In home babysitting: Betreuung, Haushaltshilfe, Tiersitter & mehr

In-Home Care/Babysitting | Children’s Center

In-home child care or babysitting is unlicensed full-or-part-time care given in your home. You may find someone by using an on-line child care network, placing an ad on-line, contacting other colleges or high schools to post a job opportunity, posting notices in your community, and/or contacting outside agencies. The nanny or sitter may commute to your house each day or live in your home and sometimes in-home arrangements can be made with students in exchange for room and board.

Things to Consider

Using a babysitter or nanny can be convenient and flexible, allowing for children to attach to a single provider. It can also mean dependency upon a single person for childcare and isolation for the individual providing the care.

Rates vary according to your needs and the responsibilities for the child care provider. The cost for in-home care is generally between $15.00 and $20.00 an hour. Nannies may prefer a salary, and additional costs to you may be incurred through using a nanny or an au pair agency.

The effort and time you put into choosing a babysitter or nanny is very important. You should interview several people, check references, conduct background checks, have the provider spend time with your child while you are present and, in the end, trust your instincts. Overall, you must make sure that you feel comfortable with the person you entrust with the care of your child.

Once You Hire Someone

After you have hired a nanny or a babysitter, it is important that you spend enough time explaining your expectations as they are caring for your child. Also, plan to make unannounced visits so you can adequately determine what is happening when you are not there. Observation of your child, both with and without your nanny or babysitter, combined with ongoing communication with your child care provider will help you determine the success of the care arrangement.

How We Can Help

The Family Resources Office can assist you in making informed decisions by providing you with information to help you conduct your babysitter or nanny search. By providing these resources, the University makes no representations regarding the competence, ability, training, or experience of any of the babysitters or nannies found using these resources, and it is not responsible for the acts or omissions of these people. It is solely your responsibility to choose the appropriate person to meet your needs.

Contact Us

If you would like more information about babysitters and in-home care, please complete and submit the Referral Statement Form.  When completing this form, please note that you are interested in resource information about babysitters and in-home child care.  Someone from our office will then contact you to find out more information about your specific child care needs and to share information about how we can assist you.

In-Home Childcare – FamilyEducation

Read safety tips when hiring someone for in-home childcare, and learn what warning signs to look for.

In this article, you will find:

• Childcare options
• Finding and interviewing a childcare provider

Childcare options

In-Home Childcare

No matter how much you decide to work, you’ll almost definitely be in the market for childcare. Once upon a time, grandparents, aunts, or cousins handled childcare for working parents. But fewer and fewer new parents today live close enough to their parents or siblings to make this a viable option, so you’ll probably have to find someone to care for your baby when you can’t be home with him. Whether you and your partner are working full- or part-time, you will basically have three child-care options available to you: a nanny or baby sitter, a home day-care provider, and a day-care center.

Despite all the horror stories you may have heard, childcare doesn’t have to be a nightmare. For every notorious day-care institution, there are hundreds of adequate ones and dozens of good ones. For every baby sitter caught beating a child on camera for the evening news, there are dozens of sensitive, caring sitters who would never dream of harming a baby.

If you do your homework-by conducting interviews, visiting day-care sites, checking references, and so on-you will almost certainly find one of the good ones.

Nannies and Sitters

Q-tip

Any paid childcare is tax-deductible as long as it allows both parents (or a single parent) to work or look for work. Ask your local IRS office for Form 2441: Child and Dependent Care Expenses. Because the form requires you to provide the Social Security numbers of any child-care workers you hire, it may give you the incentive to put your nanny or sitter on the books.

Having a nanny or sitter come into your home to care for your baby has certain advantages. Your baby remains in the environment that’s most familiar to her and doesn’t have to get comfortable in new surroundings. In addition, your child only needs to get used to one new person (rather than an entire staff). Your baby will also probably get sick less often because she won’t have daily exposure to other babies (germ-carriers all-all except yours, of course).

Because childcare comes to you, you don’t need to lug supplies and clothing back and forth from your home to the day-care site. Also, you don’t need to make special arrangements or stay home yourself if your baby gets sick. A nanny or sitter often offers much more flexibility in terms of hours because you get to set them yourself. Finally, during your baby’s naps, your sitter may be prevailed upon to do some light housework, an invaluable blessing.

Q-tip

If you have a spare room in your home and need full-time childcare, consider hiring live-in help. You can usually offer a lower salary if you add room and board. Au pair agencies can find you young adults (usually 19 to 24 years old) from other nations who will provide childcare in return for room, board, and a token salary (plus a hefty agency fee).

In-home care does have some disadvantages, too. It makes you entirely dependent on one caregiver. If your sitter gets sick, gets caught in traffic, or-aaargh!-quits with little or no notice, you’re stuck. A single caregiver has a greater potential to spark feelings of jealousy or rivalry on your part, too. Also, because sitters are neither licensed nor subject to supervision, you’ll need to work hard at building a relationship with your baby’s sitter just to find out what they’ve been doing all day.

