Follow up to mom expecting me to find replacement - need advice

[Littledragon]

Alright, so to sum up the last post -

My son had a fever of 103.8, I had to close the daycare. One of my moms said I hadn't given her sufficient notice (11 hours) and that she wanted me to transfer her child to someone. I couldn't.

Since then, I have sent her four texts (about different subjects) the last one requesting we take a moment or two when she picks up her son to go over basics that we haven't yet discussed - who I should call first if he needs to go home, backup care, things like that. She never answered me. I sent TWO emails. No response. I called twice, no answer. She picked up her son today, made pleasant conversation but then seemed to remember that she was mad and just walked away - no goodbye nothing. She's usually very nice and pleasant.

I'm not sure what to do. I need this information from them, so I guess I will send home a form for them to fill out. Mom is CONSTANTLY late picking up the kid, but I chose not to discuss this issue right now because of what just happened.

What should I do? How can I get her to communicate? I am obviously looking for a replacement (thinking they might be doing the same thing) but I would like to open lines of communication considering things are slow right now and for the little while that he is still here, I don't want to be bitter and resentful.

Any suggestions? What would you do in position?

[mimi]

Well she is punishing you for" inconviencing" her. It is unfortunate she does not have enough class or maturity to return your attempts at communication. She seems to have no problem disrespecting you by walking away without saying good bye or acknowledging your parental responsiblity to your sick child. If you want to keep her, I would do as you mentioned and give her an emergency contact form for her to fill out and a letter outlining the policies that hadn't been discussed. If she doesn't return the form, fill it out yourself when you ask her for the info the next time you see her and have her initial both the form and the policy letter. I would include your policy for late pick ups as well. If she still has attitude towards you after this I would terminate her. You do not have to put up with her bad attitude in your home. As the other ladies in this forum like to say "Your business, your rules" Good luck

[kidlove]

agree with mimi. plain and simple...one of the perks of this job is that it is our choice on who, what, when and where in our home, and if you dont like any of those, terminate!!!!! Who is she to "punish" you in your oun home? I am a very straight forward person..I would just look right at her next time she drops off and say, "I feel like there is something wrong, everything ok?, or should we talk?" not to mention, if you have paperwork that she needs to finish, I would just hand it to her at the door when she comes in and ask her to llok it over real quick! period!!! your house, your rules!

[Dreamalittledream]

4 months ago, I had a parent interview that I just shook my head at...she was pushy, overbearing, completely paranoid. Every instinct was telling me to let this one go. BUT, I decided to just give it a chance and with time (and lots of patience) they are one if my best families. I just needed to a). Earn her trust and b) Stand my ground in a calm yet assertive way. The best you can do is be at your best, set your guidelines and stick to them. Trust me, I've been there sick as a dog @ 5am agonizing whether or not to make 'the call'...because I don't want to let them down. I have no idea how to get past that guilt (I was the same way with my outside job). Best of luck to you!

[apples and bananas]

Sounds like she is making sure you know who is in control in this partnership. The dumb thing is that the information you need benefits her child. Replace and move on, that's what I say. So sorry to inconvenience her, but you have stuff too. And this is the downfall of putting your child in home care... there is no backup. Maybe she would be better suited for centre care, and maybe that's how you suggest that's she's no longer a good fit.

[Littledragon]

I am seriously shaking right now - with anger, with bitterness, with resentment and the fact that I feel like I need to replace before I can terminate, and I am not getting any bites.

Last night, I ended up texting her, asking her to call me when she had a chance. I said it was apparent that there were some issues, and we needed to discuss them. Her husband called me. He basically said - don't deal with her, deal with me. She is frustrated and it wouldn't be constructive to communicate with her right now he actually said "Don't poke the lion." WHAT!? I'm not 15. I want to deal with this in a professional manner and move on. I'm not going to tip toe around her and walk on egg shells. If she won't communicate, I have no other alternative than to communicate with her husband who also said "it's best to communicate with me because I won't get mad at stupid stuff." He asked me to send along the form, and I also made up a guideline of the instances where the daycare may unexpectedly close. She was also turning up late 9 days out of 10, so I sent home a late pick up notice.

