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New Members - Welcome to the Daycare.com Forum!>Difficult Parent
renepietersen 09:48 PM 02-10-2019
Hi. I own a home based daycare centre in South Africa. I am having to deal with an extremely difficult and over protective single mother. Her youngest child stays with me all day and her middle daughter comes to me after school. For the most part the children are very well behaved except the youngest constantly farts in company and says cuss words often. The mother believes that the farting is okay as long as she apologises. That is not in line with my policies of acceptable behaviour. She also refuses to believe that her child is able to say any cusswords at the age off 5. I have to contact her each and every time i want to put the child in time out and then she wants control of how long or even if the child gets time out. Her middle daughter acts as a spie for her for everything i do here and she 'puts me in my place', as she states it every time her daughters say i did something. She peppers them with questions every evening and then confronts me. She treats me like one of her children and she is looking to cause trouble. It has become such a stressfull situation that i dont feel like i want to teach her child anymore. I am however desperate for the money she brings in. I have also allowed her to negotiate my fees which i deeply regret and will never do again. Do you have any advice on how to deal with a person like her? None of the other centres want to take her on because of her behaviour. To be honest, I am afraid of her, because of this and because she is older than my mum and I was raised to respect my elders to the extent of groveling for forgiveness. I am sick of it. Please help!
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Rockgirl 06:09 AM 02-11-2019
If you want the situation to improve (and it sounds like you do), you have two choices:

1) Stand up to this dcm. You are a business owner—not her employee. Spell out exactly what you expect, and stop letting her dictate your policies. And definitely address the issue of her older daughter being her spy! Expect push-back from dcm, and know that she may pull her children.


2) Terminate your child care arrangement with this family.

The fact that no other daycare wants this family is none of your concern. Let dcm be the one to worry about that. Good luck! Please keep us posted on what happens.
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Meeko 06:22 AM 02-12-2019
This WILL continue and probably get worse unless you stand up for yourself and your business.

She is NOT your employer and needs to be told so. She is not in charge in YOUR home.

In order to be successful, you must take control of your business and demand the respect you deserve. It's not always easy, but it does get easier as time goes by.

I understand you need the money she brings in, but it's not worth your sanity. Either stand up to her or let her go. You may be eating rice until you fill the spots, but I would prefer that to being bullied on a daily basis.
New clients will give you MORE money and LESS drama.

Good luck and I hope you sort it all out. We're all in your corner! As you stand up to her...think of us all standing waving our pom-poms and cheering you on!!
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Tags:backbone, difficult parent, enforcing policies - consistency, narcissistic mother, professionalism
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