Request to see the child at the first meeting

[Inspired by Reggio]

If my first post shows up great - it just disappeared mid sentence .....

This has been happening to me today as well ????

....Some parents "shop around" and then from those visits choose a few homes to actually interview with their child rather than drag the child to 15 interviews.

Considering the age of the child and presuming he was in daycare before that there may be things they want to talk to you about that they don't want him to hear. At the same time it is a red flag if they don't want you to meet the child till you have committed. So if you agree to see them alone, make sure they know that you must meet the child before you will agree to anything.

This is why I do a PHONE interview first - great time to talk to me about anything 'confidential' then without your child present and this is when I would ask a client 'why they were changing programs' if they were an older child already in program ... I do my in person interview in the evening - this is my FAMILY time and sorry but I am not wasting on someone who is just 'shopping around' .... people who make it past the phone interview to the in person interview I tend to already know we are a 'match' and almost all of them sign on to the program ... I have only interviewed 3 people in the past 5 years who did NOT sign on and in hindsight I should have seen the red flags during the phone interview that that they were not a match for ME cause the minute they walked in the door and were rude with wild children I remembered the 'rude' tone on the phone that I had dismissed as frustration at trying to manage kids interrupting in the background but nope they were just 'abrupt and rude' to their children and therefore their child was abrupt and rude and well more than I wanted to take on