"Have you checked the children?" - Babysitters Book a success

Tips on everything from fees to fires can be found in this, the latest publication by the Irish Red Cross and Domestos, who last year reached 280,000 people with their "Helping You to Care" pack for sufferers of long-term illness and their parents. The Handbook will be distributed throughout supermarkets in Ireland as part of a pack promoting Domestos and will also be given freely to anyone who calls the Helping You to Care line 1850 650 651.

Aimed at mothers, fathers and teenagers, A Handbook for Babysitters and Parents takes into account that, often, young children are left in the care of teenagers, who are actually children themselves or just at the threshold of adulthood.

Research, undertaken by the Irish Red Cross and Domestos in schools and crèches shows that there is a significant amount of fear felt by teenagers who babysit. Up to a thousand school-going teenagers who babysit and nearly 500 parents who use babysitters were surveyed and the results of the survey are detailed overleaf.

Strikingly, while many parents had no misgivings about their children being minded by teenagers, many of the teenagers expressed anxieties. Some of these anxieties seemed to be intangible, such as hearing noises outside the house, while others did involve strangers entering the house where the babysitter was on his or her own with young children.

"Fear was expressed by a surprising number of respondents. This "fear factor" may be well-founded, relating to home security or a child being sick. But what surprised us was the number of people who, unprompted, told us that they felt afraid because of what an experienced person would know was just ordinary household noises, such as creaking doors, the wind, cars passing close to the house and that kind of thing.

According to Ann Marie O'Riordan, Domestos Marketing Manager, "This kind of anecdotal evidence suggests that they may be watching or hearing about particularly frightening incidents, and brings to mind the chilling account in the film about babysitting, 'When a stranger calls', where the plot centred on the villain telephoning the house and asking the babysitter; 'Have you checked the children?'"

Real or imaginary causes of anxiety amongst youngsters minding children is a cause for serious concern as it could adversely influence a babysitter's decisions. The Irish Red Cross and Domestos believe that the A Handbook for Babysitters and Parents can give both sets of parents and the babysitter a useful tool to help deal with problems in a calm and rational manner and most importantly serve as a prompt for youngsters to tell adults what they're really feeling.
ends- See over for additional information and Research Results.

For further information, please contact Aisling White or Claire Lalor @ Kennedy PR 01 4762000 / 086 8208205 / 087 2996079
aislingcwhite@eircom.net / clalor@kennedypr.ie

The Research - what we found

The 'Fear Factor'

"The results of the survey serve as a wake up call for teachers who up to now might not have realised some of the frightening situations that the students could find themselves in while babysitting. It should be an essential part of the Education for Living programme in all secondary schools. These situations could be real or imagined, and could range from strangers entering the home to the sound of the wind or some unexplained outside noise," said teacher Virginia O'Dowd of St Mary's Secondary School, Nenagh.
A surprising number of the questionnaires completed in schools by young people who babysit contained accounts of incidents that led the babysitter to feel afraid.

Although some of these incidents involved plausible grounds for anxiety, such as someone unknown to the babysitter, and unexpected, walking into the house, many of the incidents would suggest that the babysitter was simply afraid of ordinary or incidental noise. This may simply be the product of an over-active imagination, fuelled possibly by viewing scary films or hearing their friends' accounts of scary incidents - either factual or fictional.

The Handbook for Babysitters and Parents will help both sets of parents, those of the teenage babysitter and those of the child or children being minded by the babysitter, deal with situations where the babysitter may simply feel 'jumpy'. This can best be done by ensuring that the babysitter feels that adult help is immediately available if he or she feels afraid.

Fear for no good reason: What the babysitters said:

"I was in the house and it's in the countryside and a young lad drove around the house."

"The baby monitor picked-up on another monitor from a different house and I heard other children crying."

"Once when I was babysitting I got a fright when I heard people talking on the baby monitor. I thought there was someone upstairs but when I went up there was no one. The monitor was just picking-up a different conversation"

"Strange noises."

"All the lights went out. When I went upstairs to put them to bed, the TV started blaring for no apparent reason."

"It is not really unusual but while I was in the house of the child, I heard noises outside the house, dogs were barking and cars pulling up outside and I was in the country."

"One night I heard all this noise like someone trying to get in the door and the house is out in the country. So I was kind of scared so my Mum called by for a few minutes. It was only pipes out in the utility room, but it was really loud."

"I was babysitting with my friend and it was one o clock at night. We heard a knock on the door and freaked out. So for the rest of the night we had frying pans beside us."

