It`s after 10 p.m. on a Saturday night and your hostess has just served coffee. You find yourself relaxed and enjoying an evening of lively adult conversation, when suddenly your thoughts turn to home and a nagging worry sets in.
Are the kids okay? Did the sitter remember Charlie`s cough medicine? Can she get the baby to sleep?
Do you rush to the phone, or can you put your concerns aside, knowing that the person you have entrusted your children with is competent, caring, trained and mature enough to handle anything that might happen on this particular evening, or any other?
That`s a tall order to fill, most experts and parents would agree, especially for youngsters who perhaps have just recently packed away Barbie dolls and G.I. Joes themselves.
The term ”baby-sitting” today doesn`t begin to address the multifaceted aspects of child care expected of teens and pre-teens or the level of training available to these boys and girls throughout Du Page.
According to Peg McDonell, safety and health field representative for the Du Page Chapter of the American Red Cross, 766 boys and girls received baby-sitting certification from the Red Cross in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1991.
This includes youngsters from Du Page, south Kane and all of Kendall Counties, although McDonell said most are from the Du Page area.
In any given year, classes are offered in as many as 50 locations throughout the Du Page area at hospitals, park districts, schools and in private homes by scout leaders. Included among the locations in the county are Elmhurst Hospital, Hinsdale Community House, Carol Stream Park District and the Villa Park Recreation Department.
Certified American Red Cross instructor Barbara Brown of Villa Park said of her class, ”The most critical thing I teach is responsibility.”
Brown stresses self-confidence and positive attitudes.
”I dwell on being smarter than the children you are caring for,” Brown said.
The format for the Red Cross Baby-sitting Clinic is eight hours of instruction, which includes teaching the students how to identify their job functions, how to provide basic child care, recreational activities, how to prevent accidents and give simple first aid, and awareness of community resources for emergency help.
Participants must be 11 years or older, and both boys and girls are welcome. Brown estimated that about 10 percent of her students are boys, and most are around 11.
”Not only do we teach our students how to feed and hold an infant and how to diaper the baby, but we also demonstrate rescue breathing and choking, or how to open the airway,” Brown said.
One of the assignments Brown gives her students before they can receive certification from the American Red Cross is to interview two adults in order to determine what is expected from them as baby-sitters.
Some of the questions asked:
Would you expect your sitter to have references?
What activities do you not want the sitter to do with your children?
How should the sitter treat your home in terms of safety, cleanliness and entertainment?
While there is no charge for the instruction, there is a fee that covers the cost of supplies and the use of the facilities. This amount will vary, according to a Red Cross spokesperson, based on the facilities. Typically, fees run around $25.
Brown cautions students, ”Don`t panic when the baby cries. Investigate. Is he or she hungry, wet, teething, in need of burping, or feverish? Stay calm and check it out.”
Young adult librarian Jean Franklin of the Villa Park Public Library has been conducting a baby-sitting clinic by popular request for four years as part of the summer events at the library.
”We accept boys and girls ages 10 to 15 with a limit of 25 participants,” said Franklin. ”And there is always a waiting list.”
Franklin`s one-hour classes run consecutively for five days.
”Our requirements for certification are threefold: You must attend all five sessions, prepare a baby-sitter`s kit and pay a one-time fee of $1,”
said Franklin. ”We bring in a variety of professionals to teach the students. A health education wellness instructor from Elmhurst Hospital demonstrates CPR, gives the kids an emergency chart, and teaches first aid.”
”At another session we have representatives from the fire department and the police department, and we invite a nursery school director to talk to the students at yet another class,” said Franklin.
Franklin said that the most common concern with students at the clinic is being alone in a position of authority.
”On the last day of class, we invite a parent with young children to interact with the students. This hands-on experience is the practical application of all they have learned,” Franklin said.
The library also maintains a job referral list for potential baby-sitters who have completed the clinic.
At Glen Ellyn`s Glen Crest Junior High, all 270 8th-grade boys and girls participate in the Red Cross baby-sitting course, thanks to certified instructor and home arts teacher Kerry Waters.
”In addition to learning to cook and sew, our students spend two weeks on the baby-sitting program provided by the Red Cross,” said Waters.
Waters said this is the first year that she has offered baby-sitting as part of the curriculum in home arts, and she sees plenty of enthusiasm from the students.
”They especially like learning about all the fun things you can do with little ones,” she said. ”And the boys in the class feel really comfortable, too.”
Twelve-year-old Lindsay Kessner takes her Red Cross certification seriously: ”When I go to a home for the first time, I always wear my Red Cross pin and bring along my diploma,” she said. ”The course was really helpful because I didn`t know how to take care of very small babies and there I learned how to feed and burp them.
”It was also helpful to know what to do with cuts and rashes and insect bites,” Lindsay said.
She and friends took an idea from The Baby-sitters Club series of books and set up a play group last summer.
”We distributed flyers in the neighborhood to advertise our services,”
she said. ”Our play group met three times a week from 1 to 3:30 in the afternoon for kids from 2 1/2 to 5 years old. We averaged about 5 children each day and charged $1.50 per child,” Lindsay said. ”We played games, had a snack and read stories during a rest period.”
The play group lasted for four weeks during the summer, and Lindsay and company are considering offering it again this year. Currently Lindsay is teaming with her younger sister as mother`s helpers for a neighbor who has a toddler and 4-month-old twins.
”The mother is teaching us her procedures and my sister is getting hands-on experience at the same time. Soon we will be able to handle the babies on our own,” Lindsay said.
Before heading off to a baby-sitting job, Lindsay makes sure she brings along her backpack filled with crayons, coloring books and read-to-me books.
”The kids are always excited about what`s in the backpack for them and I make sure to include my own notebook for jotting down special instructions, too,” she said.
