Hi. I own a home based daycare centre in South Africa. I am having to deal with an extremely difficult and over protective single mother. Her youngest child stays with me all day and her middle daughter comes to me after school. For the most part the children are very well behaved except the youngest constantly farts in company and says cuss words often. The mother believes that the farting is okay as long as she apologises. That is not in line with my policies of acceptable behaviour. She also refuses to believe that her child is able to say any cusswords at the age off 5. I have to contact her each and every time i want to put the child in time out and then she wants control of how long or even if the child gets time out. Her middle daughter acts as a spie for her for everything i do here and she 'puts me in my place', as she states it every time her daughters say i did something. She peppers them with questions every evening and then confronts me. She treats me like one of her children and she is looking to cause trouble. It has become such a stressfull situation that i dont feel like i want to teach her child anymore. I am however desperate for the money she brings in. I have also allowed her to negotiate my fees which i deeply regret and will never do again. Do you have any advice on how to deal with a person like her? None of the other centres want to take her on because of her behaviour. To be honest, I am afraid of her, because of this and because she is older than my mum and I was raised to respect my elders to the extent of groveling for forgiveness. I am sick of it. Please help!

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