Parents: Your six year old accidently submerges the babysitter's cell phone.

In My Humble Opinion
101

[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
In my home, anything laying around is fair game for a kid to pick up and look at with only a few exceptions. Someone’s purse for instance. But if someone brings something into the house and sets it down, its ok to pick it up. Then if its dropped in the tub, its an accident.
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First off, if you or your spawn accidentally causes damage to something it’s your responsibility to provide restitution. Second, you have no right to touch other people’s property just because it’s in your house, and neither do your kids.

102

[QUOTE=NinetyWt]
Yes, the sitter is my daughter. The child is my daughter’s young cousin (the mom is her first cousin).

Me either!

My daughter came back from babysitting complaining about the phone. We took it all apart and let it dry out, but it was toast. She asked my advice about whether or not to ask her cousin to pay for it. I said, well, every time my young kid damaged someone’s property, I offered to replace the item/repair the damages. My daughter said, well, I don’t want to seem rude - and it was an accident, after all - so that is when I suggested that they go halfs on it. The replacement is only $50, so that would be $25 for the mom. I thought that was reasonable.

Well, after my daughter approached her cousin about it, her cousin got very offended, told my daughter she was ungrateful and rude (she yelled at her on the phone for about 5 minutes :eek: ). I was surprised at this reaction, and began to doubt my own advice. So that is why I posted the OP.

For what it’s worth, my philosophy has also been that the child should contribute what they can to the mitigation. For example: my son one time tore up a neighbor’s lattice work around their deck, while chasing a cat. He was about 6 too, come to think of it. I bought a piece of lattice and he and I went over to the neighbors, hammer and saw in hand. I sawed the pieces to fit and required my son to hammer them into place. It only took a few lessons like that before he became more careful with other people’s property.
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Unless the cousin is paying $15/hr or something like that, that would be the last sitting job she’d get from my daughter.

103
  1. The babysitter should have notified the parents *that night * about the accident. That would have given then an opportunity to speak to their son while he remembered what happened * so that they could determine what to do. I can envision several different scenarios which would lead me to offer vary degrees of reimbursement.

No matter what, telling them what happened the night it happened would have given the parents the opportunity to do what’s right without putting them on the defensive. I know that I would be disarmed if my sitter called to ask for reimbursement of her phone for an accident that happened days or weeks prior.

  1. I can see both sides. On the one hand, a 6 year old is old enough to not mess with other people’s stuff. On the other hand, a 17 year old is old enough to realize that electronics and large bodies of water (esp with children added in) don’t mix well. It turned out to be only a $25-50 replacement. Some of these phones are several hundred dollars to replace. I’m not sure if I’d feel too keenly about replacing a $300 phone.

  2. My teenager isn’t allowed to bring her portable DVD player or our $800 Nikon camera on babysitting jobs because: a) she should be watching the children; and b) young kids with high energy can’t be trusted around expensive electronics. If she brought such items with her, and they were damaged, I’d tell her tough luck. Taking care of your stuff includes staying away from water AND keeping it up from young kids.

Bottom line: If I were the mother of the babysitter, I’d tell her that if the parents didn’t offer reimbursement, then she’d have to pay for it out of her own pocket. If she’s old enough to carry a cell phone around, she’s old enough to learn how to take care of it. If I were the mother of the child, I’d offer to pay for half or all, depending on the circumstances and the cost of the phone.

*Being the mother of a 15 year daughter who babysits, I’d be willing to bet that the teenager was text messaging. If that was the case, or if she were gabbing to her friends at the time, then she should bear the entire responsibility for replacing the phone because she was getting paid to watch the children, not talk to her friends.

104

I suggest offering the babysitter a choice - either you replace her cellphone or you let her watch while you thrash the child soundly with a cane.

It’s win-win!

105

Am I the only one who was imagining a cell phone clipped to a belt or pants loop, and was utterly amazed when someone thought it was just left by the tub?

Is there any such thing in the first place?

