I went to work today.

Today's case; Babysitting a 12 year old. He's an absolute sweetie, but possibly a little too old to need a babysitter.

I brought my copy of KH 1.5 and he's absolutely enamored with it.

 

I thought this would be an Amaury thread from the title.

Decent impersonation.

 

I try my best.

 

right on, bring kingdom hearts to a new generation.

 

Just thinking about the fact that he was born the year KH1 came out makes me feel SO OLD

but yeah, major props for getting him hooked

 

That's cute.

 

I would do that! But the kids that I babysit either don't have a PS3 or are too hooked on games for the iPad ;-;

 

Yeah he mostly wanted to talk about Pokemon when I first got there, and was in awe of the fact that I own Pokemon the 1st Movie on VHS.
Then I popped in the game and that's all he cared about for the next 4 hours.

 

Would you leave a twelve year old home alone for the night?
I mean putting Home Alone aside and all.

 

All kids should play Kingdom hearts at least once >:3

 

I was allowed to be at home alone at 12. I could even make my own grilled cheese sandwiches. I was also allowed to go to the store for a slurpee when I was 8.

 

I've actually been thinking about this a lot. When I was 6, there were times I had to be left at home (with my 10/11 year old sister though) alone as my dad was a fireman who could be called out at many minute. This continued for ages and there would be times I was completely home alone at 10 or so. I didn't see anything wrong with it as I knew no different so I was shocked when I was asked to babysit a 11 year old and even now I regularly babysit a 12 year old. However, I realise now that none of that was at night and it was only at a couple of hours at a time. I suppose at night time it's a different idea.

 

It also probably depends on the maturity of the child. Your parents probably thought you were pretty mature.

My parents started leaving me home alone for short periods of time when I was about 10, and the summer I was 11 my mother left me alone all day.
The boy I babysit, though, is ADHD and acts like he's closer to 10 than 12. Like I said, he's a total sweetie and he's mostly self sufficient, but it is probably a better idea to have someone around for supervision during the day.

 

Babysitting for chill kids always seemed so appealing. From what I understand you basically get paid to hang out and watch TV.

The few times I did it I ended up having to physically restrain the children. I've not been keen to try it again.

 

Yeah, I'm the same, I'm terrible at discipline so when they don't listen to me I'm like sohgflosjdfljapoiwepi. But when you get well behaved kids that you get on with then it's such fun and sooo satisfying.

My friend was telling me about a kid she had to babysit the other day who was the child of quite a rich family. He was very well behaved and went to bed when he was asked and she got about £46 for 4 hours of babysitting (about $77). I cried out of jealousy ;-; because she got all of that for basically sitting down and watching tv.

 

Nothing like not working for your money!

 

Exactly xD but hey, she got lucky.

 

Update: Went back again today. Literally sat in front of the TV and played KH all day again. Got as far as finishing Hallow Bastion before I had to leave, and he was so upset he wouldn't get to see the ending until I reminded him I was coming back tomorrow. (The local schools are on winter break this week).

So far, he haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaates 100 Acre Wood, adores Kairi, thinks Riku is a big bag of dicks, and is mostly content to watch me play and ask 5 billion questions. The only parts he actually likes playing himself are the gummi ship bits, which is nice because imo the gummi ship bits are boring as hell in KH1.
Also he likes to insult Donald but who doesn't.

 

I can't emphasise enough how much time I spent on 100 acre wood, I literally couldn't finish it because I couldn't swing Pooh into Eeyore's house to find his tail, it was frustrating because I could even see the tail, if only I could reach through the screen and hit them all around the face with it >:3

 

Ah yes, the young ones are the easiest to fall to the eternal collective.