Pardon me if this topic has already been covered as I'm new here. If it has if someone wants to direct me to it, I'll gladly check it out. I have an in-home family daycare (licensed for 6). My question is, how does everyone handle their drop offs and pick ups. The door that my families go through is through my garage into my back room. It's a very small room that they walk into in the house. My problem is, I would like to just answer the door, have them step in, say good morning, note anything out of the ordinary and then have the parent leave pretty quickly. The problem is, they stand there and talk and then the child thinks they are staying and they get upset when the parent leaves. Not all of the children, but a couple. In my interview process I do tell the parent that I like to keep it short at drop off because I find that it's easier on the child and also I do have other children there that need my attention so I dont' like to stand there and talk for long. I have one particular child that is 17 months old and what typically happens is that the baby starts crying so mom picks him up, then he's fine so she puts him down and he starts crying again. I try to explain that he's fine as soon as she leaves and take him from her. It doesn't help when she prolongs it. Also at night time when they get picked up, they think it's time to talk and talk and the kids run around. I usually have the kids all packed up and ready to go too. I have 2 kids and most times need to get going. I don't have time to talk for long. Unless of course it's something important about the day. I don't mean to be harsh. I do get alot of questions about what the kids ate for the day, so I think I'm going to get a whiteboard and write the menu on that every day. Does anyone do that and should I post it inside my door or outside? Thanks!

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Unfortunately you are probably just going to have to move things along yourself.

When you have the parent of the 17 month old come in (or anyone for that matter..just using that one as an example) take the child from the parent and say "Thanks mom. We'll see you after work" and then walk away from them. (Even if you have nothing else to do...go stand in the corner or something...anything just to be busy...LOL )

If child fusses, BEFORE mom has a hance to pick him up, grab him and say "Oh don't worry mom, we'll take good care of him. We will call you if we need you" and walk away.

During pick ups, hand the child back or walk them to their parent and say "Hi mom, Jill had a great day! I'd love to stay and chat but I have a ton of other things to attend to." Then walk away.

When YOU start setting the presedence, the parents will follow. If they want to discuss something in length, simply say "I would love to get into detail about this but I have other kids to tend to so I will call you later so we can talk uninterupted."

Pretty soon, they all get it and DO/PU are easy peasy.

The biggest thing is to do all this with a friendly face and a welcoming smile so no one ever mistakes your shortness for rudeness.

I totally understand where you are coming from so I understand the importance of interaction with the parents but if I gave every parent even 10 minutes at BOTH DO and PU, I 'd have spent about 3 hours just chatting and I don't have 3 spare hours...

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Thank you, I appreciate your comment. During the interview process I actually tell them that my son was in daycare for 3 years of his life and my daycare provider had a garage converted to a playroom. You would walk through that room and then knock on her actual house door. She would take my son right from there and we never went into her actual house. I would tell the family that I thought that was kinda rude at the time until I started doing daycare, now I totally understand it and I dont' want to seem rude, but it is easiest if we make it brief. Some listen to this and some don't LOL!

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