Professional Babysitters Have Great Strategies for Dealing With Discipline
Discipline can be a touchy issue for nannies and babysitters in Los Angeles. It’s tough to know the parameters with new clients, and even with your more established clients you don’t want to overstep your boundaries. Without good discipline, though, your young charges can make your babysitting engagements miserable. Furthermore, your reputation with regard to discipline can either assure exceptional references or interfere with your future babysitting for other families. Following are some helpful tips for babysitters in Los Angeles to use in heading off trouble.
One of the most important ways to maintain good discipline is to express confidence. This is done in your mannerisms, your speech, and your own behavior. If you are undisciplined and disorganized, you will send a strong signal to the children you work with. When a babysitter is insecure and uncertain, it is easy for the children to realize that they are in control. Avoid uncertainty by maintaining a portfolio with important information about your clients and their children, and review it before your arrival. Arrive with confidence and take charge quickly. You shouldn’t be overbearing, but you should have a plan for the activities that will occur when you arrive. The more organized and disciplined babysitters in Los Angeles are when they arrive on the job, the less opportunity there will be for disciplinary problems.
Be an active babysitter. Don’t leave the children to their own devices. Not every activity needs to be micromanaged, but keep track of how the children are using their time. Promote some specific activities, and allow for choices. Develop a diplomatic approach for dealing with sibling disputes, whether you use negotiation, random acts like a roll of the dice, or changing activities. If you aren’t engaged with the children, you can expect behavior problems. If your presence brings interesting activities and games, there will be interest rather than disinterest. Don’t give the kids time to misbehave. When a babysitter turns on the television and talks on the phone, the kids know that anything goes. Professional babysitters in Los Angeles treat each appointment as a priority job.
Use the children’s names frequently as you talk to them. Make friendly observations and engage in conversation. Allow them to know that you are paying attention. Don’t restrict your interaction to negative circumstances. Use a combination of positive and negative reinforcement. Make sure that you praise good behavior, but don’t allow your praise to be empty. Make sure that the actions you praise are worthy of mention. Use gradual steps in negative reinforcement. Develop a series of steps, and save serious measures for continued problems. Physical rewards are acceptable, but don’t depend on these too much, as you don’t want a relationship based on bribes. Babysitters in Los Angeles are skilled at combining reinforcement strategies to maintain discipline and control.
Develop a routine that includes planning for your assignments. Use a variety of measures to allow children to know that you are in charge. Reinforce both positive and negative behaviors appropriately without going overboard in either direction. Professional babysitters in Los Angeles are well equipped to handle and head off discipline problems during their work.
Nannies in LA is a leading nanny and babysitter placement agency in Los Angeles. Speak to one of our childcare consultants today to find your perfect candidate from our babysitters in Los Angeles.
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