Full Version: Full-on
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QUOTE(Melody Amour @ Oct 1 2009, 09:42 PM) 
Hi everyone
I just wanted to asked some advice about baby-sitting. Some children will do a mixture of entertaining themselves and engaging with me, which is great. Others want full-scale entertainment all the time even when they are supposed to be eating and do not want to do anything on their own and are constantly saying, "Look at me" and constantly talking even when you are giving them attention or reading to them. I occasionally like a second or two to have my own thoughts. Does anyone have ideas of how to deal with this? It is not as if the children are misbehaving, just full on. Thanks.
I'm afraid that if you're babysitting, the kids will understandably be excited by having someone different from their parents in charge, and as such, are quite likely to be more full-on than is comfortable. Over time I'm guessing that they would calm down, and keeping activities and your own voice quiet and calming will probably help a lot with this - demonstrating by your behaviour what you would like rather than responding to their level of excitement. And as far as time to yourself goes, my experience is that as kids get older, it gets easier, but littlies want to communicate and share their experiences pretty much all the time, especially only kids. I found it wonderful to have my kids' friends round to play, because that did make them go off to do their things.....then the only problem was sorting out any fighting
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I have found, when taking six noisy 5 to 6 year olds out in my car, and wanting to concentrate on the traffic, that a quick game of " Let's see who can keep quiet the longest" worked wonders. It is obviously best if there is more than one child as their competetive instinct kicks in. I found the non-stop hyperactive talker was the best at this.
Another method that seems to work if you ask them to be quiet, is to tell them to be quiet and put their hands on their heads. It's as if having two things to think about works better than if you just tell them to be quiet. (Either that or they go quiet while they work out why the mad woman has just asked them to put their hands on their heads for no reason. )
Another method that seems to work if you ask them to be quiet, is to tell them to be quiet and put their hands on their heads. It's as if having two things to think about works better than if you just tell them to be quiet. (Either that or they go quiet while they work out why the mad woman has just asked them to put their hands on their heads for no reason.
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