Clearing up my confusion would be greatly appreciated. :slight_smile:

106

[QUOTE=PunditLisa]
*Being the mother of a 15 year daughter who babysits, I’d be willing to bet that the teenager was text messaging. If that was the case, or if she were gabbing to her friends at the time, then she should bear the entire responsibility for replacing the phone because she was getting paid to watch the children, not talk to her friends.
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A few people in this thread have made similar observations, and i must say that i’m rather bemused by them.

Admittedly, i don’t have children, and may be out of the loop on these issues, but if my vague childhood memories serve me right, and if the attitudes of my friends who have children are any indication, a babysitter is not generally required to focus every instant of his or her attention solely on the child, to the exclusion of all other activities. The notion that a babysitter can’t do her job and chat on the phone at the same time seems, to me at least, quite bizarre.

I’ve babysat for a few of my friends with kids over the years (as a favor, not for pay). The kids in question have ranged from a few months to 12 years old. In most cases my main role was merely to be present in order to make sure that nothing went wrong, and that the kid didn’t get into mischief. I would generally take a book to read, as the kids were often perfectly happy to amuse themselves without my interference. Sometimes i played games with them, but more often they would play happily with their toys or watch a TV show. I’ve certainly never been expected to bathe a kid, not during a simple one-evening babysitting event.

If i were looking after a kid, and he was happily watching a DVD or playing with his toys on the floor, i’d see nothing wrong with chatting on the phone while i was watching over him, and i fail to see how doing so would constitute a breach of my duty. It seems to me that this notion that the babysitter shouldn’t be on the phone at all stems not from any real necessity inherent in the job of babysitting, but from a punitive sense of “getting one’s money’s worth.” The idea seems to be “I’m paying the babysitter, so she shouldn’t do anything except watch my kid 100 percent of the time.” It’s pretty draconian and petty, i think.

107

Urg. I was hoping this thread would die a natural death :slight_smile:

To clear up your confusion Leaper, my daughter (the babysitter) made the unwise decision to lay her cell phone next to the tub.

The cousin in the tub made the unwise decision to pick it up and drown it .

I call the blame 50/50.

Mhendo, agreed, and especially agreed because my daughter has grown up around these kids; she knows all their individual voices and all their individual quirks (as they do hers). IMHO its a case of bad judgement (unwise choices) on each party.

Long story short: the mom agreed to go in half-ies and the new phone is on its way.

Can it be tiem for threadie dying now? Kthx :stuck_out_tongue:

108

Parents replace. It’s the right thing to do.

109

[QUOTE=mhendo]
A few people in this thread have made similar observations (that a babysitter shouldn’t talk on the phone), and i must say that i’m rather bemused by them.
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Let me put it in perspective. If your son were hired to be a cashier at Wendy’s, would he talk on his cell phone while ringing people up? My daughter is being entrusted with someone’s* children* and the cell phone should remain off.

110

[QUOTE=PunditLisa]
Let me put it in perspective. If your son were hired to be a cashier at Wendy’s, would he talk on his cell phone while ringing people up? My daughter is being entrusted with someone’s* children* and the cell phone should remain off.
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Well, if you believe those two scenarios are directly comparable, i suppose there’s little i can do to convince you otherwise. But it doesn’t reflect well on your sense of perspective.

111

[QUOTE=NinetyWt]
I have gotten opinions on both side of this question. I’m going to refrain from my point of view, 'cause I might be wrong.

Scenario: 17 year old female babysitter is bathing 6 yr old female relative. The kid picks up the babysitter’s cell phone and accidently douses it, killing the phone.

Is it proper form for the parents to offer to replace the phone? Or perhaps go in halfs with the babysitter? I can see that the teen should not have had the phone in arm’s reach of the child. OTOH, when I had little kids and they damaged something I made offer to replace the damaged item. What do you think?
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Both of my children were fully capable of bathing themselves by the time they were 6, so in my case, I would be more concerned with why the babysitter was bathing my child. If the child in question were one young enough to require assistance bathing (I don’t know, under the age of 4?), I would not offer to replace or in any way assist with the replacement of the phone, since the babysitter should never have had any electronic devices near my child’s bathwater. Period.

