Don’t feel awkward about letting them know they have shorted you in pay. I have a parent that twice now has rounded down her vacation week fee from $67.50 to $65 and I shamelessly reminded her it was supposed to be $67.50. While it was only a matter of a measly $2.50, the true and important matter was that I needed to enforce my prices as they were listed in my handbook. If I wrote it off as not worth mentioning to her then I am basically letting her run my business and things would just go downhill from there.

With the new year about to start, use this as your reasoning for changing the way you do things. Tell the parents that going forward for 2018 you’ll be doing childcare on a more structured basis. Put together a contract, even a simple one, that states your fees, your hours and rules for drop in care. And then stick to it like crazy. If they fail to pick up on time or fail to pay the correct amount or to pay on time, they’ll need to settle up, preferably with a penalty fee, before you continue providing care.

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