This is what I have in my policies:
Originally Posted by :
Late Arrivals
All clients must adhere to their scheduled drop-offs. The childcare provider must be notified if a child will arrive more than 15 minutes past their scheduled arrival time. If a child is more than 15 minutes late without notice it can be assumed that the child will not be present and the child’s spot may be filled and no credit will be given for the missed day.
Clients with scheduled arrival times of 7:30 a.m. or earlier are required to give notice no later than 7:00 p.m. on the previous business day if their child will arrive later than their scheduled arrival time. Many times clients with these early arrival times are the day’s first arrivals and the childcare provider wakes up according to the client’s arrival times. Advanced notice allows the childcare provider to plan a later start for the day.
Late arrivals don’t allow for late pick-ups. If a client arrives later than their scheduled arrival time they are still required to pick-up at their normal scheduled pick-up time.
It sounds a lot like what you already do. In this situation I would text, email or call (depending on what your way of communicating with clients is) and remind them of the policies by saying something like ...
"Hi Susan. So you are XX minutes late to drop off this morning and since I did not receive a phone call from you to notify me of this like we discussed and like it was stated in the notice that I gave you on [day of the week] I am assuming that you are not coming today. It's ok that you are not coming because I have another cancellation today so I went ahead and made plans to help out my parents since I will have no children scheduled to day until [when the next child will arrive]. Please let me know next time in advance when you will not be coming so that I don't wait for you to arrive .... Oh, you are just running late? Well since you didn't call me like my policies say to and like we discussed I'm already heading out the door and just wanted to call you to remind you of the policies before I headed out...." etc.
So far what you are doing now is not really an inconvenience for them so it's not a big issue for them. If they are just running late and didn't call try closing (or telling them that you are closing) which will create an issue and an inconvenience for them. Whether or not you decide to actually close or not is up to you. Be prepared for them to call your bluff or for them to decide to find child care elsewhere however.