Two hours later, I get an email saying things "Please note that....", "I want to make it perfectly clear that...", "And another thing...", "For your information..." I sent her an email back, and politely and calmly said I wasn't sure where all the hostility was coming from but her being so upset was being slightly unreasonable. Well, I guess I unleashed the beast. She started emailing me like crazy - two, three emails at a time. Attacking me, insulting the way I care for the kids. The ONLY thing is, she is Asian and just came here a few years ago so there's a language barrier. I'm not sure if she was being assertive or rude, just because I don't know her well enough, and it was over email, so I'm not sure what she was trying to accomplish. I kept trying to keep an open mind, but her choice of words were really difficult to overcome. At one point, she sent me some guilt email about working 7 days a week, and that her and her husband are a team and if he calls me, it shouldn't matter, that I should still communicate with both of them (which was always my intention). I ended up saying simply: It's clear that there is a miscommuncation somewhere and nothing constructive is going to come out of these emails. Please call me tomorrow at your earliest convenience. She just seemed SO angry and was pulling apart my emails and putting words in my mouse, and NOT ONCE was our conversation directed at the best way to take care of her son. She also said she was "disgusted" at how dirty her son was when he came home - paint or jam on his clothes. She said "I expect to pick him up in the same shape in which we dropped him off - I don't think that that is an unfair request." WELL ACTUALLY, kids get dirty, plain and simple. We do crafts, they eat and we play outside. I simply told her that and that there was no way she would pick him up in the same shape he was dropped off unless she wanted me to change his clothes right before he left, in which case she would have to supply a complete change of clothes daily.

Anyways, in reply to my last email this is what she said:

Anyhow, I wont be able to respond to anything after this email because as you know it has already passed our bed time. I will respond tomorrow but I would rather to respond to serious matters like when I should bring him the extra clothes and things like that. If you demand a face to face meeting, we prefer it to be related to future matters as there is no need to discuss the previous incidents. We were well-informed on the "whys" so there is really no need to elaborate, we get it and that is all.

Thank you.

So, she just went on and on, attacked me for 2 hours about trivial matters, and now that I am requesting she phone me, she doesn`t want to deal with it anymore. She was continuously contradicting herself and getting upset with me for things I didn`t say or do. She clearly wasn`t listening to anything I was saying. I was tempted to just email her and say don`t bother bringing you son tomorrow. She clearly wanted me to think she is the one in control.

i don`t know what to do! I really want to just let them go, today being their last day. But again, I am an open minded, understanding person and if it was simply the fact that emails was problem...I can`t help but feeling that if she had just called me in the beginning, this would all have been avoided. She was acting like SHE was in control, and that I worked for HER. I don`t do well with that.

Pay day was yesterday, so I am good for the next two weeks. I could terminate them today, or give them two weeks notice. However, I am just nervous that I won`t be able to fill his spot within those two weeks.

Thanks for the rant, but I needed to get all that off my chest before I could go on with my day. I am just SO angry. I even re-read the emails this morning to see if it was just my adrenline that was making things seem worse than they were, but they weren`t. She kept saying "Let make this clear." "To be even more clear..." Again, could be the language thing, but the fact that she was sending me 2-3 emails at a time showed me that she was angry. UGH!!!!!!

[Crayola kiddies]

Next .........

[Play and Learn]

First off, sorry to hear that this lady 'doesn't get it'. I wouldn't put up with her or her bullshit. She has NO respect for you or your business. NO one tells me what to do in MY business.

You should terminate now. You have reason to, as she's attacking you and your business. She didn't want to contact you. You tried, she failed.

[Littledragon]

thanks guys. i think the kids going to go home tonight with a term letter. i already wrote it up. to make matters worse - i just brought my dog in from outside and she rolled in sh*t. LIke, covered from head to toe! Good lord!!! lol what did i I do to deserve that?! lol is it monday again?!

[mimi]

One of my pet peeves is when people hide behind emails or texts and will not discuss a matter by phone or face/face. I get the impression that this situation will not improve as you are also dealing with a husband/wife dynamic which seems a little shaky. I would terminate them as this drama is not good for you, your family and your business. Even if english is her second language, rude and insulting is mostly the same in any language.

[Littledragon]

One of my pet peeves is when people hide behind emails or texts and will not discuss a matter by phone or face/face. I get the impression that this situation will not improve as you are also dealing with a husband/wife dynamic which seems a little shaky. I would terminate them as this drama is not good for you, your family and your business. Even if english is her second language, rude and insulting is mostly the same in any language.

you're right. I'm a ltitle nervous about it, but I just need to have faith that I will be able to fill the spot in the next couple of weeks :)

[apples and bananas]

I can't believe she's this upset with you and still chose to bring her child to care. I never understood that. I always went out of my way to make my caregiver happy... because she has my child and if I make her mad she may take that out on my child. UGH! So frustrating when people just don't get along. I'm sorry you have to go through this.

