I know I've mentioned how awesome my babysitter is many times throughout this blog, but now it's official. She has made it to the news! The Sacramento Bee to be exact. Apparently while she was being interviewed for the article, she kept saying "Mrs. Durling this and Mrs. Durling that". The reporter finally said, "Do you think I could talk to Mrs. Durling?" Sure enough, I got a phone call and was happy to help contribute to this article. We have been really blessed to have Katie as our babysitter. She truely is an amazing girl!
You can read the article here:
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/10/26/3131074/perfect-baby-sitter-engages-kids.html
Or, I've copied and pasted it below:
Baby Sitter Engages Kids With Physical, Mental Activity
By Sam McManis
smcmanis@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1D
She darts from child to child, never letting either boy out of her sight on the play structure for a nanosecond. She laughs delightedly, cautions mildly, praises frequently.
"Good choices, please," she says when 5-year-old Greyson Wright picks up a twig and wields it like a light saber.
"All the way on now, bud," she coos at Greyson's 2-year-old brother, MacGuire, scrambling up the park's teeter-totter, as she gently places her palm on his back to support his budding autonomy.
And when Greyson, flush with little-boy daring, decides to stand, surferlike, on the wobbly swing, she brightly scolds, "Is that how we sit on a swing? Can you sit on your bottom, please?" When he complies, she bubbles out "Awesome!" while glancing back at curly-locked MacGuire, sitting safe and docile amid the spongy wood chips.
At no time, please note, did the sitter actually sit.
Fully engaged, thoroughly engaging, Katie Mersereau is the living, breathing, giggling manifestation of the ideal teenage baby sitter.
Did we mention that she never, ever succumbs and turns on the TV while on the job? Or that she always cooks dinner for her charges, has a bulging arts-and-crafts activity bag o' tricks that would make Martha Stewart jealous, leads kiddie tutorials on cookie- making and – this is too much, we know, but true – cleans the house before the parents return?
She's a pro, this sitter. Charges reasonable rates, too. Yup, a real find.
Does it matter that she's only 14 and a freshman at Granite Bay High School?
With her bright-green braces that sparkle whenever she smiles, her coltish gait and perky ponytail, her Mickey Mouse T-shirt and multihued sneakers, you might be excused for wondering if the baby sitter needs a sitter herself.
But age is no sure gauge of baby-sitting prowess. Fourteen or 64, a good sitter needs the right balance of discipline and disposition, patience and playfulness. Skills from CPR to diaper-changing are vital, too, but experts say much of sitting is intuitive. Some people are just born to nurture.
"They need enough maturity and self-possession to keep themselves in control," said Sally Herrholz, executive director of Safe Sitter, a nonprofit based in Indianapolis. "They need to be in charge and understand it's a job, yet they must love kids and (relate) on their level."
Lori Capaul, a professor of human development and family at Sierra College in Rocklin, said that within reason she would never set a minimum – or maximum – age for a sitter.
"One of my best baby sitters, a neighbor next door, happens to be 14," Capaul said. "She totally has it together. Whereas I (know another girl) that same age and I'm like, 'Oh, I don't think so.' She'd be texting and not watching the kids."
Still, Katie may be something of a baby-sitting prodigy. Her mother, Lori Mersereau, remembers her as a toddler imitating, act by act, her mother's caring for her baby brother, A.J.
"Whatever I was doing, she'd do it with her doll," Mersereau said. "If it was changing, she'd change the doll. If I was nursing, she'd nurse. When I was pregnant, she put the doll under her shirt. At 2 1/2, she already was playing Mommy."
And so it came to pass that, at the grand old age of 12, Katie began her sitting career.
It was for a family, the Durlings, with four children, 6 months to 10 years old. Katie had already performed admirably in a trial run of sorts, helping the mother, Rachael, tend to the brood during a trip to SunSplash, the water park in Roseville.
Rachael Durling was so impressed that she hired Katie to watch the kids while she and her husband went out for the night.
"I felt really comfortable with her sitting without adult supervision," Durling said. "But my husband was very, very nervous. Katie'd just recently turned 12. My husband called our neighbor and said, 'Can you please go over there in an hour and check on her?'
"Sure enough, when we got home, (the neighbor) reported to us at the end of the night, 'You don't need to worry about that girl you hired. She had everything under control. She had all the kids on the couch playing a game.' "
For her part, Katie recalled being "a little worried" staying alone with four kids but "pretty confident." She made mac 'n' cheese for dinner and got the kids to bed on time.
"My dinners have gotten slightly more elaborate since then," she said, laughing. "I've got the routine down."
Parents, who for epochs have struggled to find the right match – a responsible yet fun sitter – for their little ones might be forgiven at this point for putting the newspaper down and trying to contact this sitting superstar from Orangevale with the soul of Dr. Spock and the energy of Elmo.
