Decisions For Myself vs Too Rigid?

[EchoMom]

Ok I admit when I started my home daycare 8 months ago I was desperate and didn't know what I was doing. But over this time it's grown and grown into a much more professional business venture for me. Now I am working to make my job better for myself by implementing some of the things I've learned from veterans here.

I'm trying to enforce late fees, stick to boundaries, etc. But how do I know if I'm just being to idealistic and going to put myself out of business by being inflexible???

For example, when I started I was desperate and would have considered any hours just to get some income and get started. But now, I want to trim down my hours a bit to be more manageable.

I want to change my day of 7a-6p to only 7:30-5:30p. I want to give myself a week of vacation. I want to specifically say that I get paid holidays (so far all my clients just have paid me for holidays but I've gotten lucky they're nice because it's not in the contract).

But if I do all these things, what if I end up with no customers???

[bluemoose_mom]

You'll get them. Seems like most of us have a lot of these policies, and we get customers. I know it's hard, I've only been open for 5 months, so I know the fear of failure well.

I have a two week unpaid vacation, but parents pay me half for their two week vacation. If I wanted my vacation paid for, I would include that. However, for various legit reasons, I am at the top of my price range for my area, so I feel this is fair.

I have all federal holidays off and paid, plus Christmas Eve and the day before Thanksgiving.

I am open from 7:00am to 6:00pm (I would love to close at 5:30 but we live in a town of 1600, and most people commute 30-40 minutes away). I do have late fees, and have enforced them.

I am considering adding in personal/sick paid days off. Or unpaid half day every month for appts and such. I can't decide which way to go. However, I will decide and will implement.

Don't be afraid of being too rigid. You want parents who understand. If they don't understand or respect your policies, then it is not worth your time to do business with them.

[Happy Hearts]

I hear you... I'm afraid of the same things and I'm just starting out too. I do listen to the veterans who post on here though, to save myself all the aggravation of how being too lenient can cause a lot of problems. Every area is different and I'm afraid that my policies may be too rigid for what people here are used to.
I have only written policies that I am prepared to follow through on. But, when push came to shove today, I questioned myself on the paid stat days. However, I stood strong and probably won't get the gig.
Personally, I see nothing wrong with you taking a week's holidays. You need it to prevent burn out. And, I also see nothing wrong with changing your open times. I used to have my times posted on my website, but now I don't post any times. When people call, I ask them what times they require, then I decide whether it's too early of a drop off or too late of a pick up and decline if they are.
Good luck!

[MarinaVanessa]

If you are afraid to make this many changes all at once start with 1 or 2 changes now and then add another change in a few months for your current clients.

Write up a new contract and handbook with ALL of the changes you want and give these to any new clients you may get. Over the year you'll eventually have all of the changes you want and everyone will be on board. That's one way you could do it.

[rhymia1]

I don't think there is anything wrong with making changes as you go along. In eight years I've made changes as necessary. I've never had anyone quit.

[Crazy8]

One thing I noticed with me when I started reading here (and I found this board about 9 years after starting my daycare) was I started to get a little bit of an "attitude". Not a backbone, because I think I've always had one of those, LOL, but I started to get a chip on my shoulder - its hard to explain, but it really came from reading posts here about all the issues people have, the policies, etc. Everyone says "term them" or get a backbone or don't do special. Personally I've always thought people come to me BECAUSE I do more special than a daycare center. They get much more personalized/individual attention by coming to a home daycare - that's kind of the point! You don't want to get walked on and you need to enforce policies but it doesn't sound like you have any major issues either, right? I would slowly implement changes. I keep a running "new" contract - anything I come across that I think will work for me gets added but that only goes to new clients and then current clients only once there are major changes, like every 1-2 years. Over 11 years you'd be surprised at the things I've added just because they came up once, LOL!

I wouldn't make any drastic changes to your daycare after just a few months in the business, you could lose the clients who signed with you because of certain things you did. In regards to hours, it took me years to drop from 5:30 to 5pm for a closing time. I just no longer took people who needed those hours but kept it for the ones who did until they aged out. If people are just taking advantage of your open to close hours I would cut them, but not if you really have clients working till 5:30 and can't get to you until 6pm unless you are prepared to lose them.

Everyone does things differently - there is no right/wrong, its really just a what works for you thing. Good luck!!

[rhymia1]

One thing I noticed with me when I started reading here (and I found this board about 9 years after starting my daycare) was I started to get a little bit of an "attitude". Not a backbone, because I think I've always had one of those, LOL, but I started to get a chip on my shoulder - its hard to explain, but it really came from reading posts here about all the issues people have, the policies, etc. Everyone says "term them" or get a backbone or don't do special. Personally I've always thought people come to me BECAUSE I do more special than a daycare center. They get much more personalized/individual attention by coming to a home daycare - that's kind of the point! You don't want to get walked on and you need to enforce policies but it doesn't sound like you have any major issues either, right? I would slowly implement changes. I keep a running "new" contract - anything I come across that I think will work for me gets added but that only goes to new clients and then current clients only once there are major changes, like every 1-2 years. Over 11 years you'd be surprised at the things I've added just because they came up once, LOL!

I wouldn't make any drastic changes to your daycare after just a few months in the business, you could lose the clients who signed with you because of certain things you did. In regards to hours, it took me years to drop from 5:30 to 5pm for a closing time. I just no longer took people who needed those hours but kept it for the ones who did until they aged out. If people are just taking advantage of your open to close hours I would cut them, but not if you really have clients working till 5:30 and can't get to you until 6pm unless you are prepared to lose them.

Everyone does things differently - there is no right/wrong, its really just a what works for you thing. Good luck!!

I agree! I had to unlike a FB page for providers because I found myself getting "high and mighty" ::