My little guy has been sick with croup since Monday so I've been splitting my time between looking after him upstairs and helping my assistant with dck's downstairs. It's been a pretty stressful week for my assistant so I've been finding an extra assistant to come in and sub for the busy times of day. Today, my assistant recommended a guy friend of hers that she works with. Both myself and my assistant are present in the house at all times! Dcm arrives at 10.30 to remove her daughter from care and then sends this email:
"I wanted to take a quick moment and just let you know my thoughts on today's substitute situation. Unfortunately, I felt/feel very uncomfortable leaving DCG with someone who we do not know anything about--even if that person is a third person stand-in working alongside you and Assistant. Having more of his background information (maybe in an early morning email) would have helped my fears-is he CPR certified, who are his references(for your consideration is fine), does he have a resume to share, where do he and Assistant work together? Even though I wish I didn't, I feel even more uncomfortable with a male substitute caretaker who we do not know. I would have spoken with you about this, but there's not exactly a time/place for private parent-teacher conferences, so I thought I would address here as soon as possible.
We didn't know what to do this morning when we got this news as it was very disconcerting, but I was totally unprepared to work from home so I had to rush downtown at 8:30 to gather my office things."
It goes on longer but you get the idea!
I'm so frustrated! I could have just closed for the day and left all my parents in the lurch. Or I could have my assistant work alone as I'm within my ratio to do so but I wanted her to have help and wanted the kids to be well cared for. This comes at extra expense that I don't need to spend so when a parent complains its hard to take.
I understand her fears but she dropped her child off to me, not a complete stranger and my assistant has been with me longer than her child has!
I needed to vent here before responding as I don't want to reply with something rash.
This family are always the first to question and complian about everything and I'm annoyed that they don't trust me to make good decisions regarding the care of their child.
Vent over! Thanks for listening
