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What You Should Ask Your Babysitter After Every Job

You return home from a night out, pay your teen babysitter, and thank her for looking after your kids. That’s all that’s required, right? Not quite. You should always dedicate a few minutes to ask your babysitter specific questions.

Some teen sitters will be chock-full of information about what happened when you were out, and they’ll share it all without prompting. However, that’s not most teens, who generally require a bit of prodding.

Don’t ask your sitter a laundry list of questions that makes her feel as if she’s being interrogated or that you don’t have confidence in her abilities. Do ask a handful of specific questions that will give you enough feedback to get a clear idea of what works, and what doesn’t, when you’re not around.

Focus On The Following

• If you instructed your sitter to provide meals, how did mealtime go?
• Did the sitter and your kids have fun together? This is a good way to find out what activities your sitter engages in with your kids and to determine if you think they’re appropriate.
• Bedtime can be a challenging time for parents and sitters alike. Were there any issues?
• Did your kids display any problem behavior? Every parent knows this is a possibility. Use this opportunity to provide tips to help your sitter successfully handle situations in the future. If you discover that there were problems with the sitter’s behavior, such as your rules not being followed, tactfully address those and correct them. Be gentle but firm while reinforcing your rules and the reasons behind them.
• End the conversation on a positive note! Ask your sitter about any cute or funny things your kids may have done. After all, what parent doesn’t love hearing about those?

Of course, it’s much easier to get feedback from the sitter when you make time for it. Model good behavior and be home on time. This shows respect for the babysitter’s time and keeps the babysitter’s parents from worrying about them. Usually 15 minutes is an appropriate leeway but call your babysitter if you’ll run any later than that.

Don’t make getting feedback from your sitter a casual thing that merely consists of a quick “How did things go?” as you thank her and hand over payment.  Reserve a few minutes at the end of every job to ask specific questions and get detailed answers.

Has your sitter taken a babysitting preparation course? If not, consider signing him or her up for Safe Sitter®. Use our Find a Class tool.

If you liked this article, you might like:

5 Things You Should Do to Keep Kids and Sitters Safe

3 Steps to Determine How Much to Pay Your Babysitter