Help with First Term

[Unregistered]

I opening my daycare at the beginning of this year. I intending to have five spots (one being my own daughter), I filled the remaining four spots fairly quickly. First a family expecting a newborn, a sibling set and then one girl.

My daughter and the sibling set get along great, but the other little girl (not quite two) doesn't listen and is quite aggressive (she's quite the scratcher/pincher, has bit once, pulls hair). While I know these are both common for her age, she is not responding to any attempts to correct her behavior. I let mom know when she's had particularly bad days and have asked mom what techniques she uses at home and the mom responded that "Honestly, I know you can't do it here, but like if she bites me at home, I bite her back". She will climb on top of the tables and when I tell her "Feet on the floor", she will start dancing and smiling (Mom posted pictures of the girl standing on a table on Facebook recently, no wonder I can't get her to stop). I cannot take my eyes off of her for a second. She refuses to eat almost anything I feed her, but can find any paper there may be in the room and try to eat that. The infant started this last week and while I know there is going to be a big transition with a new baby, I'm beginning to think I bit off more than I can chew, especially in light of the issues I am having with this little girl. Today she walked up to the baby in the bouncer seat and scratched her face for no reason. I honestly feel that one of the other children is starting to not like coming here because of this little girl. I'd hate to lose another client because of this one. I know I need to term, if I had more time to dedicate to this girl, I think it could work, but with the ages I have, I just cannot keep up with her. Also, she really doesn't enjoy doing any of the activities the other kids do and don't really like going outside or getting the least bit dirty and I plan to spend most of our days outside now that the temps are starting to warm up. I just don't feel like she is a good fit.

I don't want to get into a big dramatic term with the mom so I don't want to make it all about her behavior (because while part of it is, it's just overall I don't think she is a good fit) but instead just let her know I want to reduce my group size at this time and she was the last to enroll (which honestly is true). I plan on leaving the spot open and maybe this summer look at enrolling another child closer to 2 1/2 or 3 once the infant is not demanding as much of my time. Any advice/wording examples?

[Shell]

That's all totally reasonable, and it sounds like you have a good handle on what size group you want, and what type of environment you like to offer families.

In the past, I have used the words you used here about biting off more than I can chew, or having taken on a little more than I can handle. It's a good way of saying, "it's me and not you" even when it is because of a child ::

I think it's also reasonable to downsize and term the last to enroll- that's fair to the other families as well.

How about, "Dcm, I have enjoyed working with your family and dcg. At this time, I would like to downsize the program and felt the only fair way to do so is to ask the last enrolled family to make new daycare arrangements.
At this time, I am feeling like although I am within state ratios, that I feel the quality of my program would improve with lower teacher to child ratios. I wish you the best of luck, blah blah...here's the # to resource and referral"

Or something like that.hth

[Unregistered]

That wording sounds great, thank you for your help! We'll see how it goes tonight...

[Shell]

I was hoping someone else would chime in with some advice so you could pick and choose what you wanted to say. But, I'm glad I could be of some help.
I really do feel you are being fair, so it shouldn't cause too many hard feelings.
They might suspect it's because of their daughters behavior, but you really are downsizing and it's going to make your job much more enjoyable!

[Controlled Chaos]

Shell - you just seemed to have it covered

I agree I like the "bit off more than I can chew" as it is all about you and not about her darling. No need to be dramatic, or make her feel bad. Hope you find a better fit this summer.

[RTG]

I'm having almost the same situation! I decided to tell the parents we are back on a probationary period to see if we could work it out. We came up with a game plan and we are going to give it two more weeks. I think the dcb has gross motor needs that weren't being filled, so we are going to gather some toys for him to push, pull and hit to see if that can fill some of his needs. I'm still not convinced that this is the right fit, but if we can't solve the problem, I'm going to take him part time (on the two days I have fewer kids) instead of the full time we had planned. My wording was, "DCB is a sweet boy and his actions can be typical at his age, but we are in a sticky situation because of danger to an infant. No one is getting what they need when they have to be separated all day and I have to divide my time between them."