[Toregone]

Yikes! Don't put up with that crap. Sending you multiple emails at a time, verbally attacking you, making unfair requests... none of this is acceptable. I hope you have a clause in your contract stating something about unacceptable parental bahaviour. If so I would make sure to mention this clause in your termination letter. It might not do you any good but it could help out the next DCP perhaps.

Also if the husbad has asked you communicate with him maybe talk to him as well and let him know what is going on and why you have decided to do the termination. It is clear she wont listen to reason but perhaps he will.

Hope it turns out well for you!

[Littledragon]

WELL!! Dad is the one who drops the dck off in the morning. The minute he walked in, he apologized. (I cc'd him on all the emails). He said she was being unreasonable and contradicting herself. She even contradicted herself to him. THEN HE SAID "I guess this is a good time as any to let you know that *child* and *mom* are going on vacation FOR TWO MONTHS IN OCTOBER! WHAT!!?? And you didn't think of telling me this when he started three weeks ago?!

I guess that solves my problem though lol although I wrote up the term letter, I am going to wait until a)I find a replacement or b) they leave - whichever one comes first. Dad is SUPER nice and very reasonable, and it's hard to hold any of this against him. I know that they are having some communication issues between the two of them, and maybe they're not happy. He did say he was quite excited for them to leave lol

Anyways, so I guess I'm not going to terminate today, but I did say that if anything else happens, I'm done. She is NOT to contact me via email or text - only by phone and if she attacks me again, it's done. I told him that I sympathize with how difficult it would be for them to find someone for the next month, so I will keep him, but I am not one to be taken advantage of and I will not stand being attacked. He understood and apologized profusely.

Ugh. I hate being so nice. I wish I could have just said F**k you, go away. But, in the back of my mind, all I can think about is my budget lol I'm a sad case, huh?

[kidlove]

Perfect reply: NEXT......

These kinds of people come along even sometimes with our better judgement in mind!!!! You will definately get no where with this one, I would terminate immediately and let me tell you why..... IF you give this lady another two weeks, she WILL remain bitter and she more than likely will be looking for a mistake! If you make ANY mistake she will do her best to make your life hell. I have had people like this, gave them a second chance and my kindness came back to bite my a%$. I had an arguement with a mother once, against my best judgement decided to keep her son in care and she turned me in to licensing for every tiny thing she could, like we're talking no plug in light fixture and such, told me when she left my house "I was unfit for care, and she would make sure I never took another child again" WELL............7 years later....I'm still here!!! kiss it, angry Mom, go take your prozac or zanax or change your pad and get off my back!!!!!!! ha ha :laugh:

[kidlove]

Thats kind of perfect I guess? If she is going on vacation did she plan to pay you while she was gone? wait vacation for two months? who takes vacation for two months? I know she is Asian, probly going home to visit family, but who leaves with their child for two months from home work and husband, maybe she is going and not coming back and the poor fool, just thinks shes going no vacation for two months. :( Well, either way, sounds like it's already planned out for you, on top of asking her not to email or text, I would also ask the father to do the dropping and picking up and take that family OFF you schedule as soon as her feet hit the tarmack of that airport!!!! Dont think twice about letting them go in October. :)

[jec]

Yikes! Mimi put it perfectly. You don't need that and I'm sure your stressing about it after daycare hours. :(

[Sandbox Sally]

As soon as I was told to address anything further with her husband, and to not "poke the lion", I would have terminated. This is completely disrespectful and immature behaviour. I am afraid that I would NOT accommodate anyone who expects their kid not to get dirty, nor would I tolerate someone shutting me down when I have issues to discuss with regard to the care of THEIR CHILD.

Seriously - how childish of her.

I would word it thusly,

"in light of our recent difficulties and your , it has become clear that refusal to discuss and resolve any issues, it has become clear to me that I can no longer accommodate the expectations of your family. Please have this notice serve as your two weeks notice. As of Sept 12, I am no longer willing to provide care for your son. I wish you luck finding a daycare provider more suitable to your needs.

Thank you,

Littledragon

[treeholm]

Putting on my business professor hat again.... I would not use the wording "I am no longer willing to provide care." If she shows the email to others, it looks as though you are being petty. I have heard the background and think you are absolutely justified in terminating, but I would still be careful how I word this. I would simply say, "I regret to inform you that I am unable to continue to provide care for (child's name) effective September 12th. I wish you all the best in finding care for (child's name) that best meets the needs of your family. Sincerely......."
I would never put it in writing that we have difficulties, or accuse someone of not wanting to discuss/resolve issues. Why make her any more angry? It does not benefit you in any way. Your goal is to be done with them to avoid future issues, not to lash out and let her have it. That would be seen as unprofessional (as much as I sympathize with your frustration!).