When is too old to still have a babysitter?

G. im sorry for the late reply but i think you guys need a younger perspective. i am an early teen and i baby sit for a lot of people. i have also babysat my older brother(6 years older) for quite a while. regarding CJ-from the stories i have heard mostly from friends who are also babysitters, most girls who are very reluctant even after the parents encourage them (again im saying mostly, this isnt always the case) tend to LIKE the boys they are babysitting. but if she really s just reluctant because tommy is older, then i have a solution that generally works. tell CJ to carry him around like a baby and if tommy does any baby-ish things, make them suer obvious to her. by doing this she will get a clear idea of how adorable but immature and dependant most boys are.

also u asked why a 17 year old girl would need a babysitter, well i myself have babysat many girls too, some of them just like to be immature like most boys while some have therapy kinda problems. just like you can find a few mature boys here and there, you can find a few immature girls.

and you said that tommy is very physically weak. that isnt tooo uncommon for boys and im assuming that the 6 year old cousin that beat him was a girl. it isnt hard for a young girl to be stronger than a boy his age. but if it was a 6 y.o. boy, then it might be worrying. still tho, even if he was stronger than most boys he would still need a girl's help to do a lot of things so it doesnt really matter, the only difference is that he will need help more often. which brings me back to the CJ topic, if luckily she doesnt have an interest in your son and finally decides to try spanking him it might hurt him really bad if he truly is weaker than a 6 y.o. boy.

-Gina

@agnieszka-maria I don't really use CJ very much anymore, Lyza is available most of the time as her elementary school closes before Tommy's high school and she can go pick him up at the gate and walk him home, then stay with him until I get back from work. They see each other practically every day. When she's not available there are other girls around her age I hire, they tend to do best, and I pay quite well so there are always a lot who want the job. Tommy often asks for CJ to babysit him, because she goes easy on him and lets him get away with more and because he dislikes it less when the age difference is smaller. I really prefer the younger ones though, they do a much better job. If CJ wants the job she has to learn to be stricter, maybe one of the younger girls can teach her.

About your daughters, I've always really believed in treating kids according to their maturity level without regard for their age. I was treated as if I was older than my elder brother from a pretty young age and that was definitely the best arrangement, and the families I know that work like that are much better. I have a pair of nephews where the younger brother is in charge of the older one and that works way better for everyone. Point being I don't think there's anything wrong with giving Julia extra privileges over Karolina, like a later bedtime, or with making her responsible for her. It might be good to teach her some responsibility. Maybe you could increase her allowance in exchange for having to take care of Karolina, that would make it a better deal for Julia. Just a suggestion of course, you know your kids better than I ever could. I agree that it's nice that they sleep in the same bed though, my Tommy finds it very hard to sleep alone as well. Usually his babysitter gets in with him until he falls asleep, then goes back downstairs to watch TV for a while.

@thewadzee Carrying a boy around is definitely a great trick, I used to do it with my brother. They always behave much better after that. I remember a time I saw Lyza carrying Tommy down the street and into the house. It turned out he'd been misbehaving and trying to run away on the walk home, and she decided to respond by picking him up and carrying him all the way home past dozens of people! Stuff like that is why Lyza's so great at this, he was very humbled by that and he was on his best behavior for a long time.

It's definitely true that you get outliers for maturity of both genders, but a 17-year-old girl at that level is fairly rare I think. I do know some mature boys though, like one of my nephews.

I'm afraid the 6-year-old cousin that Tommy can't beat in armwrestling is a boy. It almost goes without saying that he couldn't beat a girl that age, that would be far too much for him. Like I said, extreme low end of the spectrum even by male standards. That's one reason I'm extra-protective of him and never want him alone in a room for a single minute. He gets bullied a lot and the worst offenders are these middle school/late elementary school boys, but when there's a girl like Lyza with him they leave him alone.

Hello Martha

I'm glad your problems with CJ seem to be vanishing!

And thank you for your advise about my daughters, Im so glad I'm not the only person with kids where age and maturity are sort of reversed.

Im still committed to a babysitter for both of them, especially for Karolina.

But from Saturday Julia will stay up later - to the same bedtime as Karolina so she will be happy about that. In return, Julia will get a little responsibility - it will be her job to prepare their hot water bottles and put them in their bed. - and to lay their nightdresses ready on the bed along with their little bedsocks.

