Reading Reaction # 3 "One Man's Kids"

If you are working or have ever worked with children, write a paragraph describing the good (or bad) aspects of the job. You can first describe the job and its responsibilities and then write about its good (or bad) points.

When I am at home, sometimes our neighbors need my wife or myself to babysit their four year old named Cassie and their two year old named Aden. Our neighbors live very active lives, they have four children total. Cassie and Aden are the two younger children out of the group. At times our neighbors will run errands during Cassie and Aden's nap time. When this occurs myself or my wife (Casey), will make our way over to the house and supervise the house when the kids are sleeping. Usually when one of us babysit, the duties include feeding the children when they wake up, reading or watching T.V. until they are finished with their snack, and finally taking them outside to play. Spending time with Cassie and Aden has its perks. Interacting with the children is the best aspect of babysitting. Taking care of Cassie and Aden has both good and challenging points, which comes with supervising other adults kids. When it comes to Aden, he wakes up from his nap, asks for a drink, shares a banana, then gets ready to go outside and play with whatever sports equipment he has. If he doesn't want to play any sports, then he asks to be pushed on the swing. This afternoon ritual is fairly easy, with the exception of the communication factor. Since Aden is only two years old, there is a lot of guessing that is involved with the communication. Aden starts to become irritated after the third time explaining what he wants to do. This is the only downside with babysitting, sometimes the child's body language is the easiest way to determine what a child is asking for. Cassie's ritual is a little different. She wakes up crying, which is common for her, then eats and drinks while watching a movie. Once the movie is on, usually the crying stops. After Cassie finishes her snack, the T.V. gets turned off. She heads outside and starts to participate in whatever the rest of us are doing. There is some confrontation at first, mainly due to Cassie trying to take over the game that is already in progress. After she finds out that she can not dictate the activity at hand, she behaves and starts to participate in the activity. By now the parents usually come home and start to engage in the activity with us. During this time we exchange stories about errands and babysitting, which turns out to last for an hour or so. After we are finished we hug Cassie and Aden good bye, Aden and I have a handshake as well, then it is off to our home. Some of the benefits of babysitting is the interaction that we have with the children. This teaches us how to deal with multiple situations, so in the future we know how to take care of our own children. Another benefit is developing a relationship with both kids. Personally I enjoy seeing the children learn how to share and cooperate with each other. Some other benefits are helping the kids develop their motor skills, hand and eye coordination as well as the willingness to have fun in what ever they do.