Emma

My Requirements

**We're looking for some regular weekly teen-sitting care, perhaps working up to overnights, weekends or holiday time in your home our ours. Please get in touch if below sounds interesting and you'd like to explore without obligation**.

We adopted our daughter 10 years ago and it’s been a journey! She is bright, friendly, active and helpful, and generally loves spending time with new people, especially adults. Pretty sure you won't notice anything different to begin with, or at all - she’s on best behaviour around new people. But there are 1 or 2 things to watch out for and we’d need to work together to set things on the right track from the start. For part-time carers dipping in and out, with the right boundaries and house rules, we've actually found the issues might not show, and we sometimes get the impression carers wonder what the fuss is about. But we've found working together to establish what's helpful works best and means she’s generally happier and better behaved.

You don't necessarily need to have experience of children with neurodivergence or special educational needs (SEN), it's more a matter of thoughtfulness and working with us to understand who she is and what she needs. I.e. It's perhaps a bit more 'old school‘ structured, than free-flow modern parenting.

As well as some potential babysitting, we'd be interested to work with someone who over time could look after our daughter either here or in your own home, potentially for overnights, weekends, or chunks of time in school holidays would be appreciated. Please say what you might be open to and we can explore together. We can be flexible for the right person and set-up.

It's worth bearing in mind she is younger in 'developmental' age than chronological age - around 3 years younger in terms of maturity, independence and motivation to use her own efforts. This means more supervision and thought than those of a similar age. It can be harder than looking after regular kids, especially if house/school rules and structure are not your thing - probably best avoided if not! In short, ‘fun-firm-fair' works best.

For practicalities, it'd help if you have access to a car but walking commutes are great if you're local enough (LS7/8), especially as we like to keep active and healthy.

In summary, as well as looking for someone with the right childcare experience, it'd be great if (although not essential) if you also have experience of working with children like this, with additional, sometimes hidden, needs. Having said that if you don’t have direct experience we've definitely found it works well if you're someone who 'gets it', will work with us to understand what works best, and be open to working as a team. We're open to ideas and here to help as well. If this sounds like it might be a good opportunity for you, drop us a line as I'm sure we can sort out the finer details. We have many times before and our previous helpers have really enjoyed it. (Unfortunately they've just moved on to other things like their own children, full time education or work.)