16yr old babysitting a 2 and 8 year old

[WoodBurningStov]

My dd has a part time job in a shop, and also wants to earn extra money. She put an advert on our local fb page and a lady has contacted her about babysitting her 2 dc, ages 2 and 8. My dd is great with kids, a natural and sensible too, but would it be too much of a risk for her to look after 2 of that age. She often baby sits for a family friend who has 2 dc, but they are 11 & 13. I'd also be on hand if she needed help and could ring whenever she needed to.

Are there any courses she could do? I want to protect her as well as the children. I just feel uneasy but don't know why.

She's offered to go round and introduce herself and learn their bedtime routine as she's be expected to put them to bed.

I did it at that age. A first aid course for children would be helpful.

She could do first aid and get a DBS? But it's totally fine. I used to babysit for strangers from when I was 14. Sometimes I never even met the kids as they were asleep the whole time.

I have no problem with this. Looking after children is what babysitting is?

My DC is a regular babysitter for kids between 18 months and 10 years, she never been asked to do under 18 months but would be fine.

What do you think could go wrong? Unless you get into incredibly unlikely scenarios the worst that can happen is the kids run riot and are still awake when the parents return, not the end of the world.

Sounds like I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill - thank you all for responding

It would be good if she did a quick course on first aid and knew what to do in the event of choking etc. The red cross do a free one: https://firstaidchampions.redcross.org.uk/en/secondary/first-aid-skills/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwzN-vBhAkEiwAYiO7oMGuI0A7oNVIZkeeu2tcA6HOvc-OT2zM6sfmuRKG43AQ5WuOknkXYBoCRkMQAvD_BwE

Otherwise, I see no problem. I used to look after my little sister when I was 11.

Can't see the problem, if you don;t want her babysitting give her enough pocket money that she doesn't have to.

Definitely don't do this. All teens need to work and learn responsibility.

I wouldn’t have felt at all comfortable with DD looking after a 2 year old at that age. At 13 she was asked by our next door neighbours to babysit their 2 and 6 year old - I said no on her behalf and told them that if they were desperate I’d gladly help out. I’m by no means an overprotective parent (quite the opposite) but so many things can go so quickly wrong with such a young child. At the very least she’d need to be insured and have the proper health and safety training, even just to cover her own back if something did happen

When I was 15 I looked after 3 children ages ranging from 2 to 10.

This was me too. Most of the time they were in bed & the mum left me lovely snacks to eat!

my 16yo dd babysits a 1.5yo and a 4yo and has never had any issues! depends on the child but i’d imagine it’ll all be ok xx

Thank you all for your comments, think I just need to put a bit more trust in my dd, she’s a good level headed teen and adores children. She’s the sort of person that will sit and play with children for hours. I’m sore she’ll be absolutely fine

I think it depends on the 16 year old. Some are sensible enough and have experience of looking after younger siblings etc, some wouldn't have a clue. A first aid course would be a good idea though.