Interview

[jazmic]

I always have my husband look after the kids during interviews. If the prospective parents feel like they want to move on to the next step after the interview, then we schedule play dates. Honestly speaking, though, interviewing takes up so much time that I like to whittle down people as much as I can before having to meet with them. There is an initial phone call where we get to know each other and what their needs are a bit. Then if it's going well, I'll e-mail them my handbook. If I don't hear back from them, that at least I know it wouldn't have been a good fit and I didn't go through all the trouble of preparing for them to come to my home, wasting my time. Another advantage of this is that since they've gone through the handbook by themselves, when they come, I can just highlight a couple of things, but then use the rest of the time to interact with the child and see if I think they will be a good fit with my group. It gives me a chance to check out the parents in person too. When they arrive, I introduce them to my family, give them a tour of the place, and then sit down to play with the child and talk with the parents but without my kids present like I said before. I find this isn't as intense as trying to go through the handbook at the same time while trying to give the child attention.

If you don't want to e-mail your policies, then you could try explaining to the parents in the beginning how the meeting is going to break down. You could say something along the lines of "I'd like to go through my handbook just quickly with you since it will probably answer a lot of your questions. After that, I'd like to spend some time playing with your child." That way, they're not sitting there thinking "I can't believe she's not giving my child any attention!"

Anyway, just my two cents. Hope it helps.