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preschoolteacher 10:44 AM 09-05-2013
I think it really sounds like you need to have a family meeting with your teens and ask them why (specifically) they dislike having the daycare at your house. If they can be specific--"I hate having kids here all the time" or "You can never drive me anywhere after school" or "I can't hang out here with my friends"--then you can try to address those problems.

How is your relationship with your teens like otherwise?

It may help if you explain how your daycare is a business and how you are making money doing this. Make a chart that shows them things like the monthly mortgage, monthly cable bill, electrical bill, monthly food... and so on. Show them how much you make doing daycare. Tell them how much you would make working in a center (probably much less). They are old enough to understand this concept.

Can you separate your daycare space more from the rest of your house? Could you dedicate one room to daycare instead of having it spread out a little bit through multiple rooms?

Another thought--maybe you could enroll fewer children ON THE CONDITION that your teens get part-time jobs and contribute a set amount of money to the household expenses to cover the money you would have made enrolling those kids. I doubt any teen would jump at this! But you could always say when they complain about the daycare that they have the option of pitching in and you can enroll fewer kids...

As for the broken/missing art supplies, I would lock them up. You probably can't lock up toys, but putting a padlock on the art cabinet would solve that problem. I would explain exactly why I am doing this.

For keeping the house clean and in order... I think that has to be mostly your job. I wouldn't ask them to help you keep the house up to code, unless you are paying them for it as a daycare employee. If they are directly sabotaging your efforts, however, I'd come up with some serious consequences. Can you give examples of what they are doing?
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