112

One would think that a babysitter would monitor the bathing child, given that drowning while being baby-sat is a sort of thing that is frowned upon.

As far as restitution goes, what is the going rate for leasing a six year old?

113

[QUOTE=mhendo]
Well, if you believe those two scenarios are directly comparable, i suppose there’s little i can do to convince you otherwise. But it doesn’t reflect well on your sense of perspective.
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Explain to me how they aren’t comparable.

I pay more per hour for my sitters than Wendy’s. When the Wendy’s clerk isn’t ringing through a customer there are tasks they are expected to do - stock the drink cups, mop up…when my sitter isn’t directly playing with my children, there are tasks I expect her to do - pick up the toys, get dinner ready for the kids, clean up after dinner, pick up (if needed). None of these are compatable with text messaging or talking on her phone. If she feels the need to supervise a six year old in the tub - mine are read to in the tub - the book is right there on the vanity.

I babysat a lot of kids when I was in highschool - done right its a hard job without time to talk on the phone until the kids are in bed. (And when I was in highschool, you didn’t talk on the phone when the kids were in bed because you only had a landline - and few people had call waiting - and God forbid you tied up the line when the parents were trying to call home).

If anything, my sense of perspective is that my kids are more important than someone’s burger and I pay you more than you’d make at Wendy’s. So why should you be able to talk on the phone when you sit (while my kids are awake - after bedtime when the dishes are done and the house is picked up - talk away) if you can’t do so at a fast food job.

114

[QUOTE=PunditLisa]
Let me put it in perspective. If your son were hired to be a cashier at Wendy’s, would he talk on his cell phone while ringing people up? My daughter is being entrusted with someone’s* children* and the cell phone should remain off.
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Does that mean your own phone (cell or otherwise) remains off whenever you’re home with your own children?

115

[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
I pay more per hour for my sitters than Wendy’s. When the Wendy’s clerk isn’t ringing through a customer there are tasks they are expected to do - stock the drink cups, mop up…when my sitter isn’t directly playing with my children, there are tasks I expect her to do - pick up the toys, get dinner ready for the kids, clean up after dinner, pick up (if needed). None of these are compatable with text messaging or talking on her phone. If she feels the need to supervise a six year old in the tub - mine are read to in the tub - the book is right there on the vanity.
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If jobs like getting the dinner ready, picking up toys, etc. are not getting done, then you have a point. But if those jobs have been done, and the kid is happily playing with a toy or whatever, why do you give a fuck if the babysitter talks on the phone. It seems to me that only a control freak would be obsessed with enforcing some sort of “no cellphone” rule. And i say that as someone who doesn’t like cellphones very much.
[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
I babysat a lot of kids when I was in highschool - done right its a hard job without time to talk on the phone until the kids are in bed. (And when I was in highschool, you didn’t talk on the phone when the kids were in bed because you only had a landline - and few people had call waiting - and God forbid you tied up the line when the parents were trying to call home).
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Well, considering that a cellphone is precisely not a landline, and so will not prevent the parents from calling home, i’d like to thank you for helping make my point.
[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
If anything, my sense of perspective is that my kids are more important than someone’s burger and I pay you more than you’d make at Wendy’s.
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Well, as we’ve learned from this thread, your kids are so important that you refuse to teach them the need for responsibility and manners when handling other people’s property in your house. That tells me a lot about exactly what your sense of perspective entails.
[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
So why should you be able to talk on the phone when you sit (while my kids are awake - after bedtime when the dishes are done and the house is picked up - talk away) if you can’t do so at a fast food job.
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And i would ask: if all the jobs are getting done, why is it a big deal? Also, whether or not the babysitter is talking on the phone is not even the issue here. As far as i can tell, the babysitter in the OP was not even talking on the phone; it was just nearby. Do you also prohibit your babysitter from carrying her phone with her, in case her parents call?

116

No, I refuse to make my kids take responsibility for someone else’s irresponsibility.

In my bathroom, you could not reach a cell phone from the tub unless it was on the tub surround. As an adult, I can not reach the vanity from my tub. I know my seven year old can’t.