"I had to babysit in this girl's house that I knew. And her father had died two months before I had to babysit. I was really freaked out. There was loads of pictures of him in the house."

"Somebody rang the house and said nothing but in the background I could hear a radio playing. Also a child said 'hello' once or twice."

Research, both in response to the questionnaires and anecdotally also indicated that the parents of the child being minded can anticipate some real causes for anxiety in advance and let the babysitter know.

One babysitter said that the alarm went off and she didn't know the code, as a result she had a lot of explaining to do when the Gardaí arrived at the home where she was minding the children.

Another babysitter reported that all the lights in the house went out and she didn't know where the fusebox was or how to re-set the trip switch. Nor did she have any access to torches or lanterns. (Parents are strongly advised not to supply candles for fire safety reasons).

A few babysitters were also frightened when external sensor lights went on, while others managed to lock themselves out of the house.

These responses indicate that parents of children being minded should tell their babysitters what to do to de-activate alarms, where to get spare keys, re-set trip switches and the likelihood of sensor lights flashing on when someone passes close by to the home. As noted above, faulty electrics, the apparent loudness of noises in the comparative dead of night (particularly in isolated or country areas) and baby monitors that pick-up nearby voices, are all things that young and inexperienced babysitters should be told about.

Fear for well-grounded reasons: What the babysitters said:

Fortunately few babysitters reported situations where their fears for themselves or the children they were minding were well-grounded. Of these, the vast majority related to accidents or illness involving the children. However, some babysitters did report, both anecdotally through their teachers and/or in a response to the questionnaire, some situations that we found worrying.

Attacks on the home
A small number of babysitters indicated that an attempt had been made to steal property (car or house break-in) belonging to the householder. It is difficult to evaluate these accounts, but it does reinforce the advice contained in A Handbook for Babysitters and Parents about ensuring that the house is securely locked, not to answer the door to strangers, not to disclose personal details to telephone callers and to seek adult help if they are really afraid.

Worryingly, some babysitters recounted situations involving the parents of the child or children they were minding that indicate little care for the welfare of the babysitter.

Keeping the child awake
"I was told not to let the child fall asleep even though the child was only three and the mother wasn't back until 1.30am."

Not being told what to expect
One 14-year-old girl arrived to mind the children, only to find the parents weren't there. Another teenager reported that she was surprised to find an extra child in the house -an hour after the parents departed. While a south-Dublin girl reported that when she arrived at the house to babysit, there were in fact no children to mind!

Parents fighting
One sixteen-year old reported that she was scheduled to stay the night in the house. After she had gone to bed the couple arrived home and started fighting and she heard the sound of breaking dishes.

13-year-old to mind seven children
Another girl - who was only thirteen - told her teacher that she found herself minding seven very young children for a night, having agreed to mind just three; What she didn't know is that the parent whose children she was minding, had told her own friends that her babysitter would mind their children too while all the parents went out for the night!

He was a stranger, and he just walked in.
Melanie (14) * was babysitting two small children on a nearby estate when the front door opened. A man had let himself in with his own key. He told Melanie that he was the children's father, and he had come to take them home with him. Melanie was assertive enough to insist he wait in the kitchen, while she phoned the mother's mobile. It turned out that the man was the children's father. The mother came home immediately, but until she arrived Melanie was left in charge of a very difficult, and adult, situation.

Drunken man drives babysitter home - and she's not alone
Another 13-year-old told her teacher that she was expecting to finish babysitting at around midnight. However, at four in the morning one of the parents, the mother finally came home and was with three men. They were all drunk. One of the men was asked to bring this girl home. Not knowing how else to get there, she accepted. It was only when she told her own mother the next morning that she realised she had been in the company of a drunken stranger, who shouldn't have been at the wheel.

Nearly one in every ten babysitters who completed the Irish Red Cross and Domestos questionnaire shares this experience. 9.1 per cent of respondents stated that they had been driven home after babysitting by someone who was drunk or incapable of driving.

Fire
A couple of the teenage babysitters had to deal with small burns or fires to cushions or curtains. They report that they dealt with the situation on their own.

Again it is difficult to evaluate theses responses, but our survey shows that the majority (60 per cent) of parents don't leave any instructions about what to do in the event of a fire in the home.

