Help When Leaving My Job At The Daycare...

[nannyde]

[QUOTE=Meeko60;110054]

I think you were absolutely right to term this family. He was very disrespectful to you in your own home. I can't stand that either (see my other posts!)

But in answer to your question about the assistant. No...I would never leave my child in the care of a person I was not allowed to talk to. Even if I loved and trusted the main provider....I would also want to be able to talk to the other person who is with my child all day. As a parent, I would find it super creepy that a person who spends that much time with my child is not allowed to talk to me about that day.

No...I would never leave my child in the care of a person I was not allowed to talk to.

Oh absolutely. I don't leave my staff assistant alone with the kids. They are ALWAYS in my care. She may provide care to the children but only directly supervised by me. She is on camera at all times and I am at most ten seconds away from the kids at all times.

I decide EVERYTHING. I run the show completely. There is NOTHING the staff assistant could tell the parents about their child's day that I couldn't tell them.

The biggest decision my staff assistant would make would be the color of paint a kid would use in a craft.... the number of jinglebells to put into their mothers day basket.... which four year old comes to the table first... THOSE kinds of decisions. Non substance decisions that have no consequence either way. Other than that I decide EVERYTHING every single day. The kids are in MY care every day all day long ... every week... every month... year after year... MY care. Whatever staff assistant I have... it's the same care regardless of the person currently filling the position.

Your perspective on this is very different. You ARE the staff worker who left and took three clients with you. You HAVE a staff assistant who doesn't have ANY chance of leaving your business while taking clients from you. You have only BEEN on the receiving end of this "principle".

Try running your sixteen kids with someone else and see how it works to loose a staff assistant you have invested time and money into training and three kids who were doing perfectly well in your business all at the same time. Then you might think a little differently.

The whole idea that they would leave because they weren't perfectly happy is so silly. People leave over money ALL the time. If the parents are given the option of a cheaper arrangement with a known person they could easily leave a situation they were very happy in.

[Meeko]

And that's why we all beg to differ.

All parenting styles are different, all teaching styles are different and all daycare are run different. What may be suitable for you may be against everything a person stands for to someone else.

My assistant works about 15 hours a week...I pay her to sanitize, clean, and supervise. She has very limited contact with my parents. She will say, "hi" while they are here but as for asking questions regarding the child's day, that needs to come from me. My parents have all met her and know who she is and are completely fine with it. My assistant also works from about 9am to 1230pm after all kids are here and she leaves before they do. She assists with lunch and supervises them during free-play times. She's also very shy and she doesn't want much involvement with the parents. She knows that this is MY business and MY house and the parents contract with ME. I can run the daycare without her...it's my housecleaning that will behind. ::

I think the biggest difference here is that you can run your day care without her. And it sounds as if she is more of a housekeeper than a provider.

We are a family group home and must have TWO providers that interact with the children all day. My son can take off if I only 8 kids (and only 2 under age 2). But that is rare. Other than that he is with the kids all day, every day (approx. 60 hours a week) Because of that...parents want to know him well. He is a HUGE part of their kid's day.

If anyone asks him a policy or financial question he usually refers them to me (even though he knows the answer) But he is perfectly qualified to answer questions about daily routine and events.

I love this forum! It is really interesting to hear about other day cares! I have learned so much in the short while I have been here.

[nannyde]

[QUOTE=Meeko60;110054]

I think you were absolutely right to term this family. He was very disrespectful to you in your own home. I can't stand that either (see my other posts!)

But in answer to your question about the assistant. No...I would never leave my child in the care of a person I was not allowed to talk to. Even if I loved and trusted the main provider....I would also want to be able to talk to the other person who is with my child all day. As a parent, I would find it super creepy that a person who spends that much time with my child is not allowed to talk to me about that time. Now if they never had any contact with my child...just did janitorial work etc.....that MIGHT be acceptable. But in a home care setting...it would be almost impossible to keep them separate.

The Dad was "disrespectful"? Ummm I'm thinking the Dad was MONEY. He tried to take a staff assistant who had been trained for a year and he planned on scooting his money right on out the door.

You say "disrespectful?". That's a nice way to talk about someones livlihood.

No...I would never leave my child in the care of a person I was not allowed to talk to.

But what if there was LITTERALLY no single solitary reason whatsoever for you TO talk to the person? What if everything you needed to know about your kids day was being told to you... answered immediately... without equivocation... without a doubt?

When your kid has surgery are you going to meet the surgeon AND all the OR techs and OR nurses or are you going to want to talk to the one who wields the knife?

You don't have staff assistants in the jobs WDMMom and I have. You don't HIRE that person. You don't have a job description for that person. The jobs you have worked at and the job you have in your business are NOTHING like the jobs we have for our staff.

Remember they are HIRED with the "parent conferencing/contact" not on their job description.

