What is the proper age for a girl to babysit?

for six hours…. its questionable. At that age, I would have had no problem babysitting for that amount of time, but I grew up with 7 siblings and babysat at home a lot. It all depends on the person, really. If she has good emergency contacts and there are some decent safety perameters laid down I’d say she should be alright.

Depends on the child. My niece at 12 was capable of babysitting. My nephew couldn’t be trusted alone with a fork!

Depends on local laws. Here in Wis, the age is 13, so your neighbor would be too young.

That said, I began to sit at age 10.5. I knew many latch-key kids that began to stay alone for an hour or two at about age 8.

It depends on so many variables;

How old are the kids, how experienced is the 12-year-old, are there meals and stoves involved?

How much responsibility goes with the job?

What happens in an emergency?

It is hard enough for a mother to attend to two young children for six hours. I would be very careful before sending a twelve-year-old to do the job.

Assuming legal age, it depends on the baby-sitter and the kids being watched. If the 12-year-old is experienced, knows the child(ren), and has a good emergency contact list, I would have no problem with it. On the other hand, I would probably hesitate to put a child or children in the hands of an inexperienced 16-year-old stranger, with no references, who does not know the children and whom I do not know.

I was 10 or 11 when I started babysitting. At 12 I was a babysitting professional, but then again, my mom used to babysit for 10 kids at a time on a daily basis and I was used to helping out with them. My first babysitting job was for a boy only a couple of years younger than me and his preschool aged sister. I even made dinner for them and got them to bed.

If the 12 year old in question knows what she’s doing (or at least knows when to call for help), there’s no reason why she shouldn’t be able to babysit. Around here, kids can take classes through the town to become “certified” babysitters. A lot of 12 year old kids can be pretty self-sufficient and capable if given half the chance. It’s kind of funny how nowadays it seems like little kids are expected to act like adults but big kids are still treated like babies!

If there’s any doubt, the parents can have the 12 year old start out helping with the kids while the parents are still home, then move on to gradually longer absences while the 12 year old babysits. That way, everyone eases into the situation and learns to build trust.

Just let her know that when you need to heat up boiled eggs in the microwave for lunch, she should cut them in halves or else they’ll blow up and it will smell like eggs in the microwave. I learned that the hard way during my babysitting adventures at 14.

This is similar to a recent question regarding a 14 year old baby sitting 4 young children. I personally think it is an overwhelming amount of responsibility to put onto someone who is still a child themselves. If a 12 or 14 year old decided to have a child of their own, folks would be appalled, that is much too young to take on that responsibility, but apparently it is not too young to take on the responsibility for certain periods of time. If a child of 12 or 14 commits a crime, it is often said they were not mature enough to realize what they were doing. But it is mature enough to watch over someone’s kids???

Well, I guess it’s a good thing all those parents who paid me to babysit when I was still a kid myself were so irresponsible. Think of all that spending money I would have missed out on if those parents hadn’t been such slackers!

Seriously though, I think it used to be the norm for girls to start babysitting at around age 12. I was perfectly capable of it and so were most of my peers. My daughter is 12, and I have no doubt she’d be a good babysitter, especially if she took a babysitting course just for some extra tips. A lot of parents around here will pay a younger teen to be “Mother’s Helper,” just to have an extra hand with the kids while doing housework or running errands. From that point, they progress to actually babysitting. Obviously, common sense has to play a role. I personally wouldn’t leave a 12 year old with more than two kids, a newborn, a child with medical issues or special needs, or for an extended period of time (more than 5–6 hours, tops).

The way I look at it, if my kid can keep her grades up, handle her schooling and scheduling of her after-school activities, and generally stay on top of her responsibilities at home, why would she not be able to entertain small children for short amounts of time? She knows how to put together a quick meal and clean up after herself, she knows how to call for help, and she knows what constitutes an emergency and what doesn’t. And she’s normal, not some kind of maturity prodigy.

Like I said before, I wonder when expectations for kids changed so drastically. It used to be that little kids were expected to act like little kids and big kids were expected to act like big kids. Since when has that been reversed?