Accidents & illnesses

Describing the research as very enlightening Dr. Alf Nicholson Consultant Paediatrician Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Drogheda said that he believed that the handbook would be an enormous help in the whole area of prevention of children's accidents and illness in the home. "The handbook for babysitters and parents is a very useful response to what is obviously an area of enormous need in Ireland today. I found the responses by some of the babysitters to the accidents to be quite disturbing and I would be anxious that babysitters feel more confident and are more skilled if they are to be relied upon to provide care to children."

Surprisingly, a number of babysitters stated to their teachers and through the questionnaires that they were left minding children with medical conditions of which they were unaware, such as asthma and children walking in their sleep.

And the research shows that over half of babysitters (51%) found they were babysitting for a sick child. Just 11 per cent of parents, on the other hand, say they left their sick chid in the care of a babysitter.

A Handbook for Babysitters and Parents states that parents should not expect a babysitter to mind their child if he/she is unwell. In the event that a child needs medication (to deal with an existing medical condition), the advice from the Irish Red Cross and Domestos through the Handbook, is for parents to leave written instructions.

Nearly half of the babysitters (45%) said they had a First Aid qualification, but well over a third (36%) made the wrong choice when it came to treating a routine injury, nosebleeds, saying they would put the head backwards.

First Aid is evidently not an important quality in a babysitter for most parents, in any case. Three-quarters of parents (76.3%) said they knew their babysitter did not have a First Aid qualification or they did not know if their babysitter had a First Aid qualification.

Here's a sample of what the babysitters said:

"The child started to get sick. I was frightened. I didn?t know what to do. I just washed his face and lay him down in a well ventilated room."

"The children were in bed when I heard a scream. I ran upstairs to find the little boy vomiting up everything. I cleaned him up and he started to vomit even more. I rang his parents and gave him calpol."

"Pierced his eyebrow."

"One child got sick on me. One child scalded herself with boiling water while I was putting her brother to bed, although she had been told to got to bed and had got up unknown to me."

"He fell of his bike and broke his elbow in two places."

"Child started choking."

"The child I mind fell off a bike and damaged her knee but I disinfected it with disinfectant and put a plaster over it."

"The baby started crying so I went to check on him and he had vomit all over him. I put him on his side because he was still vomiting and then picked him up and brought him into the bathroom. I brought him with me and phoned his parents. They came straight home. I changed the baby after I gave him a bath."

"I had put the girls to bed an hour (earlier) and went up to check on them. The five-year-old had had a nose bleed and had blood on her face. I was shocked at first, but then I wet some cotton wool, cleaned her up and woke her to see if she felt alright, just in case. I rang her parents to ask if this happened often. They said it did, but made their way home anyway."

Dealing with difficult situations
Some babysitters found themselves in situations for which they were unskilled. A few of these related to toilet-training, with one 15-year-old boy describing a child who soiled the bath (a normal occurrence for very young children) as 'a brat'. Another 15-year-old from Tipperary said she found it difficult to deal with the results of a child having an accident in his pants.

Another teenager found dealing with the bereavement of the children, who had lost a close relative at that time, very difficult: "The children were sad and confused and asking questions about where would go. I didn't really know what to tell them."

Babysitters also reported having to find children that were playing outdoors, cope with children that were placing themselves in dangerous situations and deal with just plainly badly behaved children. One 15-year-old from Kilkenny recounted a series of incidents involving a child she was minding, before concluding "I think she has ADS." (Attention Deficit Syndrome)!

Thankfully the Research shows that the vast majority of babysitters (91.3%) would not hit a child they were minding. A Handbook for Babysitters and Parents gives advice on how to cope with difficult situations when babysitting, and it states clearly that a babysitter must never hit a child they are minding.

The price to pay
Babysitting is very common in Ireland and the largest group of both parents (32.2%) and babysitters (35%) say that they use or act as babysitters once a week.

Most babysitters (61.2%) felt they were not paid enough for babysitting, with the largest group of respondents (34.9%) saying they were paid less than the minimum wage (Eur6.35 per hour), getting between Eur5 and Eur5.50 per hour. Just 11% said they got paid approximate minimum wage rates (Eur6 - Eur6.50 per hour).

Parents, however didn't state what they paid their babysitter, but the largest group that did (24.4%) admitted paying below minimum wage rates (Eur5 - Eur5.50 per hour). About 12% said they did pay the approximate minimum wage rate (Eur6 - Eur6.50 per hour), while 12.9% of parents claim they pay their babysitter between Eur10 and Eur30 per hour.

A Handbook for Babysitters and Parents recommends that fees paid are fair, agreed in advance and based on the number of hours of the "sit".

Ends