okay so I am a fourteen year old girl. Every wednesday and thursday after school, I babysit two little girls ages 7 and 8(my neighbors daughters) for 10 dollars an hour. The problem is, they are DIFFICULT. They constantly give me attitude, and they constantly INSULT me for my looks. its awful. Whenever I try to get a game organized, they fight over what game to play and then one or the other start crying. Also, when we play outside, they like to play with our neighbors cat who roams around in our yards. After a while I tell them its time to give the cat some space, and they just tell me I know nothing about cats.....? I can handle little kids very well which is why I babysit. But these kids deliberately insult me, they dont listen no matter how firm I get, and they constantly fight and cry and have temper tantrums.
Does anyone have any tips on how to handle them better? Any kind of advice is appreciated. PLEASE!
Update:By the way, I dont wanna stop babysitting them.
1. I need the money.
2. They are sweet girls, they really are. Sometimes I just really cant take it when they behave this way. And sometimes we have really good days, and sometimes we have bad days, like mentioned above.
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
Discuss this with the children"s parents(when the girls are not around to hear it). Ask them for advice and also to what kind of punishment you are allowed to enforce. Time out, take toys away from them, whatever. Make it clear what exactly the girls do on a regular basis while you are with them. Also, make sure something is clear about what you want to happen before the discussion is over.
Stop baby sitting them. Dont put your self through that.
If you stick with it, let them know who is boss and its not them. Use time out for them. Since there older , have them go to there rooms for 10min just sitting on there bed. Then they need to apologize to you for there behavior. Talk to there mom too about this.
Id find a new family to help out.
Talk to the parents!!!!! And your in charge, tell the kids that and don't let ANYTHING pass. If they act bad, they don't go outside. If you don't like it, find other kids to babysit, there's plenty.