Southborough Recreation Department is offering more American Red Cross Babysitting courses on Friday, October 11 and Monday, December 2.
Designed for 12 year old and up who wishes to learn how to care for infants and children. The course is fun and fast paced with hands-on-activities, exciting video, role-play and lively discussions.
It costs $100 for a six hour session and training materials. (For details, visit the Rec Dept’s website.)
The last time I wrote a post on this topic, someone complained that it would take a long time for a child to earn that back. A reader responded that his/her daughter earned the money back in less than 3 nights (and learned valuable lessons for life.)
So now that the course is being offered again, my question is –
How much are babysitters paid in Southborough?
How much do you pay your babysitter(s)?
How much are you or your teen getting paid to babysit?
I know that this varies by a lot of factors. (Certainly, a mature woman taking care of a baby and two toddlers will be paid more than a newly babysitting teen watching one preschooler.)
So please, share some details about the children and maturity/experience of the sitter.
(Photo from American Red Cross website)
I have a 13 year old neighbor who sometimes babysits (no adults present) and sometimes Mother-helpers (I am on the premises but doing my own thing.) She cares for my 5 year old and 7 year old. When she is babysitting I pay her $10/hour and for mh $5/hour. When she is available I use her as a mother’s helper every week for two hours. I find that this consistent interaction means that when I need her to actually babysit (which is too rare) the kids feel absolutely comfortable, in fact excited, to have me leave. A small investment to have a stress free date night once in a while.
The going rate has been $10-15 an hour for years. One neighbor, in order to make sure she always got first pick, was paying a high schooler $20/hr.