Daycare.com Forum
Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Buddy Buddy or "What's Wrong?"
MsKara 07:09 AM 07-01-2010
It seems to me that parents expect me to buddy up to them every single time they walk through that door. If I'm not particularly talkitive or busy they give me the "what's wrong, you seem quiet?" or "I can usually count on you to be peppy, what's wrong?" or the many other phrases. Usually i'm tired by the end of the day and sometimes busy cleaning up. I'm always pleasant and nice and tell them how their kids day went and I usually muster up a big smile. However, they still expect me to chit chat and act all peppy like we are friends. I'm tired of trying to impress the parents and would like them to just pick up their kids and go. Am I being selfish?
jen 07:36 AM 07-01-2010
I totally understand. I have definitely had parents that do that too. Try to muster up one of those big smiles and say, "Oh No! It was a great day. This is just a super busy time of day."
and they will of course ask why...
Try...
"Oh, we still need to get cleaned up from the day and then start our family time."
With a big smile of course...hopefully they will get the hint.
and they will of course ask why...
Try...
"Oh, we still need to get cleaned up from the day and then start our family time."
With a big smile of course...hopefully they will get the hint.
JenNJ 07:57 AM 07-01-2010
I think that the reaction you are getting shows poorly on your end. I am a dc provider and I am sure to be perky at drop off and pick up no matter how much I am dragging. It reflects on your work with the kids in the parents eyes in my opinion. If you can't muster up energy to have a conversation, they must wonder about your energy level with their children. I know I would as a parent.
originalkat 12:24 PM 07-01-2010
I FAKE IT during pick up and drop off times. I am not the buddy buddy type either. I also am not big on chit chat...but your parents should not pick up on this if you know what I mean. Put a smile on your face turn on your "phone voice". That is what I always do.
laundryduchess@yahoo.com 04:28 AM 07-02-2010
lol,.. My family calls it ,.. "turning on Miss Jill"... I can just be griping or venting to my husband,... or yelling at one of my own kids,.. and if someone pulls up,... or if we are out,.... and see a family,.... We just "turn it on". No matter what I feel or my family feels inside,.. THIS is my income. How we pay our bills,.. and from the outside looking in,.... Its happy Miss Jill and her adoring family. Period. we have a rule,.... You have no option of being grouchy or disrespectful in front of day families. If you choose to not be this way you WILL face the wrath of Mom. and trust me,.. it aint pretty. Its hard,... but,.... my enrollment is full and Im turning clients away. Ive been this way for 18 years, (the first 3 were building years) ... so Im not saying its because of my attitude, curriculum, or why it is,.. but its working. lol. And Im going with it! lol
I live in a run down house with limited space, Have not had a client from my referral service in over 15 years, and get all my families from word of mouth, and people seeing me out and finding out what I do. Not saying that mine is the only way,... but it works for me,... I fake the enthuasium (sp?) at the end of the week it gets hard,.. but right befor eopening the door to greet someone I smile, take a deep breath and give them all I have. Good luck! =-)
(or you could just tell them you are a little constipated, but thanks for asking? ) lol,...
I live in a run down house with limited space, Have not had a client from my referral service in over 15 years, and get all my families from word of mouth, and people seeing me out and finding out what I do. Not saying that mine is the only way,... but it works for me,... I fake the enthuasium (sp?) at the end of the week it gets hard,.. but right befor eopening the door to greet someone I smile, take a deep breath and give them all I have. Good luck! =-)
(or you could just tell them you are a little constipated, but thanks for asking? ) lol,...
MsKara 04:29 AM 07-02-2010
Originally Posted by JenNJ:
I think that the reaction you are getting shows poorly on your end. I am a dc provider and I am sure to be perky at drop off and pick up no matter how much I am dragging. It reflects on your work with the kids in the parents eyes in my opinion. If you can't muster up energy to have a conversation, they must wonder about your energy level with their children. I know I would as a parent.
