I Messed up and Feel Terrible!

[Unregistered]

My family (kids and husband) have been sick off and on since Christmas. This week I have had one or more of them home sick each day. Today, my husband and one child are home. My husband usually drives our oldest to school each morning. Our oldest was feeling well enough to go to school, and since my husband is home sick, I drove him to school. The daycare kids I have scheduled today weren't due to come until 8am and knew I would be back no later than 7:40.
The problem: one parent asked yesterday if she could bring her child early today (7:20) and I agreed to it, but it totally slipped my mind this morning with all the chaos! I felt awful as I caused her to be late to work. I apologized and told her I would not charge her for the day because of the trouble I caused. 😩 What would you do in this situation? This has never happened to me before! I know there are no excuses, but it has been a terribly stressful week for me with all the sickness in my house.

[lovemydaycare0912]

I think you did a great gesture by refunding the day and apologizing. We are human too. Mistakes happen

[rosieteddy]

You did over and above.I would have apologized and not charged for the early drop off.I would not have refunded the day.You are nice to offer that.It will be interesting to see if she still pays you.Does her job dock her pay for lateness ,I bet not.Don;t beat yourself up.

[HappyEverAfter]

Simple mistake. Happens to all of us. The best you can do is apologize and that was very kind of you to not charge her for today.

[Unregistered]

She is a teacher. She will be going on maternity leave later this month and she was part of a team interviewing someone this morning to fill her position while she is gone. Because of my mistake, she was late to the interview. I feel the worst about putting her on a position to be late for it.😟 This family pays me for the full month upfront, so she is paid up through January. If there is a day where I don't charge families for some reason, I factor that in with their next payment.

[Blackcat31]

I wouldn't feel that bad about it. Life happens.

DCM asked the night before not days in advance.

It's not a normal scheduled drop off for her and you manage multiple schedules. Perfection can't be expected.

If so, it's the parent that made the mistake...kwim?

Cut yourself some slack...