How Flexible Are You?

[youretooloud]

I'm extremely flexible, but i'm not making a breakfast for every kid when they walk through the door. I make one meal...if they are here.. peachy...if not, we are going to eat again in a few hours...they won't perish.

What she really means by YOU being flexible, is "I can't get anything done, so I need you to pick up my slack... at the drop of a hat... sometimes maybe they'll eat before we show up.. sometimes not.. I have no idea, I just want to breeze in here and let you know if you should prepare another meal or not" She wants options.

[MarinaVanessa]

Ha ha, I would have agreed with the mom and said "Oh I know exactly what you're talking about, I'd never be able to work with a late starter or someone with no structure. Good luck with your search."

[kendallina]

I consider myself flexible and parent friendly about many things, but I would not be flexible about this. You have a schedule to abide by and if she cannot get her child there early enough, then no breakfast for them. I would have ended the interview there with a, "you're right, it looks like this just won't work out".

[daycare]

I consider myself flexible and parent friendly about many things, but I would not be flexible about this. You have a schedule to abide by and if she cannot get her child there early enough, then no breakfast for them. I would have ended the interview there with a, "you're right, it looks like this just won't work out".

that was the end of the interview... She stood up, grabbed her kid (btw he destroyed my DCR) and left...

i got left with me itching my head going WOW again..... and a huge mess to clean up...

[Unregistered]

that was the end of the interview... She stood up, grabbed her kid (btw he destroyed my DCR) and left...

i got left with me itching my head going WOW again..... and a huge mess to clean up...

When I have an interview, I show the parents around and then we come back to the school room and I say TO PARENT "Children are not allowed to take anything off the shelves in this room" the only person allowed to remove things are Miss ******.

This always tells me if parents will be a good fit.

I get some blocks, cars & people for the child to play with. Then I have Mom or Mom & Dad to sit beside the child. Then we start talking and going over handbook.

If child gets up, I wait about 10 seconds to SEE what parent(s) do. If child walks and goes to get something I ask parents if they heard me on the school room rule?

If childs get something down, interview is ended, I walk parents to the door.

But if the parents tell the child "NO" this lets me know they will be pretty good parents. This also lets me see how the child reacts to parents.

[MyAngels]

In case anybody would want to be flexible in this situation and are on the food program - I believe you can claim meals in shifts if you have kids arriving and departing on different schedules. I wouldn't do it, but if you really wanted to you could.

[Solandia]

I am not on the food program anymore, but no....mealtimes are set, because instead of having fun with the kids, my entire morning would be watching kids eat & then cleaning up the mess....yelling at the already fed kids to stop stealing the kid's food.

All the kids have to be at the table eating...it isn't like you can hear a child choking on his food from around the corner. It IS a safety issue, not flexibility issue. So I would have to have the earlier kids sitting at the table, watching the new kid eat his breakfast. Yeah...right.

How would this mom like it if her kid had to sit at the kitchen and watch another child got to eat his breakfast at 9:30am?....oh wait, the suggestion would be that he could just have another breakfast! Perfect....not!

[Unregistered]

I would stop the breakfast thing altogether

My life is much easier since I stopped serving breakfast. In my policy I explain that due to the various drop-off times, I don't do that.
The parents should have their kids fed before they leave the house, so you should be thankful she didn't want to come. You probably would have ended up terming her, and someone that nasty would have been walked out pretty fast.

When I interview its usually apx 20 min. and if I know it won't work before that, I tell them I have to get ready for my next interview.

[MissAnn]

SO last night I had an interview with a family of a 2 year old boy. The family seemed ok, I was not 100% sold on them at first, but was following through with the questions they had.
I explained to the mom how I run my daycare, talk about schedules, rules, policies, and food program. I also explain to her that I work on contracted hours and went into detail about the food program, as she seemed to have many questions about it. I explained to her that in order to participate in the food program I must abide by set meal times and all rules set forth by the food program.

I only serve breakfast from 8-8:30am and require that if they arrive after 8:30am that they are fed at home. Well the mom wants to bring her child at 8:45-9:00am does not like this time for breakfast for her child and tells me I just don’t understand why you can’t be more flexible with breakfast times???? I then try to explain that I have to abide by the set times of the food program and I also need to stay on schedule so that I can start my preschool class on time. She throws her arms up in the air and says well I guess this isn’t going to work. I could never work with someone that offers no flexibility. HUH?

How flexible are you?
would you have offered anything different that I didnt?

I just let this family walk, as I did not get good vibes from the start, but I was just wondering to myself, what if I did like the famiy, were there other options that I could have given??

I am not even as flexible as you are about breakfast times. If kid is not here at 8:00, they do not get breakfast. We eat at 8:00. I cannot supervise with focused attention on eating children and supervise after eating hadwashing and playing at the same time. If you come in at 8:10, your child needs to be already fed.

[daycare]

I am not on the food program anymore, but no....mealtimes are set, because instead of having fun with the kids, my entire morning would be watching kids eat & then cleaning up the mess....yelling at the already fed kids to stop stealing the kid's food.

All the kids have to be at the table eating...it isn't like you can hear a child choking on his food from around the corner. It IS a safety issue, not flexibility issue. So I would have to have the earlier kids sitting at the table, watching the new kid eat his breakfast. Yeah...right.

How would this mom like it if her kid had to sit at the kitchen and watch another child got to eat his breakfast at 9:30am?....oh wait, the suggestion would be that he could just have another breakfast! Perfect....not!

I did explain that to the mom as well.
I told her that I must meet the needs of the children as a group. I can't help a choking child if I'm in the next room telling little Bobby to stop throwing toys, because little Bobby thinks I'm Still monitoring breakfast time so he try's to break all the rules.

I also told her that if I have kids sitting and some playing then the kids eating will not want to eat so they can go play.

Basically anything I said was not going to work, so I just said NO. That seemed to end it really quick. Lol.

Oh and she just called back asking me if I would be willing to allow the child to come at 8 instead and leave at 1. I said no, sorry those hours don't work for me. She hung up on me... Lol

[2ndFamilyDC]

I am not even as flexible as you are about breakfast times. If kid is not here at 8:00, they do not get breakfast. We eat at 8:00. I cannot supervise with focused attention on eating children and supervise after eating hadwashing and playing at the same time. If you come in at 8:10, your child needs to be already fed.

I completely agree.

Really dislike a parent dropping off at 8:10 and saying to me "he needs to eat breakfast" I make enough for the kids that are there.

But on the other hand when I prepare food for 5 kids and then only 4 show up because someone is running late, that annoys me too.

Breakfast time just plain annoys me................I only serve it because the
food program pays better for breakfast then they do for snacks.

[Zoe]

Breakfast time just plain annoys me................I only serve it because the
food program pays better for breakfast then they do for snacks. [/QUOTE]

Amen!!!

[kendallina]

that was the end of the interview... She stood up, grabbed her kid (btw he destroyed my DCR) and left...

i got left with me itching my head going WOW again..... and a huge mess to clean up...

Good for you! Just imagine what other requests she would have had down the road...

And... ugh about the kid's mess!