reading your post reminds me of me in the past, pre-backbone.

I would decline the meeting with all 4, your husband does not run this company you do.

I would sit them down and tell them, this is the services i provide
example:

ABC daycare operates monday through friday from 8am to 530pm daily. Your child may attend during these hours.

I would not even offer additional hours before or after that time set for additional fees.

In order to operate my business successfully, the following must occur:

Again fill in whatever your policy is.

example. all spots are paid in full regardless of attendance or not.

To me it sounds like there may have been some switching around of your normal business practices and the parents are not used to you doing that? I do see that it is hard for parents to accept change, especially if they don't understand why it is happening. Of course, you reserve the right to change what you want when you see fit, however, change is not always taken well from my experience.

NO, you don't need to explain yourself every time, you can use generic words like, sorry that is not a service we provide, or if you really want to you can give a very brief reason why.

The one thing that you have to tell yourself is that you cant possibly make every parent in this business happy. SOme will get mad, some will cry, some will just be jerks. BUT you have to do what you have to do for you.

It sounds like this family holds you to a high regard based off of how emotional they are about this situation, sounds like they really care about you and are worried about losing that relationship with you.

They are acting quite childish, but just like most people when they feel they are losing something and their emotions are involved, they act like this.

With a lot of help from the ladies here, I have really mastered finding words to use that are some what generic, but 100% emotionless.

Like- a parent asking me the night before, can I drop my child off at 5am, instead of 8am?

Wow thats early, sorry that is not something I can arrange for you. THen just zip the lip.

Then practice practice practice building your backbone.

one of my favs when parents ask me.... Let me get back to you on that. Then I normally shoot them an an email and give them my answer. This gives me time to think about it and lets them know that I am not saying yes, there is a possibility I will say no.

Hugs to you for going through this. If you really think that your relationship with this family is at the point of no return, I would gently let them go.

If you decide to let them go, then I know ladies here, including myself would help you with a term letter...

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