Quote Originally Posted by apples and bananas View Post
....What would you do? How would you handle this?
Its a challenge because up to this point your policy of flexible hours and allowing them to 'change and extended' them without additional fee or negotiation on your part just them 'telling you' and not having clear 'hours of operation and late pick up policies' have given them the impression that THEY are in charge and this is ACCEPTABLE and therefore it is going to be hard to break that without conflict on both your parts - if you want this to STOP you are going to have to get FIRM about your hours of operation that you serve clients, about sticking to the contracted hours they agreed upon and charging MORE if they are regularly using more than a normal 8-9 hour day cause they are wanting you to work overtime for FREE, plus a STIFF late fee for being late past their contracted time AND I would add a clause that while you empathize that on occasion emergency might arise that result in a client being a 'few minutes late' and that is why you have the late fee to ensure you are compensated for those rare times that repeated lateness of more than ONCE per year WILL result in immediate termination of your service contract and forfeiting of their security deposit!

They are not going to LIKE that hard stance on your part if you have up to this point been 'lenient' and sloughed it off and they might actually PULL on you however IMO if you do not stand up and say ENOUGH and treat your business like a business before you know it you will be raising those children for more than 12 hours a day for your normal daily fee you quoted back in the beginning - you will basically be working for FREE for this family once you've fed their kids for that many meals and so forth!

Sorry but as Crayola mentioned - I would not stand for being treated like that specially in my own home .... their behavior is screaming that they do not value or respect you - the person who is helping to raise their children for them and well sorry but that is just inexcusable!