They are going to stay sleeping in the same bed though. For one thing I think it is nice, for the other it really helps Karolina. If she wakes up frightened during the night after a bad dream she wont be on her own - Julia will be there for her.

G. im starting to think letting CJ babysit him might not be a good idea either, not until she can prove that she will be strict with him. looks like Tommy still resists Lyza a little bit. this isnt too uncommon if she hasnt been babysitting him a long time. im sure eventually he will completely respect lyza as a more mature person. for example, a few years ago, i started with a boy only 2 years older than me. even though the age gap wasnt too much he resisted for almost 1 year and a half. now everytime i meet him he runs to me and jumps onto me. what im trying to say is that lyza should try to be strict but also show that she cares for tommy. if she only keeps spanking him and forcing the rules over and over, he will only be nice out of fear, if she is strict but caring, he will start wanting to be well behaved.

maybe when she brings him home from school she can carry him, but not the forceful carry. it should feel like a hug to him and im sure tommy will appreciate not having to walk all the way. also she can try helping tommy with some of his work if he was really well behaved that day.

i agree with your views on julia and karolina. everybody should be treated according to their own individual needs. if she is less mature, there is no point in treating her like she is, then she will never learn. one tip i have for Maria(do you mind me calling you that?) is that maybe you should check if she is too influenced by boys around her.

you are right in saying 17 y.o. like that is fairly rare, in fact its very rare but that doesnt mean its impossible. as i said everybody has their own individual level and shouldnt be judged according to their age or gender. why do you think that boy specifically is mature? for me i think my brother is pretty mature, i have babysat him many times but he is definitely more mature than most girls a little younger than me.

the way lyza carried him that time, it seems like it was completely against his will and probably more humiliating than anything else, being scolded out in the open. what i think she should have done is, tell tommy that if he behaves properly she will carry him home all boys love being carried, so im sure he would have agree. it works better as a reward than a punishment

dont worry about the sleeping alone thing. most boys and even many girls dont like sleeping alone, its far FAR more common than movies and stuff make you think, in fact have you read the stories about my brother? i can give you a quick summary if you like. him losing to a 6 y.o. boy is pretty concerning though, have you tried to see if he can beat anyone at that age? could be that the 6 y.o. boy was just the opposite(much stronger for boy standards)

i like talking to you toms mom but with all due respect it kinda sounds weird when you say you dont "USE" CJ anymore. i prefer the term "hire".

I suppose "use" isn't the right word, you're right.

Tommy does still resist all of his babysitters to some degree, but he's better with Lyza and other girls with her level of discipline. She does care for him though, I see her pinching his cheeks and telling him how cute he is and inviting him to sit on her lap all the time. I can tell he reluctantly enjoys it, although he is a bit embarrassed. He'll get over the embarrassment, just like he did with the bathing. I know what it's like when a boy resists the younger girl's authority and then learns to accept it, I got that from my brother. When I was first put in charge of him he threw a big tantrum and made a point of never doing anything I told him to, but after a year of tough enforcement of the rules combined with genuine care and affection he came to terms with it and our relationship became very close. He even started calling me "big sister" and I called him "little brother", which was funny as he was always about a foot taller than me.

When Lyza carried him home that time it was a sort of punishment, but that's necessary sometimes and it worked perfectly. He does like to be carried in other situations however, just a few days ago I heard him pestering Lyza to lift him up as soon as she arrived in the house, and she promised she would if he did an extra good job with the washing up. She also told me about a time she was walking him home from school and they had to walk past a group of kids who bully Tommy, he gripped her hand really tight and eventually just jumped into her arms so she could carry him past them.

When Tommy armwrestled against his 6-year-old boy cousin he didn't actually lose, he just couldn't beat him. They were locked in a draw for 5 minutes, exactly evenly matched. Unfortunately that boy is apparently fairly typical for a boy his age, he's not any stronger than his friends and the other boys in his class. Tommy just has next to no muscle development. There are a lot of 6-year-old girls who could beat a physically normal boy Tommy's age, but that he's at the level of a 6-year-old boy is pretty concerning. It obviously means that pretty much every girl toddler-aged and up could wipe the floor with him. He lost resoundingly against Lyza's 3-year-old sister and got quite roughed up (unintentionally) when she was play-wrestling with him, they always need to be supervised when they're together now.