Originally Posted by MarinaVanessa:
You don't have to charge a weekly rate until the child starts you can charge a flat fee. I know some providers that charge $50 flat fee no matter how long and others that charge $150. Some charge anywhere from $15 to $50 a week and some have a max cap (i.e. $20 a week but no more than $100). You can do what you like. These are all just suggestions from us that have that experience under our belt. Right now you are feeling nervous about how you say things but believe me after a few years you won't be so willing to tiptoe around a subject lol. The clearer and more specific your policy's are worded the less likely that you'll have misunderstandings. Afterall the last thing you want to have happen is that she says she wants the spot and you save it then she changes her mind and you lose out on the income that you could have had had you not saved the spot for her.
I agree with the policy thing MarinaVanessa said. It will be MUCH better to word things in your contract as specifically as you can. For example, to sound nicer I used the words, "we prefer that..." in a certain part of the policy. Later I realized that certain parents take those words to mean, "when convenient for YOU.." So now this part of the policy is often overlooked and ignored, and I can't say much because I didn't specify that they couldn't do it, just that we prefer that they don't. It's not that big of an issue I guess, but it drives me nuts sometimes. So don't worry about trying to sound "nice" and all that. In this business a lot of parents will turn everything you have in the contract around and work it in their favor if it is not absolutely clear, specific, and detailed from the beginning. Also, to avoid misunderstandings it will need to be. There have been times when I mentioned to a parent a part in the policy that I didn't feel they were following. When I mentioned it, they were so agreeable and acted like they would have from the beginning had they known that is what I meant in the policy. They had honestly understood something different from what I had written in it.