In my house, if a cell phone or other object is left lying around, it is not against the rules to pick it up. With two kids a year apart in age, shared property is the default. Things that are “special” need to be identified as such. (The constant chorus of “MINE” is overwhelming without this rule - its bad enough with it). We don’t have enough strangers coming into the house to bother to have any guest stuff rules other than “you don’t dig through purses.”

In my house, my tech saavy kids would not have recognized many cell phones as cell phones. Dad carries a Pocket PC, Mom carries a Blackberry. My kids wouldn’t recognize the pink or blue clamshells that are the default cheap phones for teens as phones (now that they are almost eight and nine they probably would - six, with the case closed, I doubt it). They also have no clue that dropping electronics into water is bad.

In my house, six year olds did not get allowances, therefore making the child pay for the cell phone would be a meaningless punishment anyway. (My kids started getting allowances at about seven - we tried a few times before that, but money was meaningless to them until about the middle of first grade - and my kids both started first grade around seven).

So, would I pay for the phone? - if my kid grabbed the phone off a belt holster or grabbed it from inside a purse, yeah, I’d pay for the phone (it didn’t occur to me that the words “picked up” in the OP meant “took from purse or removed from belt”) - they wouldn’t have, they didn’t have money. But I didn’t get the impression that happened here. I got the impression that the phone was lying close enough to the bathtub to be picked up by the child while they were sitting inside the bathtub and was then accidentally dropped - and in my house that means it was on the bathtub ledge. Leave your phone on the bathtub ledge while there is a child in the bathtub, well, that was stupid. Have your phone sitting on the bathtub ledge while my kid is in the bathtub and I’m paying you to watch them, and I’m wondering what your phone happens to be doing out while my kids are awake and I’m paying you to babysit.

As I said in my first post, I’d probably pay half anyway. But I wouldn’t feel like my kids bore much responsibility if it played out the way I’m seeing it.

117

[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
My kids wouldn’t recognize the pink or blue clamshells that are the default cheap phones for teens as phones (now that they are almost eight and nine they probably would - six, with the case closed, I doubt it). They also have no clue that dropping electronics into water is bad.
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Doesn’t matter. What they should have a clue about is that handling other people’s stuff without permission is wrong. The parents should pay.

118

[QUOTE=Dangerosa]

In my house, if a cell phone or other object is left lying around, it is not against the rules to pick it up. With two kids a year apart in age, shared property is the default. Things that are “special” need to be identified as such. (The constant chorus of “MINE” is overwhelming without this rule - its bad enough with it). We don’t have enough strangers coming into the house to bother to have any guest stuff rules other than “you don’t dig through purses.”

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Which, again, is a bunch of crap. You need to teach your kids that it’s not ok to touch other people’s stuff without permission. You are doing a disservice to them and the rest of us by taking the easy way out. Kids at some point need to learn to both share and respect other people’s property.

119

[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
In my bathroom
<snip>
In my house
<snip>
In my house
<snip>
In my house
<snip>

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So what you’re actually saying is that you cannot conceive of any situation in which things might occur in a way they *wouldn’t * occur in your house? Okey dokey then. Not everyone’s bathroom is configured the same way, not everyone neglects to teach their children respect for others’ property, and not everyone expects their babysitter to glue themselves to a six-year-old’s side until that kid goes to bed, then do the dishes, clean the house, and sit quietly with her hands folded until she’s discharged of her sacred duty.

Just out of curiosity… if a lighter or a bottle of Vicodin falls out of your guest’s purse, and your kid proceeds to set the house on fire or overdose, is that your guest’s fault for losing track of her stuff, your kid’s fault for picking it up, your fault for failing to teach your children that there are things in the world that don’t belong to them, or some combination of these things?

120

I would suggest you guys not come over to my house. Because I will move your purse and your shoes and your jacket. If you leave your cell phone on my table, I will move it if I need to. I touch your stuff in my house. I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous that I shouldn’t touch stuff in my own house that you leave lying around.