I must have said it wrong. I am perky and plaster a big smile on my face. I do let them know how their kids day went and chat for a minute. The problem comes when I don't chat long enough or divolge into details of my personal life or listen to theirs. The more happy and chit chatty I act, the longer they stay. I've had parents hang out for 45 minutes before. They ask me questions about every detail of my life like we are friends and tell me their life story. I want to start dinner and enjoy the rest of my evening, and if I try to keep the conversations short, I get the "what's wrong" business. Seriously though, I almost have to cut things off and walk away when it comes to talking or I'll never have time for my own life. Is this really part of the job? The other problem is one of the mom's picks up at nap time. I need to clean and work on organizing project and preparing food menus etc, but she gets mad if I don't stand around and chat. This is even after I tell her I just can't stand around. It's hard to be perky around someone like that.I think that the reaction you are getting shows poorly on your end. I am a dc provider and I am sure to be perky at drop off and pick up no matter how much I am dragging. It reflects on your work with the kids in the parents eyes in my opinion. If you can't muster up energy to have a conversation, they must wonder about your energy level with their children. I know I would as a parent.
nannyde 05:18 AM 07-02-2010
Originally Posted by MsKara:
I must have said it wrong. I am perky and plaster a big smile on my face. I do let them know how their kids day went and chat for a minute. The problem comes when I don't chat long enough or divolge into details of my personal life or listen to theirs. The more happy and chit chatty I act, the longer they stay. I've had parents hang out for 45 minutes before. They ask me questions about every detail of my life like we are friends and tell me their life story. I want to start dinner and enjoy the rest of my evening, and if I try to keep the conversations short, I get the "what's wrong" business. Seriously though, I almost have to cut things off and walk away when it comes to talking or I'll never have time for my own life. Is this really part of the job? The other problem is one of the mom's picks up at nap time. I need to clean and work on organizing project and preparing food menus etc, but she gets mad if I don't stand around and chat. This is even after I tell her I just can't stand around. It's hard to be perky around someone like that.
Does she do this in the morning or just at pick up?I must have said it wrong. I am perky and plaster a big smile on my face. I do let them know how their kids day went and chat for a minute. The problem comes when I don't chat long enough or divolge into details of my personal life or listen to theirs. The more happy and chit chatty I act, the longer they stay. I've had parents hang out for 45 minutes before. They ask me questions about every detail of my life like we are friends and tell me their life story. I want to start dinner and enjoy the rest of my evening, and if I try to keep the conversations short, I get the "what's wrong" business. Seriously though, I almost have to cut things off and walk away when it comes to talking or I'll never have time for my own life. Is this really part of the job? The other problem is one of the mom's picks up at nap time. I need to clean and work on organizing project and preparing food menus etc, but she gets mad if I don't stand around and chat. This is even after I tell her I just can't stand around. It's hard to be perky around someone like that.
You will run into parents who want to stall going home and being alone with their kid. They only thing they have in common with you is you, their kid, and your day care. That's what they use to talk about to do the stall. They also use their kid finishing playing with ***X in order to stall. You don't see it so much in the morning because most keep the morning time down to the wire so they can sleep in. You will have a few early risers who are up with their kid and want to get their kid to day care so they aren't alone with them in the morning too. They aren't as common as the pick up stallers.
I had one who did it on both ends. One parent was going to school so she would drop the kid off in the morning and not have anywhere she had to go right away. She was alone with the kid at night so she stalled that too. I felt a lot of pressure to "conference" with her daily. The amount of time I spent with her kid and her kids "discussable issues" were more than all of my other clients combined every day.
I tried everything I could to get it down to a reasonable amount of time but she was a Master at adding a "does he do *** with you?" questions right when I thought I was getting them out the door. The "does he do *** with you?" question was followed by her discussion of him doing *** at their house. The questions were always one of three catagories: behavior, health, or giftedness. I didn't have behavior problems with the child. The health issues were a direct result of the behavior issues at their house and the child wasn't gifted.