A major drawback of in-home care is the cost. Hiring a full-time nanny or a part-time sitter is the most expensive childcare option. In addition to a decent salary, a full-time caregiver may expect (and really deserve) medical benefits, vacation time, and periodic raises in pay. Also, by law you are required to withhold federal, state, and local taxes as well as half of the Social Security and Medicare “contributions” of any household employee. You have to ante up the other half of your nanny’s Social Security and Medicare payments yourself-and if you ever hope to hold an elected or appointed government office, you’d better do so.

If you’ve decided you’d like to hire someone to care for your baby in your home, start looking early. Finding a good one is not always easy. Holding onto a good one, whether the person works full-time as a nanny or hour by hour as a sitter, is even harder. Adult caregivers often find that they need more money than child-care workers are usually paid. Teenage caregivers often have busy social lives of their own. So if you find a good caregiver, treat her or him like gold.

Next: Finding and interviewing a childcare provider

Schoolchildren – home schooling, parents – punishment for leaving children unattended

Sustina Tatyana

Member of the Commission for the Protection of the Rights of Lawyers of the Administrative Office of the Moscow Region, head of the family practice of the Moscow City Agency No. 5

March 24, 2020

Tips

Pay attention to the date of publication of the material: the information may be outdated due to changes in legislation or law enforcement practice.

To prevent the spread of the coronavirus, students in Moscow schools have been transferred to distance learning. While the adults are working, the children are at home on their own. But the law obliges parents to take care of the health of the child. Failure to comply with this duty may result in an accident and result in criminal liability

Due to the threat of the spread of coronavirus infection, the country has switched to high alert ¹ . In Moscow, pupils and students were transferred to distance learning, many employees to remote work. Those who have small children and at the same time do not have the opportunity to work at home and look after them, found themselves in a difficult situation.

(What is a state of emergency and what will happen if a state of emergency is introduced – read in publication “Coronavirus: how to distinguish truth from fiction?” –

What are working parents entitled to during high alert?

In Moscow, the regime of high alert for the spread of infection was introduced by the mayor’s decree on March 5 ² . In this document, paragraph 4.2 is relevant for working parents: employers are required to assist employees in ensuring self-isolation at home.

First of all, you need to understand that transferring an employee to a remote form is a change in the terms of an employment contract. Prior to the introduction of the state of emergency, this is possible only on the basis of an additional agreement between the parties, i.e. at the mutual desire of the employee and the employer. Currently, the spread of coronavirus infection in Moscow is not classified as an emergency ³ . The measures taken by the state are preventive ⁴ , while the mayor’s decree is more of a recommendation.
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So, the transfer of an employee without his consent to remote work under Art. 72.2 of the Labor Code is impossible, since an epidemic has not been established on the territory of Russia. And from the literal interpretation of the already mentioned clause 4.2 of the mayor’s decree, it follows that the employer has no obligation to transfer employees to remote work. However, it should provide the opportunity to work remotely if employees have such a desire. The decision to switch to home-based work is made by them independently and has the right to ask the employer about it.
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But what if the employer cannot provide such an opportunity due to the specifics of the employee’s professional activities? What should parents do in such a situation: hire a nanny if none of the relatives and friends can look after the child, or leave him at home alone?

Can parents be held criminally liable for leaving a child unattended?

From March 21 to April 12, children’s visits to educational institutions were suspended. The exception is preschoolers and schoolchildren of grades 1–4. With the consent of the parents, their education can be continued in groups of up to 12 people. This is stated in the order of the Department of Education and Science of Moscow adopted on March 16.
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But in practice, the training of younger schoolchildren is now taking place at home online from 9:00 to 13:00, and parents need to justify the need for the full-time presence of the child in mini-groups. The first days of online learning demonstrate a positive attitude of children to such activities: they study at home in front of a computer, but at the same time, the collectiveness of the lesson is maintained through audio communication with classmates.

However, there is one significant drawback of home schooling: after school time, many children are left to their own devices while adults are at work. Meanwhile, the law obliges parents to take care of the health of their children (Article 63 of the Family Code) and protect their rights and legitimate interests (Articles 56, 64 of the Family Code). And if the failure to fulfill these duties led to tragic consequences, the parents may be held criminally liable.
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For example, if a young child (under 14 years old) found himself in a dangerous situation while he was unattended, parents can be held liable under Art. 125 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Leaving in danger”. If an accident occurred at that time, the actions of the parents can be qualified under Art. 109 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Causing death by negligence”. For example, a tragedy occurred in the Urals in the summer of 2019. A 12-year-old girl was left at home with her younger brothers. She decided to cook dinner, which caused a fire. The children died.
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In my practice, there was a case when an 11-year-old girl did not want to go picking mushrooms with her parents and stayed at the dacha to shoot a video for a social network. Inspired by watching a popular cartoon about monsters, she built scenery from improvised materials and began performing on camera. The result was asphyxia, two days in intensive care and many months of rehabilitation. The girl remained alone for only two hours, and her parents were not held accountable then. But they had to visit the investigative committee at least once a week.
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Child psychologist Zalina Tekoeva:

