Cranberry Township YMCA teaches teens how to babysit
CRANBERRY TWP — Many teenagers work their first job before they realize it and don’t see a dime, especially if they are an older sibling.
Four teenagers learned how to do better at their first job during a class Monday, Sept. 8, at the Rose E. Schneider Family YMCA. They also got tips on how to promote themselves as independent business people.
That’s essentially what a teenage babysitter is, at least according to the coordinators of the babysitting course at the Cranberry Township YMCA, who encouraged the aspiring babysitters to emphasize their abilities when picking up gigs.
Barb Yacobucci, aquatics director at the Rose E. Schneider Family YMCA who coordinates the classes, said they cover everything from changing diapers to creating a mini-resume. There are two versions of the class — one includes a CPR lesson and the other doesn’t — but everyone who completes it gets a certificate they can use to further promote themselves as babysitters.
“It talks about safety, whether that’s emergencies like an intruder, fire, water; also how to prepare snacks and meals, how to make snack time fun,” Yacobucci said. “It goes over infant care, so diapering, bottle feeding; it also goes through providing positive behavior reinforcement.”
The class Sept. 8 was the CPR-teaching variant and Yacobucci said the four girls in the class, who ranged in age from 11 to 13, were the target audience for the course. The babysitting course is created by the American Red Cross, so a presentation, videos, forms and baby mannequins are all provided to each class.
While the plastic infants had air bags inside them for CPR practice, they were also used for demonstration by the class leader, Karen Guise, on how to hold, feed and burp a baby.
“It’s how to hold them, how to feed a baby, do the basics and make them comfortable,” said Guise, association aquatics and training director at Butler County Family YMCA. “We try to prepare them as best we can for when there is not an adult in the room.”
The mannequin babies sparked a laugh and a little recoiling in the four girls in the room, but they adapted quickly, cradling them in their arms and putting them over their shoulders to burp them.
It wasn’t the first “baby” the girls held; Megan Quinn, 11, a student at Mars Area Middle School, said she babysits her younger cousins, which is what led her to taking the YMCA class.
“I wanted to take this class to learn how to do it myself,” Megan said of watching her little cousins. “One is 2, one is 4 and one is 6.”
As Yacobucci surmised, several youths who take the babysitting course do so because they have younger siblings and their parents want them to be prepared to watch them when they are gone. She said the class is available to children who are between the ages of 11 and 16.
The class usually takes place in a conference room at the Rose E. Schneider Family YMCA, where the TV is used for videos and the desks can be used as changing tables for the “babies,” and rearranged for larger groups.
Like Megan, Mars Area Middle School student Elizabeth DeMarco, 12, took the class to be better equipped to handle situations while watching her 8- and 5-year-old cousins. Elizabeth said the scenarios shown in the videos, like fights between siblings, talk-back at dinner and emergency situations, have not arisen in her babysitting experience, but she wants to be prepared for if they do.
“I really like babysitting and I want to do it more,” Elizabeth said. “I mostly play with them and try to entertain them.”
In addition to videos, which are produced by the Red Cross for showing at the babysitting courses, the girls in the class filled out responses to written scenarios, as a way to further develop their critical thinking skills.
Guise said the scenarios presented in the videos and in the Red Cross paper materials are pretty heightened and not exactly likely in real life, but they are used to get teens thinking. The videos can also get teens laughing, which means they are paying attention, Guise said.
“As long as it’s fun and they get a little education,” Guise said of the class.
Kaye McCafferty, 13, took the class in August and found it to be “very educational” for dealing with children as a child.
“I grew up around a lot of kids, yet the information I was taught was very helpful,” Kaye said. “As a 13-year-old, it is very helpful to have these classes, especially if you don’t have experience or young children in your family.”
Megan, too, said as she was filling out her responses to the prompts that she just wanted the class to help her get more comfortable in situations with young children.
“I’m not really scared,” Megan said.
Yacobucci said that when the Cranberry Township YMCA started offering the babysitting class, it hosted them in the beginning and end of summer and in the winter, because those periods are when children may need babysitters more often. After continued popularity of the class however, the YMCA plans to offer the class about once a month, she said.
The popularity has remained consistent, even for a class that is more than four hours long. There is a test to complete the course, but Guise said it is mostly a review of the lessons class attendees learned throughout a session.
Guise said the babysitting certification teens get from taking the course is good for several years, but the CPR certification is good for only two years. Some teens take the class a second time, but Guise said once is usually enough to get a child comfortable with babysitting people even younger than them.
“Parents talk about how much more comfortable they are with kids,” Guise said.
For more information on the YMCA’s babysitting class, visit its website at bcfymca.org/events.