The math on that was that she would throw stuff into the conversation and then take up my time telling me about the kid at their house. UGH. I didn't have these issues and didn't care about these issues at home. The kid was the boss of the house so they had a ton of issues I didn't have because I'm the boss of my house.
It was such a relief when they left. I got back to a group of parents who just visit for a couple of minutes on each end unless I really need to talk to them about the kid. The way it averages is about 10 minutes total per kid per day. When issues come up or I need to do some education with the parents it can be longer but that's balanced out by the days when they drop and run and pick up and leave right away.
One phrase I have found that works is using the word "scoot". That's a nice kiddy word and USUALLY works. Saying to them "ok I gotta scoot" or "okay it's time for you guys to scoot" seems to diffuse it a little. It sounds better than "It's time for you to leave". I will say some version of "it's time for you/me to scoot, skadaddle, and skadop" That's Nanspeak for leave.
That works with MOST parents.
momofboys 06:30 AM 07-02-2010
Originally Posted by nannyde:
Does she do this in the morning or just at pick up?
You will run into parents who want to stall going home and being alone with their kid. They only thing they have in common with you is you, their kid, and your day care. That's what they use to talk about to do the stall. They also use their kid finishing playing with ***X in order to stall. You don't see it so much in the morning because most keep the morning time down to the wire so they can sleep in. You will have a few early risers who are up with their kid and want to get their kid to day care so they aren't alone with them in the morning too. They aren't as common as the pick up stallers.
I had one who did it on both ends. One parent was going to school so she would drop the kid off in the morning and not have anywhere she had to go right away. She was alone with the kid at night so she stalled that too. I felt a lot of pressure to "conference" with her daily. The amount of time I spent with her kid and her kids "discussable issues" were more than all of my other clients combined every day.
I tried everything I could to get it down to a reasonable amount of time but she was a Master at adding a "does he do *** with you?" questions right when I thought I was getting them out the door. The "does he do *** with you?" question was followed by her discussion of him doing *** at their house. The questions were always one of three catagories: behavior, health, or giftedness. I didn't have behavior problems with the child. The health issues were a direct result of the behavior issues at their house and the child wasn't gifted.
The math on that was that she would throw stuff into the conversation and then take up my time telling me about the kid at their house. UGH. I didn't have these issues and didn't care about these issues at home. The kid was the boss of the house so they had a ton of issues I didn't have because I'm the boss of my house.
It was such a relief when they left. I got back to a group of parents who just visit for a couple of minutes on each end unless I really need to talk to them about the kid. The way it averages is about 10 minutes total per kid per day. When issues come up or I need to do some education with the parents it can be longer but that's balanced out by the days when they drop and run and pick up and leave right away.
One phrase I have found that works is using the word "scoot". That's a nice kiddy word and USUALLY works. Saying to them "ok I gotta scoot" or "okay it's time for you guys to scoot" seems to diffuse it a little. It sounds better than "It's time for you to leave". I will say some version of "it's time for you/me to scoot, skadaddle, and skadop" That's Nanspeak for leave.
That works with MOST parents.
I like the scoot/skadaddle also. Another thing that works well for me is, "It's so nice outside, I'm sure you want to get home to enjoy this great weather" OR "I must go see how XYZ child is doing with X" I'd always try to address it as an I need to scoot instead of a YOU need to. I just think the "You need to" sounds a bit bossy.Does she do this in the morning or just at pick up?
You will run into parents who want to stall going home and being alone with their kid. They only thing they have in common with you is you, their kid, and your day care. That's what they use to talk about to do the stall. They also use their kid finishing playing with ***X in order to stall. You don't see it so much in the morning because most keep the morning time down to the wire so they can sleep in. You will have a few early risers who are up with their kid and want to get their kid to day care so they aren't alone with them in the morning too. They aren't as common as the pick up stallers.