Sorry. You're out of luck. Three families routinely vie for Katie's services – and her time is limited, between her high school cross country team, a competitive soccer team, her professional tap dance company and her steady stream of homework. She can usually squeeze in a Friday night or a Sunday afternoon, if scheduling allows.
But Katie said she doesn't want her busy life to crowd out sitting. A standard lament from adults who have found the perfect sitter is that the window of employment ceases after those 13-to-16-year-old golden years. Once teens get their driver's licenses, get a boyfriend or a girlfriend, social life can supplant sitting life.
Katie shook her as if to say, "That's not me."
"I find (sitting) more of a getaway to just enjoy myself and spend the time with kids," Katie said. "If you don't like the kids, if you are just there to make the money, you're not being a successful baby sitter. I'm here to help. It's their parents' time to go enjoy themselves and my turn to entertain them."
Capaul, the Sierra College child development professor, said parents need to suss out a potential sitter's motive for seeking the job.
"It seems like an oxymoron, but you have to take the job seriously but also have lots of fun," Capaul said. "Parents can tell right away whether the person truly likes a child or not. That's hard to fake."
Durling, who sometimes has to call other sitters when Katie is unavailable, said she has eliminated some candidates for insufficient enthusiasm.
"I'm a Facebook friend with some of these girls, and things they post like, 'Oh, I'm baby-sitting again, it's so boring' are good to know. I'm glad they posted that. Now I can know not to call them."
Katie, on the other hand, is so child-centered that she refuses to turn on the television, even after she has put the kids to bed.
"I'm really strong about no TV," she said. "There's a whole world of options rather than having little couch potatoes for five hours. You need to come prepared. Walking in there and asking, 'OK, what do you want to do today?' you're going to get an insane amount of ideas from each kid. But if you have something planned that will keep them engaged for an hour, it smooths things over."
Among the weapons of mass distraction in Katie's bag o' tricks: glitter, crayons, construction paper, board games. Other activities include cookie-making or sports. Katie's big on sports; it tires out the little ones.
"The great thing about Katie," said Kathy Wright, mother of the active Greyson and MacGuire, "is that she keeps them occupied and happy but makes sure she's using the proper discipline we (parents) want."
Being adaptable to parents' idiosyncracies and house rules is crucial to a sitter's success, Safe Sitter's Herrholz said. She added that a sitter should never resort to spanking or yelling at a child.
"Baby sitters are substitute parents, and there are more constructive techniques to deal with possible conflicts," she said.
Katie said she defuses sibling squabbles or minor insubordination to the sitter with a reward system – maybe an extra cookie or a few extra minutes awake before bedtime. She uses timeouts to soothe the savage toddler.
"When they fight (each other), you separate them and go through the problem and have them apologize to each other," she said.
She can be stern when needed, though.
"I try to be as positive as possible," Katie said, "but certain things set me off."
At last, here it is: some dirt on the so-called perfect baby sitter!
"When they go near the oven, that's a big thing for me," she said. "That's where I draw the line. We've never had a problem. I cook dinner. The rule is, no one goes in the kitchen. If you go in the kitchen, no cookie. I don't want anything to happen."
BABY-SITTING TIPS
For parents ...
• Interview prospective sitters: "When I was younger and working as a nanny while studying child development," said Lori Capaul, professor of human development and family at Sierra College, "I was surprised at the lack of questions parents would ask. I thought, wait, I could be some crazy person. You don't know me."
• Make sure they know first aid and CPR: "Anybody who's responsible for children needs that basic training and specifically needs to know how to rescue a choking infant or child and knows how to keep them safe," said Sally Herrholz, executive director of Safe Sitter. "We think it should be a community standard."
For sitters ...
How young is too young? "Every baby sitter needs to screen every job to decide whether it's a job they are capable of," said Herrholz. "Maybe someone (younger) could handle watching one preschooler for a couple of hours, but that same person couldn't handle watching several children for a long time or watching really young children."
Don't get distracted: "No texting friends. No talking on the phone. No watching your favorite TV shows," Capaul said.
• Be consistent with the parents' rules: "Make sure you follow the parents' rules and guidelines," Capaul said. "The kids have to see that you, the sitter, respects the parents' wishes. You don't want the kids playing you against the parents."
• Avoid corporal punishment: "Never, ever spank or hit a child, even if the parents give you permission to spank," Herrholz said. "There are other techniques, like turning things into a game. If someone's stubborn about picking up the toys or whatever, make it fun and, amazingly, the kids will usually go along."
• Tell the parents what happened, but be sensitive: "Never tell a parent when they come home that they missed some big developmental milestone," Capaul said. "Don't say, 'Oh my God, your kid took their first step!' because the parent will just die. I made this mistake myself. I told a mom, 'The baby rolled over.' I was so excited. As soon as I said it, I knew I'd made the biggest mistake."
– Sam McManis
