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Show lo your baby oiitor qualified for fliG job Is the adolescent you have left In charge of your home really qualified for the job? Have you oriented your sitter on what to do In case of an emergency and the precautions pre-cautions that should be taken to safeguard your children and your home? be forbidden territories as places of amusement. --The sitter should never open a door to a stranger and should deal with tele, phone calls carefully, indl. eating that the parents are not available at the moment, Teen agers are 111 advised ad-vised to invite friends into a home where they are sitting unless arrangements have been made in advance with the employers. If the telephone tele-phone must be used, the con-versation con-versation should be brief. After the children have gone to bed, read, do homework or watch television. The refrigerator should not be raided. Before the parents leave, they will specify spe-cify what refreshments have been provided and they will expect the sitter to tidy up the kitchen. Unless other arrangements arrange-ments are made, the employer employ-er should see the sitter home safely. In some cases, the employer may also pick up the sitter at the start of the evening. While training programs for baby sitters are available avail-able In some communities, the chances are slim that a youngster will be adequately prepared for the first job , unless trained at home or oriented by the employing parents. "When you consider that baby-sitting is one of the principal sources of employment employ-ment for children, and for the care of young children, it appears that little has been done to prepare teen-agers for this large responsibility," responsi-bility," a Combined Researcher Re-searcher and former babysitter baby-sitter observed. "The term baby-sitting is misleading, for the job entails far more than sitting. Caring and supervision are the key words." These are among the questions ques-tions being raised by health and safety experts now that baby-sitting has become a major teen-age "industry". The Department of Health and Human Services estimates es-timates that 1,000,000 teenagers teen-agers are being handed the r responsibility of child care while parents are away from I home. What sort of preparation prep-aration have they had for that responsibility? Health and safety research conducted by the Combined Insurance Company of A-merlca A-merlca indicates that babysitting baby-sitting has become an on-the-job training program in child care. It enables young people to earn pocket money while allowing parents par-ents to pay "bargain" rates, usually well below the minimum min-imum hourly wage of $3.35 I an hour set by the Federal government for most regu-I regu-I larly employed workers. In an effort to help minl-I minl-I mize problems and maximize max-imize the efficiency and safety with which adolescents ado-lescents look after their young charges, Combined In -. surance has come up with I the following suggestions for I baby sitters and the fami-' fami-' lies they serve: I Once a family has chosen cho-sen a sitter, the youngster I and at least one of his or her parents should be invited invit-ed to visit to become acquainted ac-quainted with the home Including emergency exits and the children and to arrive at a mutual understanding of what is required. Financial arrangements should be settled set-tled at that time. On arriving for the first sitting engagement, the teenager teen-ager should be given a list of emergency telephone numbers, special instructions instruc-tions for the care and feeding of the children and a number where the parents can be , reached if necessary. ' The sitter should keep a permanent file on clients recording bedtimes, meal or snack schedules, names of children, sleeping arrangements, arrange-ments, television rules, special spe-cial requirements or problems, prob-lems, areas that are- off litems, li-tems, areas that are off limits lim-its and favorite stories, games and pastimes of the I children. Some sitters have found I it useful to carry their own , "bag of tricks" containing ' games, crayons, paper, I books, handicraft items, pen and pencil and notebook, small bandages and a flashlight. flash-light. I The sitter should never leave small children alone. I Care should be taken to keep them from playing on stair -I ways or in windows and the kitchen and bathroom should |