The parents I serve understand that I am the go to guy. If they want to hire someone who has a staff assistant who does parent conferencing and contact then my services just woudn't work for them. My business just doesn't support the kind of training and costs it would take to hire someone and train them to do that role MY way. It would be so expensive that I couldn't support it within my fees. Heck I had a staff assistant for 7.5 years and she wasn't trained well enough to do it.

I'll do that myself thankyouverymuch. I'm not going to hand over the possibility of blowing a 7 to 14K a year contract to someone who has done child care for a couple of years under my direct supervision. The child care part is easy to train.. the parent contact... the kind of contact that gets them to pay and stay for five years... not so easy. By the time my staff assistant is capable of doing that she's too expensive to have here.

[nannyde]

I think the biggest difference here is that you can run your day care without her. And it sounds as if she is more of a housekeeper than a provider.

We are a family group home and must have TWO providers that interact with the children all day. My son can take off if I only 8 kids (and only 2 under age 2). But that is rare. Other than that he is with the kids all day, every day (approx. 60 hours a week) Because of that...parents want to know him well. He is a HUGE part of their kid's day.

If anyone asks him a policy or financial question he usually refers them to me (even though he knows the answer) But he is perfectly qualified to answer questions about daily routine and events.

I love this forum! It is really interesting to hear about other day cares! I have learned so much in the short while I have been here.

But see here's the difference. If you son blows up one of your daycare relationship you have FIFTEEN kids to spare. In our situations we have half or less kids. We are running a one to three/four ratio of kids ... not a one to eight.

It's okay to train him within those large numbers. Centers do it all the time. We are talking about really small groups where one kid leaving can be your mortgage payment for six months.

We have a lot more to loose.

[Unregistered]

My take

I worked in a center before I started a home daycare and I left the daycare for that reason. Could I have told all of the parents what I was doing? Sure, but it wasn't right for me to do that. I told them that I was leaving but I didn't say specifically why I was leaving. I signed a "no soliciting" clause when I started working at the center and I was honoring that by not trying to get the daycare families from the center to follow me. Even if I could have legally done it, I wouldn't have done it because it doesn't feel like the right thing to do.

That's just my opinion.

[Blackcat31]

I have an assistant in the summer months and maybe 1, possibly 2 parents have ever seen her or talked to her. None have ever asked about her because they enrolled their child into MY care and trust that I am providing the services I said I would. I don't think any of them care who she is or what she does while she is here. Their only concern is the safety and quality of care their child receives while here.

Of course if I had a parent who wanted to know the 411 about my assistant, I wouldn't have any issues with that, however, none have asked.

Before I did childcare myself, my children were enrolled in a center and I don't think I knew every person my child came into contact with there. I knew the teacher and maybe a parent or two that I saw during drop offs/pick ups but that was pretty much the extent of it. I guess I didn't give it that much thought. I just knew my kids came home happy, clean and well cared for. That was all I needed to know. I also do not think my kids could tell you today the name of anyone they knew from the center with the exception of the lead teacher.

On the flip side, I have been doing this for a long time now and if asked, I don't think I could name every kid I have ever provided care for. I should hope I made a difference in their lives, but in reality, I was only a small part of it.

[Meeko]

But see here's the difference. If you son blows up one of your daycare relationship you have FIFTEEN kids to spare. In our situations we have half or less kids. We are running a one to three/four ratio of kids ... not a one to eight.

It's okay to train him within those large numbers. Centers do it all the time. We are talking about really small groups where one kid leaving can be your mortgage payment for six months.

We have a lot more to loose.

Yes I can see your point Nannyde. You guys are in the middle and have a lot to lose. The more kids,,,the less the impact. I am not a huge facility...but my son is not about to stab me in the back!!!

When I left working at the center, 3 kids left with me. But the center was running at full capacity with just under 200 kids. I doubt she even felt the loss before she picked up 3 new ones....and I was replaced very quickly too.

As for the assistant thing......I have been lucky enough to never have put any of my four kids in care. But I am super fussy and want to know anyone who spends any kind of time with my kids.

For example if I found out my child had kicked "Miss Kathy" () I don't just want to hear that from "Miss Nancy" I would want to talk to Miss Kathy personally and get HER version of what happened....not Miss Nancy's possibly watered down or over-dramatized version. I wouldn't be happy with a third party explanation. There is a possibility that Miss Nancy didn't even SEE the incident. Even if she is in the same room...she doesn't have eyes in the back of her head.

We have had behavior problems that my son has dealt with during the day and he will be the one to tell the parents on many occasions.

But I CAN see the reasoning with keeping the chat between main provider and parents as much as humanly possible.

I guess it's a good job I'm the provider.......I would be one of the fussy parents we all moan about on here! ::::

[Unregistered]

Leaving in-home daycare, now what?

Here's an odd question. I too, may be forced to close my in-home daycare due to personal circumstances. Any suggestions as to where to go next? I do not have enough classes to be a director (missing 45 hr infant toddler, etc.), but am looking at other options. Thanks.