Ready Kids › First Job Ready › Badge 6 › Lesson 6.2
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What you're allowed to do
Agree at handover what is allowed, going out, visitors, screens, food, and stick to it on the night.
1Look
Nine o'clock
Nine o'clock
A sitter on a sofa, the kids asleep upstairs, and her phone lit up with a message: we're outside, let us in for ten mins.
It is her best friend. It is ten minutes. This lesson is why the answer was decided three hours ago.
2The idea
Agreed at handover, never on the night
The things that go wrong at sitting jobs are rarely dramatic. Someone came round. The kid went in the garden. The film was a fifteen. A takeaway got ordered. Each one felt small at the time. You do not decide any of these on the night. You ask at handover, and whatever the answer is, that is the rule.
The four: Going out. Garden, park, shop? Visitors. Anyone at all? Your friend, their friend, a relative who turns up? Screens. What, until when, on which device? Food. For them, and for you? And a fifth that is never negotiable: the parents’ privacy. You do not go in rooms you were not shown, you do not go through things, and you never post about the house or the kids.
3The idea
The default is no
If it was not agreed, the answer is no, and you say why: I didn’t check with your mum, so not tonight. That is not harsh. It is you declining to make a decision that is not yours. Ask next time, and next time it will be a yes or a no you can say with a straight face.
You too. No friends round unless the parents said yes and your own parent knows. No door opened to anyone you are not expecting. A parcel can sit on the step. A relative who was not mentioned rings the parents from the doorstep before the door opens. Whoever is on the other side of that door, you did not agree to them, so they are not coming in.
4The idea
Jess and the ten minutes
Jess’s friend messages from outside. Handover said no visitors. Jess types: can’t, no visitors here, see you tomorrow, and does not open the door. Then Leo, eight, is up and wants the tablet. Handover said screens off at eight. Screens finished at eight, mate. Book or bed. At half nine a man rings the bell saying he is the kids’ uncle, here for a drill.
Not mentioned. Jess, through the door: I’m the sitter, I’ll just ring their mum. The mum says yes, that is Dave, let him get it from the garage. Jess opens the door. Three decisions, none of them hers to make, all made correctly by handing them back.
5Decide
Your best friend is outside. Ten minutes. The handover said nothing about visitors. What do you say?
Pick one to carry on.
6Your turn
Five judgement calls
Five judgement calls
Five things that come up on a night: the garden, a friend, a film rating, a snack for you, a relative at the door. Choose for each, then the card shows what was agreed at handover, or was not.
In two of the five the handover said yes. Saying no to those is the other mistake.
7Find them
Which of these get asked at handover, not decided on the night?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
8Say it
Through a closed door
Say it through a closed door, calm, like you have done it before
“I'm the sitter. I'll just ring their mum before I open the door.”
To an uncle, a neighbour, a delivery. Nobody who should be there will mind.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Add three questions of your own to the handover list: things you would want to know are allowed before the night. Read them to a parent and see whether they would have thought of them.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
Decided at handover, not at nine o'clock. If it was not agreed, the answer is no, and you ask next time.
Next lesson: Fire, with children who aren't yoursBadge 6 · Somebody Else's House
6.1The handover6.2What you're allowed to do6.3Fire, with children who aren't yours★Badge Challenge