Dan's Papers - May 9, 2008 - These Kids Are Qualified

I was late to class and not just by a few minutes. The session began at 9 a.m. and here it was 12 noon as I opened the classroom door. Whew! The students were eating lunch, so obviously I wasn't disrupting a lecture.

The coordinator of the program, Eileen Solomon, waved me over to her desk. Now I was in for it! Would she assign me to detention?

No, not at all. For Eileen Solomon supervises Greenport's Eastern Long Island Hospital's Safe Sitter program and practices what she preaches. That is, safe sitters don't loose their cool.

Just what is this safe sitter stuff, you ask. Well, it's a national program instructing young people ages 11 to 13 how to be safe, caring babysitters. This is ELIH's third year with the program and volunteer teachers seem to be doing a splendid job. I'll give you their names right away. Gloria Profeta, Ellen Gove, Rose Annabel and Teresa Taylor.

The teachers were a bit older than 11-13. But they worked well with the young people as they covered topics such as health emergencies, skills (diapering and feeding, for example - I've done enough of that!) and keeping kids safe and happy.

Safe Sitters classes at ELIH usually enroll 10 or so students. But here's a number that will impress you. Since Safe Sitters was founded in 1980 by an Indiana pediatrician, more than 450,000 youngsters nationwide completed the course.

You know me. I like to eat. So I figured a good way to get to meet the girls and boys was to go from table to table, checking out the contents of their lunch boxes/bags. I could have shared a pepperoni sandwich with Marisa Sannino, a Cutchogue fifth-grader. Or a turkey sandwich with Sarah Doherty, an eighth-grader. Both girls have something in common besides babysitting. They're on the same Little League softball team.

At another table sat Southold's Anna Mahaffy. She's a sixth-grader who was munching on a ham sandwich and oatmeal cookies. Next to Anna sat her older sister, Lara. Both Anna and Lara agreed their biggest babysitting challenge is their seven-year-old sister Charlotte who "is a pest."

Now meet Wendy and Peter Peterson. Seventh-grade twins who live in Greenport, Wendy and Peter sat side-by-side, nice as can be. They've done some baby-sitting in their neighborhood but so far they've always worked alone. Upcoming is one terrific team.

Finally lunch break was over and the young people and I had to stop talking and start paying some attention to the teacher. Easy to do 'cause the teacher was talking about preventing behavior problems. Things like how a sitter can't be on the phone and watching a child at the same time. Or how a sitter must be aware of nap time. For an overtired child can be cranky and unhappy (That goes for everybody, I guess. Even on the North Fork there's an occasional cranky person).

Next, the teacher said there were some magic tricks she'd tell us - tricks that would make little kids behave like angels. We all listened intently because who doesn't like a trick. Turns out the tricks were pretty much common sense, not uncommon here on the North Fork.

Examples? Well, offer choices like do you want milk or orange juice. That way the kid thinks he's calling the shots. Or distract with a toy or story and tears dry up.

For more information on Safe Sitters, visit Alex Kluko in Cutchogue. Alex "graduated" from a Safe Sitter class last year and then the teen landed a job as a mother's helper all last summer.

All told, a fine day. Eileen gave me no demerits for lateness and I realized, again, what a great bunch of young people we have here on the North Fork They spend all week in school and then go 9-5 on a sunny spring Saturday. Their aim is to do the best possible job in the most important job - taking care of our little children.

I tell you this. If I needed a babysitter, I'd call on any one of these students. Unlikely though. My youngest is in his forties.