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The Babysitter

You hire a baby sitter to watch your hyper 3 year old child. At the appointed hour the sitter reads a story and puts the child to sleep, switches off the light and all seems quiet and well. The sitter waits in a nearby room waiting for you to arrive, but all is not well, a half an hour after sleep the child's room is on fire! The child got up and started to play with some matches. No one was hurt, but there was considerable damage to the house.

Question is... who is at fault: Sitter, child, parent(s)?

Babysitter The

Where did the child get the matches from? From what was described, it seemed the sitter did all that they should have done. Unless they left the matches out somewhere where the child could have gotten to it easily, this incident would be considered an accident.

The Babysitter History & Civil Business Politics

That's the question -- where did the matches come from, and how did they get in the child's room?

You can't blame a babysitter for the child's actions, when the sitter believes the child is asleep. Should the sitter have checked on the child sooner than 30 minutes after putting him to bed?? Not if all seems quiet.

In my opinion, of course.
Roz

Babysitter The

Unless the child had hidden the box of matches, then there is no way the babysitter would guess that there is one in the room. Maybe a good idea for the babysitter is to say some few and simple rules for the child to understand while the mother still present like "No play with water or fire".

Babysitter The

There was no neglegence on the babysitters part. The only way that would be is if the babysitter actually brought the matches to the house. It was a parent of the child obviously laying down some matches in a inappropriate spot.

I thought you were going to ask if it was the match manufacturers fault, for making matches that young inmature kids could operate.

If you make this one the babysitters fault, you better be ready to pay a LOT move for babysitting services. Obviously, the babysitter will need to be buying some insurance to provide their services!

A bit off topic but:

When I was much younger, I babysat quite a bit. One time, the mother of the child I babysat had left out some scissors. The little kid took the scissors to his room so he could use them later (not sure when he did this as we were playing most of the time). Night came and it was time for him to go to bed...so off he went. Like all kids, he was making a bit of noise (laughing) and not going to sleep immediately. I checked in on him a couple of times and it seemed like he was OK and pretending to be sleeping when he heard me walking. Funny thing was, like all kids at some point, he was cutting his own hair (and doing a very bad job I might add). The parents got a good surprise in the morning with the new hairstyle. The mother called me up in the morning and asked if I knew he had done some hair styling...of course I didnt. She found out through the child where he had gotten the scissors and had no problems with the job I did as a babysitter. They had a family picture taken a week later that is truly priceless!

Just a thought,

Vincenzo