When teenagers start looking for a part-time job to earn some money for entertainment, they often become babysitters. They are grown-up enough to handle an unproblematic child and the parents don’t have to pay as much as they would for a professional, so this deal is a win-win situation.
However, if you have kids with special needs or who would need medical assistance for a deadly allergy, you wouldn’t want to leave them to an inexperienced teenager. Also, you wouldn’t want to tell them about the issues your children have at the time you are dropping them by. But it happens, and this teenager refused to babysit such children and was blamed for ruining the mom’s night.
More info: Reddit
Although babysitting is a common job for teenagers it still requires a lot of responsibility and this teen wasn't prepared to take it on
Image credits: PNW Production (not the actual image)
As the Original Poster (OP) is 16 years old, her earning opportunities are pretty limited, so she works as a babysitter on weekends. During summer, the teen babysat every day for a woman named Diana until she came back from work.
Diana wanted to give the teenager’s contacts to her friend Jennifer, who has a 6-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter and was looking for someone to take care of them while she went out with her husband on his birthday.
The teen was available and got in touch with Jennifer, who asked a lot of questions about what the OP was used to, but she just assumed the mom was overprotective.
Turns out, she had reason to be like that, because when the teen went to her home, she found out that the son is deathly allergic to peanuts and the daughter is on the autistic spectrum. It came out of nowhere and before the OP had time to comprehend what had just been said, the mom handed her an epipen and was on her way.
The author of the story is a 16-year-old who who has quite a bit of experience babysitting children
Image credits: u/aitababysittingpost
It didn’t take long for the babysitter to excuse herself because she was not prepared for kids who needed more attention and consideration than usual. And even though epipens are pretty user-friendly, it could be scary to use it for the first time and to use it on a stranger’s child.
People in the comments were horrified that the mom would only tell the babysitter about it when she arrived, because what if the teen had just eaten peanuts or brought them as a snack? Peanut allergies are no joke and can cause a reaction even if you don’t have direct contact with them.
They suspected that the parents already had been denied a babysitter a few times before and this time, to make sure someone agreed, they didn’t tell the truth about the children until she agreed and came to their house.
The mom she used to work with asked if she could give the teen's contacts to her friend who needed someone to look after her kids
Image credits: u/aitababysittingpost
Surprisingly, the teen reacted very calmly. She actually would have accepted the job offer, because she has experience with kids with special needs and she had no problem finding out how to use an epipen. What bothered the OP was that the mom hid this information from her, so she didn’t know what more the parents could have concealed.
Jennifer was pretty upset because she couldn’t go out with her husband anymore and complained about it to Diane. Thankfully, Diane believed the OP when she explained how the information was dumped on her and promised to talk to Jennifer about it.
The babysitter agreed and talked with a new client that she found a bit strange because of the questions she asked
Image credits: Vu Nguyen (not the actual image)
Image credits: u/aitababysittingpost
People who have autistic children may struggle finding a babysitter because they might want to find one who specializes in it or who has experience. Also, babysitters might refuse to take on a job once they find out the child is autistic because they wouldn’t know how to take care of them as it needs a deep understanding of that specific child.
So you can see why the parents hid the information until they were sure the teen came, but this kind of information is too important to not tell. Various resources online like Kid Sit will suggest the babysitter take some time to learn about autism and get to know the child before they are left with a stranger.
The babysitter has to know that they need to avoid bodily contact and respect the child’s personal space. If there is an issue, the babysitter has to go slow and understand that children with autism usually don’t communicate using words.
Turns out, the questions were so peculiar because one of her kids was on the autism spectrum and the other was deathly allergic to peanuts
Image credits: u/aitababysittingpost
Spending time with the child before being left alone with them is a very important step because autism is a spectrum and everyone has varying abilities, communication skills, triggers and boundaries.
Also, dealing with children’s meltdowns is already difficult, but when they have autism, it can become even more challenging because it may not make sense to you why they are upset.
Kid Sit provides a few tips that could help when dealing with such a situation. Firstly, maybe there is a specific trigger that you can remove. You can even prevent a meltdown by distracting the child, making them feel safe and most importantly, the babysitter must remain calm to avoid escalating the situation.
Special Learning House stresses how important it is to find everything out about the child from the parents because the autistic child might not be able to explain their routine to you and breaking routine may be triggering to them.
The mom told the babysitter about it only after she arrived at their house before the parents left for their celebration, so the 16 Y.O. refused the job
Image credits: u/aitababysittingpost
Image credits: Yan Krukau (not the actual image)
Maybe Jennifer’s daughter was lower on the spectrum of autism and her babysitter wouldn’t need so much preparation, and it could be that the son was careful enough on his own to avoid peanuts, but as the OP pointed out, if the parents hid such important information, something else unexpected might have come up on the job, so she left.
Do you think that the parents were irresponsible? Do you think the babysitter should have asked more questions herself before accepting the job offer? Let us know what you think about this situation in the comments.
The parents were upset that their night was ruined, but the readers believed the mom should have told such important information in advance
