Maria has kindly suggested this post.
She told me that in Norway, early years settings run on a 3 strike policy: if a parent is late for the above 3 times, they get a £ 20 fine ( she also said that Norwegian’s tend to follow the rules!).
When I was a registered child minder I worked with one parent who was always late in paying me when there was a bank holiday in the week; she used the excuse that because she wasn’t English she didn’t know when the bank holidays were and would forget her cheque book ( I never really understood her excuse, as I charged for a bank holiday anyway more here
I eventually solved this problem by adding a 10% late payment fee to my contracts ( funny how she never forgot her cheque book again after that) .
More on keeping to contracts here
Another issue that I had were parents who didn’t arrive to collect their children on time.
O course I understand that sometimes being stuck in traffic or having a problem at work may cause lateness, but sending a message to inform me would have been the polite thing to do.
I learnt to explain how important sticking to contract times were to parents at the first interview
More on that here
I must stress that the photos used in this post have no connection with the parents or children mentioned!.
Please share any of your thoughts and experiences on this subject with me by leaving a comment.
As always questions and comments are welcome,
Until next time.
Karen
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Linked with
This all sounds comepleteyfair to me
Thanks Pearl
This sounds reasonable to me x #mischeieveandmemories
Thanks,Sam
Both of these things sound perfectly reasonable to me. You have your own bills that need to be paid on time and have a life after the children are gone. Obviously things happen sometimes but if something is becoming a bad habit it needs to be addressed #anythinggoes
Absolutely, Jeremy, thanks for sharing your thoughts
I think that’s completely reasonable and fair too. It’s different when it’s a one off because something has happened. But it’s a good way to deter parents who do this all the time. Thank you for joining us for #mischiefandmemories x
As always, thanks for having me as a part of the linky, Annette and for your comments
I think it is perfectly reasonable to add a late fee. I work in a school and there are some families that are always late, I feel so sorry for the children who are left behind each day. There are after school club options if you know that pick up time is problematic! Thanks for linking up with #MischiefAndMemories
Whrn I was child minding, I had an emergency placement from school because a parent never turned up after the after school club and social services contacted me, Laura