Whats Your Policy For Closing, Days Off, Vacation Rate Etc..??

[melilley]

I used to give five free days. I read here where someone's policy is 5 free days if child attends five days a week, four free if they attend four days, three free if they attend three days, etc. I think this is a great idea and I would not have thought of it. So that's what I do now. At some point I'm getting rid of free days all together.

I live in a low income and rural county. I'm sure centers in urban areas charge whether kids attend or not. One area center (not a family child care center) gives families two weeks off! That's crazy!

I don't charge for holidays, sick days or my vacations or days off. I feel I'm self employed and need to budget in for that. If I owned a floral shop and closed for a holiday or had to have someone work because I was sick I'd bring in less $$$.

I am a professional in every sense of the word. I have a B.A. Early childhood/elementary Ed. I've taught preschool and kindergarten, etc., and years of experience in the early childhood field.

That said I do understand the advice to not undersell yourself and to take care of
the business side of your child care service.

I charge on the upper end for my area and I won't work for less. I wil never allow a family to attend if they are not up-to-date with payments, I charge a small extra fee for preschool activities,
I won't take more than one infant and one toddler, as personally i can't deal with more (the rest are preschool age), etc.

I have a large policy parent handbook and go over carefully before parents enroll.

I hire someone to come in twice a week for few hours so I can go out to eat with a friend, go down to the local coffe shop and chill out, etc.

Those are just a few ways I take care of myself and my business.

If you don't mind me asking, I see that you hired someone to come in twice a week, how did you find that person? I have thought of doing that, but wasn't sure if anyone would actually only come in a couple days a week. Also, I wouldn't even know what to pay them.

[Crystal]

Because the one mom I had could NOT afford to take any time off. She had her baby on Thursday night and went back to work on Monday. She had no time off accumulated. The FMLA allows people who can afford it to take time off without fear of losing their jobs.

I know that the general consenses says that women should be able to stay home for 6 weeks, but I don't think there is a law saying that they have to or that they should. The daycare mom I am talking about had her doctor sign off that she could go back so it wasn't up to her employer.



Your comments have a lot of value...you just need to word them as your own situation or your own experiences. I commented because you posted using the words "ALL" and "our" as if you were speaking for everyone.

To be fair, she said "alot of our parents" She WAS speaking of her own experiences.

Your part of the country isn't messed up....just different than mine. Yours might be the same as a million other places, but not the same as some others.



Yes, this will always be a debatable topic because everyone is different. I only responded to your post because of your wording. You said "ALL our parents" as if you were speaking for everyone, so I wanted to clarify that I was not in that category.

Again, she said "alot of our parents" I haven't seen where she said "all of our parents"

I was speaking from MY perspective and not saying anything about anyone else's situation....that was really what I was getting at.

I think she was as well.

The heated discussions and debates stem from blanket statements...which several providers pointed out.

Your second paragraph, where you speak from your personal perspective is not at all disagreeable as you are speaking from YOUR experiences.

That leaves little room for deabte or rebuttal.

I am having a hard time understanding WHY this is so debatable. What is the big deal? Som,e charge, some don't, everyone does what works best for them and their own families as well as their daycare families. Why is everyone taking things so personally? :confused:

[Country Kids]

Oh my goodness=I couldn't really understand why my wording was causing an uproar and I have figured it out.

I wasn't even talking about childcare parents. I was talking about parents in the U.S., not childcare!

I was actually commenting to littlemissmuffet and the whole U.S. holiday thing she was talking about. So my comments were more in general about parents across the nation.

[Just to clarify I did say "alot" not "all"