Many middle school Family and Consumer Science courses contain at least one unit in babysitting. Babysitting can be a challenge to teach as the standard is the Red Cross’s course. Here are some helpful resources for teaching baby sitting to your students.
A basic unit in baby sitting usually includes
- Basic Safety
- First Aid
- CPR
- Feeding
- Bathing
- Playing
- Bedtime
- Business Side
- Advertising
- How much to charge $$
- Taking down Family Information
- Professionalism & Responsibility
Unless you have the budget to have your class be formally trained in CPR and First Aid, the next best thing is to watch several short videos to familiarize your students with the concepts. I personally like to go over scenarios like “what would you do if Simon chased after a ball into the woods and fell and gashed open his knee on a rock?” The discussion can help guide students through scenarios and help them remember later on. Ask students to think of times they were injured when they were little and what the best response was from their caregivers.
For feeding, bathing, playing, and bedtime, students need a short overview of child development by age for each of these areas. So having the students make a reference chart for each age makes the most sense.
For the business side, advertising their babysitting services can be completely different today then when I was growing up. There are websites that students can advertise on, students can make up their own business cards and e-marketing emails to send to their parent’s contacts. This is also a good chance to remind students that their “internet footprint” matters and that they should not have poor representations of themselves online. Along with this go over the acceptable use of technology (like smart phones) while babysitting.
Resources
- Fire Safety for Babysitters (Brochure)
- Red Cross Babysitting & Child Care Training
- Babysitting Basics (PowerPoint)
- Baby Sitting Apps (Link)
Have other resources that should be added to this list? Send them to us at Feedback@familyconsumersciences.com or comment below.
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