Originally Posted by Crystal:
I have a question. If you are so set against parents who do not spend all of their paid time off with their children, and they disgust you to the point of making a huge issue of it on an open forum, then why do you not terminate those families and enroll ONLY families with the same philosophy of care as you. It's pretty simple really. If you do not like the parent because they tend to be selfish, then why do you still work with them? Honestly, if I had families who took regular days off and always left their child with me, or took regular vacations without their child and their child NEVER got a family vacation, I would tell the parent how I felt and let the chips fall where they may. Of course, I don't have families like this and I can be very open, honest and forthcoming with my families when there is a REAL issue, I guess I have been very lucky, because I just don't have these types of issues.
Now, I am NOT saying that parents SHOULD spend their vacation time without their children....(I would never do that sort of thing, my kids have been on a minimum of three family vacations per year with me and my husband since they were very small, and they have seen many parts of our great country and me and hubby have been away for the weekend three times in 19 years without the kids.) BUT, as I have said before, these are not OUR children, and we don't live in their households to realize WHY parents may need that time away, (it could be many things, stress being one of them) so honestly, it's none of our business. Our business is to provide a quality, loving environment AWAY from the child's home and parent, not to mind the business of the parents or to be the parent.
I have a question. If you are so set against parents who do not spend all of their paid time off with their children, and they disgust you to the point of making a huge issue of it on an open forum, then why do you not terminate those families and enroll ONLY families with the same philosophy of care as you.
Here I'll answer it for you. I had a policy for about the first 14 years I did day care that I would not care for children when their parents weren't working. I interviewed each parent and they signed a contract saying they would not bring their kid if they weren't working.
They willingly signed it... parent after parent. Why? Because the vast majority of kids I took into my day care were newborns. When Mom is home with a baby for six weeks... eight weeks... twelve weeks.. they are still madly in love with their baby. They've had time when they didn't have to work and could devote their all to their kids. Most were upset at having to go back to work. They couldn't even IMAGINE having their kid in day care a minute longer than they HAD to.
They all cried on the first day... second day... sometimes for three or four days. After a few weeks in care their lives change. They are back in the real world and they see how much easier it is to not have their kid. They get back into the groove of having to work for someone and for the first time have to balance being a worker and a parent. It's way harder to do it then when you are home for the first few months... being able to nap... being able to get stuff done... being able to have family help... friends over... then BAM into the real world.
For the first few months they are pretty good about it. Then the kid starts to crawl. As soon as the kid is mobile everything changes. As soon as it's HARD to care for them... hard to get stuff done... hard to pull them in and out of a carseat...way less napping and when they get napping it's almost always cat napping.. WAY more awake time... THAT'S when the mindset starts to creep in that they will just do a little of this and a little of that before they pick the kid up. They will go to this appointment without the kid... cuz it's "better" for the kid if they just stay in their routine and not be disrupted.
Once the kid starts crawling and then walking you get a lot less offers of assistance. People who were all about helping you now have stuff to do. Now they know your kid staying with them is going to be work. If you have a kid who has to be held, walked, rocked in order to be happy you will have few offers to help you out.
So.. the out is day care. That's the one place you can take them and have time off. It starts with a little bit of running here and there and a few months later it's all day every day you have off. Instead of using an occasional time where the hours are extended either before or after day care... those occasional turn into EVERY day. Those odd hours are THE hours your kid is in care.
As the kid gets older it gets even harder. With the current discipline methods being so limited and ineffective you have parents who can't see to do anything but let the kid rule. The more the kid rules the less the parents like being around them.
Now... you can't see this when you are interviewing a Mom with a few weeks of parenting under her belt. You can't determine their "philosophy" because what they know about caring for their kid is SO limited and NOT based on hard. They have all sorts of ideas about how they will do this and they wouldn't even CONSIDER having the kid away from them if they didn't HAVE to but the truth is the parent they see when they look in the mirror when they are newbie parent RARELY reflects the parent they will see a year from now.
You can tell a LOT more about parents when they have some time under their belts. I don't take kids this age anymore as all my kids come in as newborns/infants. I quit offering slots to older kids because I couldn't find older kids who didn't come to me with a huge host of behavior problems. The parenting philosophy I see is for the most part not good. Now and then a good one would come along but you have a LOT better chance of integrating a baby into your care regardless of the parents "philosophy" because you have them young and without a ton of bad habits.
I think you are doing a HUGE disservice to providers to suggest you have some formula, experience, draw, or judgment that can weed out parents who shun their kids when they are off of work. I don't believe it. I don't believe it one bit. I know from your writings that it's not true. I think you have decided that it's okay for them to do it because you KNOW you can't stay in business if you don't allow it.
I'm right there with ya on that. I had the policy for 14 years that I didn't allow kids in day care if the parent wasn't working and all I got was 14 years of deceit. I had some that abided by it I think.. but I can never really know. I finally gave up on it and don't even bring it up now. I can find parents that pay on time... pick up on time.. drop off on time.. send their kids in clean clothes... feed healthy food at home... give me a whopping big fat bonus and a nice weekly check... but I can't find a full GROUP of parents who keep their kids home when they are off of work. I gave it the hardest try a provider could in the first fourteen years I did day care and I finally surrendered. I finally came to the conclusion that there is NO market for day care where you keep your kid in day care only when you NEED it to go to work especially if the price is the same whether you use it or not.
That's what you do too... you just call it something else. You call it picking the right parents I call it business survival.