Sitting and Watching is the Not So Secret Sauce
As a boy of six-years-old, I objected to the term "babysitter." For one thing, I wasn't a baby, and for another, the word conjured the image of babies being sat upon.
By the time I was 10, old enough to be entrusted with the care of children back in the early 70's, it made more sense. After all, most little kids were "babies," with all their whining and fussing, although no one did much sitting on my watch. My counter to whining and fussing was to actively play with my charges. After all, I was, by virtue of being a big kid, a figure of some glamour, someone to be looked up to, and having recently been a little kid myself, I knew it. I would spend the first few hours performing the role of games master, romping right along with them, winding them up, tiring them out, then packing them off to bed, making a big deal of allowing them to stay up past their bed times if only they would agree to not tell on me.
By the time our daughter Josephine was old enough to babysit (which in the 00's was 12), I'd evolved once more. I now placed the emphasis on the "sitting." As a teacher, I'd figured out that a big part of the adult role with young children is sitting (or standing or kneeling or squatting) and watching (another word for babysitting, as in "watching the kids"). I told Josephine that she could entertain the kids if she wanted, but that babysitting was a job with the description in its title.
The longer I've worked with children, the more time I spend sitting and watching. Of course, there's more to it than that, CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Sitting and Watching is the Not So Secret Sauce
