Thirteen giddy girls packed into a conference room in Starkville for baby-sitter training on Friday.
The class, hosted by the American Red Cross, taught girls from 11 to 13 necessary baby-sitting skills and covered everything from the business side of childcare to basic safety.
“We go from diapers to bottle feeding to spoon feeding to safety in eight hours,” said Carla Cummings, who has taught the class for the past four years. Cummings, who has been the children”s pastor at New Horizons Church for the past 23 years, said one major focus of the class was how to remain calm during unexpected problems.
She remembered a frantic call she received from the mother of a 6-year-old boy who had put his cat in the microwave.
“The cat was cold, and he brought it in from outside to warm it up,” Cummings said. “(The mother) heard this ”ding!” It fried him from the inside out.”
Cummings said that baby-sitters never know what the child is going to do.
“You want them to go into a home feeling confident,” she said. “They”re going to be able to entertain and be safe.”
And in order to entertain, it”s essential to be resourceful even with limited supplies.
“I gave them three minutes to come up with a game for a toddler just with a piece of paper,” she said. After the students sat with their papers and tried to think of possible games, Cummings showed them what she would have done. “I wadded it up and threw it in the trash can. There”s a game: basketball. Move from seat to seat and try to get in”
Cummings also told the students what to do if they found themselves in a compromising situation with one of the parents.
“It”s okay to say you don”t know or you don”t feel comfortable,” she said. “What do you do if the dad comes home early and you”re home alone? Have some code words.”
Cummings said that going through all of the information in the baby-sitting handbook can be challenging with a group of young girls.
“You ask God for a lot of patience, and you remember when you were that age,” she joked. “They”re here for a long time, and there”s a lot of information.”
For the parents of the students, confidence is key.
“If you”re a parent, and you know your baby-sitter has CPR and basic training, you”re a lot more confident,” said Lori Arinder, whose daughter Abigail took the class. “I”m very proud of her, but this was all her idea, not mine.”
Abigail Arinder, who baby-sits in the nursery at her church, said she learned how to hold, feed and change a baby”s diaper, as well as CPR and first-aid in case any accidents happen. One thing Arinder, 13, was surprised to learn was how much front-end planning goes into baby-sitting.
“You”re supposed to interview the family you”re going to baby-sit for,” she said and explained that business cards and résumés are good tools for self-marketing.
Cade Smith, the assistant dean of students at Mississippi State University, said he wanted his daughter to take the class as much for his own peace of mind as for the parents of the children she would be baby-sitting.
“Alex has been wanting to do it for quite a while so she”s more competent — and we”re more comfortable — with her baby-sitting,” Smith said.
With their new training, all that stands in the girls” way now is finding work. But Cummings has a trick for that:
“Do up a résumé and stick them in diaper bags; that”s what I told them.”
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