Originally Posted by maelb05:
I have a combination of teacher families and non teacher families. We are in the Midwest, so schools were closed yesterday for snow and today and Wednesday for cold. Possibly will be closed Thursday for cold as well.
So far, all my teacher family kids have been in my care yesterday and today. I don't know why, but I was naïve enough to think that these families would keep their children home with them on the extreme cold days. I get that some parents are not the type that do well with having their children with them on a full time basis. I even understand taking days to themselves once in awhile. However, it does make me really have to wonder about their priorities and if they even think about the overall safety of their children, when parents are willing to bring their infants/young children out in dangerously low temps and windchills, just so they can have these days to themselves. 
Maybe I need to switch to only taking teacher families so that I can follow the school year schedule and snow/cold days off. Because I do have other families that still need to go to work on snow/cold days, I don't feel like I can justify telling the teacher families they can't bring their kids, even though they don't NEED their children to be in care. I guess I just needed to vent!
Best way to deal with this is to change your mindset or your policies... depending.
99% of parents WILL bring their child(ren) if you are open and available and if they pay based on enrollment not attendance.
If that isn't acceptable or isn't something you can deal with, change your policies to say that if they are not at work, they may not bring their kids to care.
Each of those options comes with issues too so which option you go with is totally up to you but in my honest opinion simply accepting that parents that paid for your services WILL use your services if you are open helps alot.
Trying to accept or come to terms with what you thought parents would do/not do (keep them home) or whether or not they value time with their kid or not will just drive you insane.
If you're open; they WILL come.