I had one who did it on both ends. One parent was going to school so she would drop the kid off in the morning and not have anywhere she had to go right away. She was alone with the kid at night so she stalled that too. I felt a lot of pressure to "conference" with her daily. The amount of time I spent with her kid and her kids "discussable issues" were more than all of my other clients combined every day.
I tried everything I could to get it down to a reasonable amount of time but she was a Master at adding a "does he do *** with you?" questions right when I thought I was getting them out the door. The "does he do *** with you?" question was followed by her discussion of him doing *** at their house. The questions were always one of three catagories: behavior, health, or giftedness. I didn't have behavior problems with the child. The health issues were a direct result of the behavior issues at their house and the child wasn't gifted.
The math on that was that she would throw stuff into the conversation and then take up my time telling me about the kid at their house. UGH. I didn't have these issues and didn't care about these issues at home. The kid was the boss of the house so they had a ton of issues I didn't have because I'm the boss of my house.
It was such a relief when they left. I got back to a group of parents who just visit for a couple of minutes on each end unless I really need to talk to them about the kid. The way it averages is about 10 minutes total per kid per day. When issues come up or I need to do some education with the parents it can be longer but that's balanced out by the days when they drop and run and pick up and leave right away.
One phrase I have found that works is using the word "scoot". That's a nice kiddy word and USUALLY works. Saying to them "ok I gotta scoot" or "okay it's time for you guys to scoot" seems to diffuse it a little. It sounds better than "It's time for you to leave". I will say some version of "it's time for you/me to scoot, skadaddle, and skadop" That's Nanspeak for leave.
That works with MOST parents.
originalkat 08:01 AM 07-02-2010
I have a divorced family...dcg is with mom most of the time. But, dad picks up at 4:30 and then mom picks dcg up from his house at 5:20. He often stalls and lets her finish playing before leaving. She has already been playing for the last 9 hours...I think that is enough. GO HOME!! Thankfully, he isnt a big talker. But, I have to hmm ha around for 15 minutes or so until they finally scoot
out the door.
out the door.
DBug 10:28 AM 07-02-2010
There are LOTS of times when I really don't have the energy to muster up the peppiness, and I have SUCH a hard time keeping my mouth shut when parents let their kids determine how long it's going to take to get out the door. I have been known to pretend a happy scream from the baby is actually an unhappy scream -- "Oh no! I wonder what's wrong with the baby! I'd better go see. Have a great evening! Buh-bye!" And I do leave them getting ready to go at the door. It's a separate entrance than our front door, and there's a gate between the daycare entrance and the rest of the playroom. I can close the gate behind the child and "trap" them in there with their parents (no more kids running all over my house to get away from parents at pick-up time!). They holler a goodbye when they're actually leaving, and I holler back 
But it REALLY cuts down on the chatting time.
Sometimes I can handle the chat, sometimes there's just no way ...
But it REALLY cuts down on the chatting time. Sometimes I can handle the chat, sometimes there's just no way ...
misol 11:43 AM 07-02-2010
Originally Posted by DBug:
There are LOTS of times when I really don't have the energy to muster up the peppiness, and I have SUCH a hard time keeping my mouth shut when parents let their kids determine how long it's going to take to get out the door. I have been known to pretend a happy scream from the baby is actually an unhappy scream -- "Oh no! I wonder what's wrong with the baby! I'd better go see. Have a great evening! Buh-bye!" And I do leave them getting ready to go at the door. It's a separate entrance than our front door, and there's a gate between the daycare entrance and the rest of the playroom. I can close the gate behind the child and "trap" them in there with their parents (no more kids running all over my house to get away from parents at pick-up time!). They holler a goodbye when they're actually leaving, and I holler back But it REALLY cuts down on the chatting time.
Sometimes I can handle the chat, sometimes there's just no way ...
