines that have helped me survive and even thrive as a member of the village that helps to raise the children. YMMV.

(3) To get the easy one out of the way: I learn in detail what the parents’ rules and goals are, and both follow and enforce those. If there’s any doubt about specific orders such as bedtimes or food or how much Wii, I have the parents repeat their instructions in everyone’s presence before they leave. I also take on board general orders such as “Please do not tell the kids anything about your sex life.” (All the parents have asked this particular thing and I have rigorously carried out their requests.) Essentially I find out what the “house rules” are and try to make sure they are followed.

Sample question: “Why not? [My friend] X’s parents let her…”

Sample answer: “This is good practice for when you grow up. Every house has its own rules, school has its own rules, and when you get a job, every job has its own rules as well. You might have to wear a uniform or learn how to use special tools or ask everybody ‘Would you like fries with that?’ When you have kids you can set the rules for them, but for now…” [By this time the kid may have thrown him or herself onto the floor in exhaustion, bleeding from the eyes and ears, or become interested in something else…]

(4) It’s critical to report back, so that no matter what happened, the parents know about it, both for their own comfort, and so that when the kids talk to them the parents can appear godlike in their omniscient knowledge. Especially if something bad happens I will text or call the parents immediately, depending on the seriousness. (This also builds trust in the parents, although I hope that I wouldn't have been left with the kids unless the parents trusted me already.)

As for disasters, I try to focus on a process of continuous improvement. The very first time I ever babysat (age 10) I started a fire by hanging a towel in front of a wall heater. Last night (age 51) I think the worst mistake was, well, the 8 year old is working through fears about robbers and burglars…

Sample question: (in lieu of a bed time story, in the “sit by my bed while I fall asleep” time) “When you see that Neighborhood Watch sign, does that mean it’s a neighborhood where burglars come?”

Sample answer: “No – it means the neighbors get to know each other and look out for each other. You know how Gramma and Grampa and their friend Keith are always watching who walks up and down the street? Let’s say they saw a woman in an orange jumpsuit who they didn’t know, and later someone found there was a burglary, well, they could tell the police to find the woman in the orange jumpsuit and ask if she did it.” This answer seemed to be enough for him, but I had to keep blabbing and say that one way to tell a bad neighborhood or at least to figure out where not to park is when you see a street where there’s a lot of broken window glass in the street, and then I went on to tell about one of the streets near Kings Cross in Sydney that has exactly that problem, and how I got my friend’s car window smashed through neglecting that precaution, and later I told his parents that I had gone a little TMI. They said he’s asking everyone he meets about robbers and burglars and murder, at least this week. I also gave him the rant about how TV exaggerates bad things (“doesn’t say… 'Last night almost a million kids in our town went to sleep safely and happily, 500 people got new jobs, 100 people even got raises' … but instead spends 10 minutes on one person who was murdered over in Bend”) and it very likely went over his head but at least I didn’t go on to the studies that show that the more TV you watch the more fearful you tend to be, with references, so he got off lightly. I also think the ticking of his clock is too loud, and I took it off the wall to see if the clicking could be made more soft, and then in the dark I couldn’t get it back up on its hook, but at least I didn’t smash it (as younger-me would have) or mention my sex life…

Now for the ones that are easy to say and hard to do: (1) Tell the truth, and (2) Keep my word. Those are the keys to being trusted by kids who have only a glancing relationship with me. It takes time to develop that trust, but just as in Chris Crawford’s old Mac game Balance of Power, if I develop that trust over time, then when it’s important, they will take me seriously.

Telling the truth (within the parameters that the parents have set) means that I either answer truthfully (usually much shorter answers than above) or I say, “Ask your parents about that.” Keeping my word includes other mutual respect things such as apologizing when I am in the wrong. The other day I accused the 10 year old of getting greasy fingerprints on a computer screen, and later it turned out that they were most likely my own fingerprints, so I apologized to her. She laughed and said it wasn’t necessary for me to apologize but actually (in my view) it was crucial.

Also importantly (and I am very grateful to the friends from which I have learned this *waves to Megan and Sue*), keeping my word means that if I make a threat, or as I prefer to say, discuss consequences of the kids’ actions, I carry it out, or risk the likelihood that they will decide I am a wimp and pay even less attention in the future.

In fact there aren’t many consequences that I as a mere babysitter can apply. The ones I do have available are usually of the timeout or “Can no longer use the [something]” variety, so best practice is to threaten only if there is something that I can do and am willing to do.

Sample question: “Why? That’s unfair! [Details]”

My usual answer to the unfairness question: “If I give in, I worry that I will be giving you an unrealistic idea of life. In the real world, actions like yours have consequences and if I [details] that will help you understand that and be ready for the real world.”

At this point the young people have been known to call their parents to complain about me, disturbing whatever the parents are doing (which they doubtless wanted to concentrate on, since they went to the trouble of getting a babysitter) and also branding me as a failure. The rise of cell phones means they can call both parents, whether or not they are at the same event, until someone picks up. Sometimes they don’t, because the event is loud or their phone is turned off, but if they do…

If you’ve read to this point you may be asking, why do I babysit at all? (1) To support the kids’ parents; (2) Because I learn much more from the kids than they do from me; (3) Because (1) and (2) are fun.

I have lots of other babysitting notes, but they’re stuff NOT to do, so that's another posting.