Over my years of babysitting, I’ve learned a lot about how to be a good babysitter. With each kid and each experience, I picked up tips and ideas and learned lessons as well. But the lessons I’ve learned from my babysitting experience aren’t just about how to be a good babysitter — they’re also about how to be a good person. And I learned that from the kids.
Here are some of the life lessons I’ve learned from kids I’ve babysat.
1. Feel your feelings
Everyone has feelings, and it’s important to really feel them! My now-5-year-old cousin is a prime example of this. Once when she was sleeping over at my house, I was helping her brush her teeth before bed. Her toothbrush and toothpaste that we keep at my house for sleepovers are “Paw Patrol” themed and have pictures of the characters from the show all over them.
After brushing her teeth, my cousin asked me if we could watch “Paw Patrol.” I said no, since we were about to go to bed, and she instantly started bawling. Not just a whiny cry, but a deeply sad, gasping-for-breath kind of cry. Sort of shocked, I hugged her and asked her what was wrong. She said through tears, “I wanted to watch ‘Paw Patrol.’”
I immediately assumed that something else must be wrong for her to be this upset, but then I remembered that she was 4 and was really just sad to not be able to watch “Paw Patrol” right then. And she didn’t hesitate to show it, either.
2. Revel in the small joys
Sometimes you meet those kids who are just balls of sunshine and pure, excited joy. I once babysat a 5-year-old who was just like this; from the moment I arrived, she ran up and gave me a big hug and talked nonstop about, well, anything really, the whole time I was there.
Once, on our way to the park in our neighborhood, we walked by her soccer coach, whom the kid instantly recognized and started telling about her day. When the coach was finally able to get the kid to stop talking so she could continue on her walk, we parted ways and started walking in opposite directions. Seconds later, the kid gasped loudly and said, “I forgot to tell her something!” Then she turned around and screamed to her coach, “WE SAW A PIGEON!!!” We had, in fact, seen a pigeon earlier on our walk, eating birdseed someone had left for it in their driveway. The coach turned around and yelled, “THAT’S AWESOME!” and then kept walking.
While that kid did have a LOT of energy, she taught me how important it is to really enjoy all the little things in life, and that something as normal as seeing a pigeon on a walk, as well as the act of sharing about it, can brighten up your whole day.
3. Actions speak louder than words
I’ve learned a lot through my close friendship with my 5-year-old cousin, this lesson being the most important one. One night, we were out getting ice cream after dinner on a family vacation. Being nighttime and near the beach, it was quite chilly. We were sitting outside eating our ice cream (genius idea, I know!) and I noticed my cousin’s teeth chattering almost comically loudly while she continued to scoop ice cream into her mouth.
She had a jacket on, but her entire body was shaking with cold. I asked her if she was cold and she nodded her head yes (she wasn’t in a talking mood at that moment). So I took off the big sherpa jacket I had on, put it around her, and zipped it all the way up. Then, without speaking, she touched my arm, to feel if I was cold, and looked at me as if to say, “Are you sure you won’t be cold?”
I almost started crying on the spot. It sounds so simple, but just through that tender action she communicated so much to me.
4. It’s OK to improvise
I babysat an 8-year-old boy recently and we spent a couple of hours making different kinds of slime from this science kit he had. At first we were focused on trying to follow the instructions perfectly, using the exact right tools and tediously double-checking to make sure we were pouring the exact right amount of each ingredient. We were definitely putting more effort into this than my junior year lab table put into our AP Biology labs. It was all going great — until we couldn’t get the cap off of the food coloring included in the kit.
I was disappointed because up until then we had been doing so great! But then the kid was like, “I think we have some food coloring in the cabinet,” so we used that instead, and guess what? It was fine! We didn’t even have the right color either, but everything was still OK!
After that we decided to just skip around to the experiments that looked fun instead of trying to go through each one in order and do them all perfectly.
5. Ask for what you need
Recently I babysat two brothers, a 2-year-old and an 8-year-old. They were super close and obviously loved each other, but it was clear that the older brother was very easily annoyed by the younger one.
After a long day of being an 8-year-old, the older brother was just trying to lay on the couch and watch Minecraft videos on YouTube, but the younger one wouldn’t leave him alone. He wasn’t doing anything intentionally annoying, just getting under his brother’s blanket and cuddling up next to him, trying to get him to play with his toy cat. The older brother had had enough, but instead of getting angry, he just calmly said, “This is my blanket, can you please sit over there?”
With some encouragement from me, the younger brother listened and gave his brother his space. I really respected the kid for recognizing that he needed space and communicating that to his brother in a calm, respectful way.
6. Be your own person, boldly
This is one of my favorite babysitting stories ever. It happened at the park with my pigeon-loving friend from earlier. We were sitting on a blanket on the grass at the park eating salami and crackers. Out of nowhere, she says, “I wonder if I could eat this on top of the monkey bars.” I chimed in that geez, maybe eating a somewhat greasy snack on top of the monkey bars at 5 years old wasn’t the best idea ever.
This kid turned to me, looked me dead in the eyes, and said one of my new favorite phrases of all time: “You know what? Watch me.” And then she did it. She walked over to the monkey bars, salami and cracker in hand, climbed to the top and sat up there until she was done eating it. Mildly stunned, I realized she was on a mission and could not be told no. (For the record, I did stand under the monkey bars and was prepared to catch her if she fell.)
As a babysitter, watching a kid who can’t be told no isn’t always fun. But in that moment, as a person, I was genuinely very inspired by that little girl who refused to listen to anyone but herself. When I think about it, I get excited that she’s a person who exists in this world and hope that the rebellious spark in her never dies down. Whenever I lack confidence, I think about that kid and how unapologetically confident she was that she could do absolutely anything in the whole world.