“When deciding whether to leave a child at home alone, it is necessary to take into account the level of his development and acquired social and everyday skills. Without adult supervision, a child can be left at home from the age of 7–8, but not more than 30 minutes. For 9–12 year olds, you can increase this time to two to three hours in the morning or evening, and for 12–14 year olds, up to five to six hours. But only if the child knows how to use the simplest household appliances, can, if necessary, call his parents and responsibly approaches their requests and advice.
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Child psychologist Olga Serebrovskaya :

“Not only the biological age of the child is important, but also his psychological maturity. 14 years is a conditional border of independence. The age at which a child masters the skills of self-control and self-preservation depends on the conditions of his upbringing and the attention that parents pay to this issue, on the presence or absence of examples of reasonable behavior demonstrated by adults.
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If parents gradually prepare the child for independent pastime, teach him safe life skills, develop his creative abilities, delegate some responsibility and support to him, and not overprotect or ignore him, he becomes independent by the early teenage years.

Another important point is the conditions in which the child is left unattended. And we are talking not only about the serviceability of electrical appliances and the absence of places that pose a potential danger to life and health, but also about the subject organization of the environment. Children’s behavior that is fraught with adverse consequences is often due to boredom. For leisure to be safe and productive, the child must be given the necessary means and tools for this.
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The decision on how to ensure the safety of children rests with the parents and is their responsibility.

Teachers and psychologists recommend paying more attention to safety rules: tell your child how to behave in various situations; ask a housewife or pensioner neighbor to come in sometimes while the child is home alone, and it would be useful to find out her phone number in case of an emergency; check the health of electrical appliances when leaving the house and turn off unnecessary ones; prohibit the child from using the stove if there is a microwave oven at home; make a list of educational, household and leisure tasks for the day for him and call him more often.
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Lawyers advise telling children about the possible legal consequences of dangerous games and illegal behavior ( read more about this in article “To parents – about the rights and obligations of children” ).

¹ Clause 10 of Art. 4.1 of the Federal Law of December 21, 1994 No. 68-FZ “On the protection of the population and territories from natural and man-made emergencies.”

nine0018 2 Decree of the Mayor of Moscow dated March 5, 2020 No. 12-UM “On the introduction of a high alert regime.” It was amended by the Decree of the Mayor of Moscow dated March 10, 2020 No. 17-UM “On Amendments to the Decree of the Mayor of Moscow dated March 5, 2020 No. 12-UM”.

³ Clause “m” part 1 of Art. 11 of the Federal Law of December 21, 1994 No. 68-FZ “On the protection of the population and territories from natural and man-made emergencies.”

⁴ Article 7 of the Federal Law of 21 December 1994, No. 68-FZ “On the protection of the population and territories from natural and man-made emergencies.”

⁵ Order of the Department of Education and Science of Moscow dated March 16, 2020 No. 112 “On amendments to the order of the Department of Education and Science of the City of Moscow dated March 6, 2020 No. 89”.

Professional retraining course “Specialist in the care and care of children of preschool age: Effective organization of professional activities”

ABOUT THE PROGRAMDownload a copy of the course syllabus

This professional retraining program is designed for:
• employees of the education system who do not have a pedagogical education, as well as other institutions in which activities are carried out to look after and care for children of preschool age;
• persons with secondary general education and short-term training in the profession of workers, employees “Specialist in the care of children of preschool age”;
• for those wishing to find a job in educational organizations;
• for students of secondary general education organizations who want to get a profession.
• The program was developed in accordance with the Federal Law No. 273 – Federal Law “On Education in the Russian Federation”, the draft professional standard “Specialist in the Care and Care of Preschool Children”, Resolution of the Chief State Sanitary Doctor of the Russian Federation dated May 15, 2013 No. 26 “On the approval of SanPiN 2.4.1.3049-13 “Sanitary and epidemiological requirements for the device, content and organization of the working hours of preschool educational organizations” (as amended on August 27, 2015). The program regulates the work of a specialist in the supervision and care of preschool children attending preschool educational institutions or being at home, in order to provide children with preschool education as fully as possible and create conditions for helping families raising children.
The professional retraining program “Organization of activities for the supervision and care of children of preschool age” is aimed at studying the effective organization of the auxiliary to the pedagogical process in accordance with the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard and is aimed at mastering and improving professional specialists in the supervision and care of children of preschool age.
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Professional retraining program developed on the basis of:
• GEF of secondary vocational education in the direction of preparation 44.02.01 “Preschool education”.
• Draft professional standard “Specialist in the supervision and care of children of preschool age”.

PURPOSE

Organization of daily activities of children for the purpose of their spiritual and physical development, protection of life and health, social adaptation to acquire the qualification of “Specialist in the care and care of children of preschool age.”
Category of listeners: for workers in the field of preschool education, carrying out activities for the care of children of preschool age with and without provision of accommodation. nine0003

CATEGORY OF STUDENTS

Persons with secondary general education and short-term training in the profession of workers, employees “Specialist in the care of children of preschool age”

DIRECTION

Education

FORM OF TRAINING

Correspondence using distance learning technologies.