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You can not "assume" that babysitters, even relatives, know the rules of your home. Especially, when there are strangers to you (various friends of your GF's sister) coming into your home.
He didn't mean he expected the babysitter and her friends to assume it.
He meant he expected us to assume he set those rules and expectations of the people are around his child.
I'd probably set some rules about food (so no more cookies for dinner) but I wouldn't worry about bedtimes at this age as long as he's getting enough sleep. Once he gets closer to school age (or if he starts pre-school/daycare) you'd need to change that of course but until then go with what works best for you all.
He didn't mean he expected the babysitter and her friends to assume it.
He meant he expected us to assume he set those rules and expectations of the people are around his child.
I guess that I was confused when he specifically said in his first post that he had only two rules, no loud talking after 8 PM and no swearing in front of the child.
I think cookies for dinner is ok as an infrequent treat, not as a daily or weekly thing. You are setting your kid up for big issues there.
Do you pay the sister to babysit? Whether you do or not, the open door policy with her friends is not a good idea. You don't know these people. They could bring any number of problems into your home from alcohol and drugs, to just plain being a distraction to the sister while she's supposed to be watching him. The teens are likely using your home as a parent-free hang out place. Do their parents even know where they are? Do you want to assume the liability if something happens to one of them in your home?
If you pay her, she's working, and she shouldn't need to be socializing at the same time. If she's doing it as a favor, then you are lucky to have her, and it gets more difficult to control what she does. It is still your house, though, and your rules.
as far as midnight. He wouldn't go to bed until we came home
That tells us who is in charge in your home, and it is not, you the parents or even the babysitter but the three year old child.
This may not appear to be a problem since he is only three, but often it is hard to change those habits and expectations in a child when they get older.
Of course, if your child making the demands to stay up was a once a year situation, or even once every few weeks or months it probably would not be a problem but connected with your comments about your three year old "demanding" to see his mother late at night at work and you agreeing with your three year old and taking him to see mom. (who is the responsible adult? you or the three year old?)
Hmmm. Perhaps your parents have legitimate reasons why they are concerned about your child rearing skills.
Maybe, it is not as bad as you make it sound, however, most people who discuss this type of thing minimize how much control the child really has and the situation is usually much worse than it is portrayed.
Does your son do to a day care or preschool? Who cares for him during the day time hours? Does he have rules and expectations at that time?
Last edited by germaine2626; 08-11-2014 at 01:55 PM..
That tells us who is in charge in your home, and it is not, you the parents or even the babysitter but the three year old child.
This may not appear to be a problem since he is only three, but often it is hard to change those habits and expectations in a child when they get older.
Of course, if your child making the demands to stay up was a once a year situation, or even once every few weeks or months it probably would not be a problem but connected with your comments about your three year old "demanding" to see his mother late at night at work and you agreeing with your three year old and taking him to see mom. (who is the responsible adult? you or the three year old?)
Hmmm. Perhaps your parents have legitimate reasons why they are concerned about your child rearing skills.
Maybe, it is not as bad as you make it sound, however, most people who discuss this type of thing minimize how much control the child really has and the situation is usually much worse than it is portrayed.
Does your son do to a day care or preschool? Who cares for him during the day time hours? Does he have rules and expectations at that time?
I'm 24, I've been with my girlfriend for 8 years, and we have a son who's 3. Obviously it's an odd family dynamic of having a kid young and not getting married even after we have the kid. Being younger we have some different set ups. My girlfriend's sister is 17 and she's the primary babysitter because a lot of nights we both work late. We allow her to pretty much do whatever with him( give him cookies for dinner, stay up late, etc). For my sister-in-law, we have an open door policy in our apt. when it comes to her friends. We only have 2 rules, if it's after 8, keep your voice down, and no swearing or dirty talk in front of him( never been a problem). We've had date nights where we come home at midnight and she has 5 friends over and he's sitting in the lap of one of her friends, happy as a clam. One practice that concerns my parents are the nights when my girlfriend works late, he gets very concerned about her and one night I took him to go see Mommy at work. We've done that a few times since. We're not big into timeouts or spankings. Whenever he acts up, we just sit down with him and talk, usually we get to the heart of why he was acting up.
I think that a 3 year old needs some sort of routine with respect to eating and sleeping. It doesn't have to be a rigid routine, but I think his long term needs would be better met by having set times for eating and sleeping. If something special is going on it is no big deal to give him a treat of staying up late but I think it would be better for him to have some sort of routine most of the time.
I think that since your primary babysitter is so young you need to enforce rules on her. I would not have a problem with a group of teens watching my 3 year old if I knew ALL of the teens really well. An open door policy means that it is virtually guaranteed that you will not know all of the teens in your home really well. I do not think this is in the best interests of your son. I would keep the number of teens allowed to be with her when she babysits to only the kids you know really well, and trust.
I think that your son needs to learn that you and your wife (and the babysitter) are the ones who determine when he goes to sleep, when he eats, what he watches on tv, etc. Allowing him to set his own bed time, demand to see his mother at work and do whatever he wants is going to be a big problem in the near future.
You need to learn how to instill discipline without spankings. It can be done successfully.
Aside from the obvious concerns about eating habits and schedules for your son, I would give a huge word of caution about that open door policy for you teenage babysitter's friends. That can get out of control very quickly. There is also a big liability issue for you. If one of those teens brings alcohol over to your home (remember, you have given your permission for them to be there) and then gets in an accident on the way home, you may wake up the next morning to a knock on the door from a police officer. If someone gets injured while in your home (again, you have given them the right to be there), you can be held liable.
If these are all minors, that makes it even more worrisome. What will happen when someone brings their new girlfriend over to "watch a movie" and this girlfriends parents freak out and call the police because they don't want her seeing the boy who brought her to your home? Now, let's find out that she is only 14 or so and he is 19. Do you see the issue?
I think cookies for dinner is ok as an infrequent treat, not as a daily or weekly thing. You are setting your kid up for big issues there.
Do you pay the sister to babysit? Whether you do or not, the open door policy with her friends is not a good idea. You don't know these people. They could bring any number of problems into your home from alcohol and drugs, to just plain being a distraction to the sister while she's supposed to be watching him. The teens are likely using your home as a parent-free hang out place. Do their parents even know where they are? Do you want to assume the liability if something happens to one of them in your home?
If you pay her, she's working, and she shouldn't need to be socializing at the same time. If she's doing it as a favor, then you are lucky to have her, and it gets more difficult to control what she does. It is still your house, though, and your rules.
I see where you're coming from. I do know these kids though, they're at the house enough. I know them, their siblings, their parents. My son knows who they are as well. I honestly can't tell you if the parents know, I'm sure they're told " Hey " I'm gonna go hang out, be back later." No, she is not paid
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