DBug, I would give my right arm to have foyer, enclosed porch, gate or ANYTHING that separated the house from the actual door. There are LOTS of times when I really don't have the energy to muster up the peppiness, and I have SUCH a hard time keeping my mouth shut when parents let their kids determine how long it's going to take to get out the door. I have been known to pretend a happy scream from the baby is actually an unhappy scream -- "Oh no! I wonder what's wrong with the baby! I'd better go see. Have a great evening! Buh-bye!" And I do leave them getting ready to go at the door. It's a separate entrance than our front door, and there's a gate between the daycare entrance and the rest of the playroom. I can close the gate behind the child and "trap" them in there with their parents (no more kids running all over my house to get away from parents at pick-up time!). They holler a goodbye when they're actually leaving, and I holler back
But it REALLY cuts down on the chatting time. Sometimes I can handle the chat, sometimes there's just no way ...
DBug 10:09 AM 07-05-2010
Believe me, misol, it's been a Godsend! We were using the front (main) entrance, but I have a sliding door in the living room/playroom. I made coat cubbies out of 6 foot bookshelves, and arranged them facing the door to create an enclosed area that opens to the playroom with the gate. The parents have to walk around through the backyard to get to it. As a group, they were NOT very happy about having to change where they came in, but too bad for them, it's OUR house! It works so much better for us, for SO many reasons. You never know, maybe you could work out a similar solution!
MarinaVanessa 08:07 AM 07-06-2010
lol Just keep doing what you are doing. I have parents that are this way also and I just keep doing whatever it is I need to do. If I have nothing that needs to be done, I'll make something up. Like someone wants to get all chatty and I all-of-a-sudden remembered that we were going to some coloring this afternoon (well kids, I guess you're coloring today lol) and start digging through my DC closet and give a few "Uh-huh", "oooh"'s and an occasional "Hmm?". My favorite is the very quick and dismissive (right in the middle of a sentence) "Oh, hang on a sec" and then start digging for something under the sink or in a high cabinet and muttering a few "Where is it?". I don't know where it is because I'm not really looking for something but they seem to get frustrated and leave. Remember to do this with a bright and cheerful smile. I also enjoy doing paperwork with a smile on my face if they are chatting. Sometimes they laugh after telling me something and I don't say anything and pretend that I'm so engrossed in what I'm doing that I didn't hear what they said but I keep the smile on my face and kepp nodding my head as if I were pretending that I was paying attention when in fact I really am listening and only pretending that I'm not.
momma2girls 08:55 AM 07-06-2010
I had parents at one time walk right in with their shoes on my new carpet- until I put a stop to it. I even added it about 4 yrs. ago to my contract, and they still did it!!! I finally placed it in the newsletter, to remind them!!! We take our shoes off and teach daycare children the same. We have a brand new house, but even if we had an old house, I would still have them take their shoes off and respect my house and daycare!!!! THat made me so mad!!!
Lucy 12:25 PM 07-08-2010
Originally Posted by originalkat:
I FAKE IT during pick up and drop off times. I am not the buddy buddy type either. I also am not big on chit chat...but your parents should not pick up on this if you know what I mean. Put a smile on your face turn on your "phone voice". That is what I always do.
Well put. That's exactly what I do. I want nothing more for them to pick up and leave. However, I turn on the charm and try to tell a short cute story about their child's day. If they start to stay too long, I just move about the house doing busy work while they are still yapping away. I say "uh-huh" where necessary, but don't encourage more talking. Eventually they give up and leave. I agree that it reflects better on your daycare program if you seem "up" even at the end of a long day. If you are quiet and not smiling, they wonder at what point in the day you petered out and if their kids got a raw deal because you were wiped out.I FAKE IT during pick up and drop off times. I am not the buddy buddy type either. I also am not big on chit chat...but your parents should not pick up on this if you know what I mean. Put a smile on your face turn on your "phone voice". That is what I always do.
AmandasFCC 12:49 PM 07-08-2010
Hmmm .... I always try to put a positive spin on that ... I disagree that the parents are always trying to stall being alone with their kids. Sure, some will, but please don't put those words in all parents' mouths. I would try think of it as her being thoughtful of the fact that this IS an isolating job and she's trying to reach out to you. It's a thoughtful act.