So....my daughter has been asking for a year or so to sign her up for a babysitting course so she can be an official babysitter. I posted the question to Facebook and got a lot of great suggestions and links. Problem was most of the links were old. What I eventually found out was that there are a few communities who offer babysitting courses and by calling those communities (City Hall?), I am sure you could find out for sure or not if they are being offered. But we also found that the Red Cross offers an online Babysitting Course for less than $40 and everything can be completed through online modules. So we went with that option. After about 4 hours of work, my daughter is now a "Red Cross Certified Babysitter" and has already babysat once. So, what did she like and not like about the program? Here are her words....
Pros: You could work at your own pace, the program used real-life situations and you had to answer what you would do, you didn't have to travel anywhere, and the documents I could save and use for my babysitting business (things like a resume, a list of important numbers, and sheets you can bring to fill out after talking to the parents)
Cons: With our internet, our videos buffered a lot and this made it take longer, it didn't save my progress a few times (figured out it was best to finish a module completely and log out and then back in to be sure), a little tough to navigate into the program, and of course some things are best face-to-face.
Overall, she loved it and we watched her babysit soon after she finished and the course really made her seem to take the job seriously and put a lot of effort into her babysitting work. As parents, we were impressed. And being a Dad of 5 and not needing to drive my daughter to several classes was a nice perk!
So, if you are looking for a babysitting course, we would recommend the Red Cross course. We also considered doing the Urbandale course since it was offered at a variety of times.
Red Cross Childcare courses click here!
Urbandale course click here!
