Empathize with those who have parents who undo all your hard work with self help skills cause that is truly frustrating and it can have a negative snowball effect cause if one child sees that if Johnny refuses to get dressed someone will do it for him and they think "hey look at all the attention Johnny is getting by doing that" and they start refusing to

I do not want that happening in my program cause mutiny of the minors is no fun at all

While I hate conflict I personally have no trouble letting my clients know, in a friendly manner, what I need from them at home in order for their child to thrive here. So when we are working on mastering a skill 'here' I inform the parent that 'hey just so you know this is the goal we are trying to achieve in daycare at the moment' and I expect parents to be following through and working on it at home as well ... upon enrollment when we are signing our contract together we agree we share the value that children thrive best with consistency between home and program and therefore we need to be working together on developmental milestones and goals to support the child ~ when I see a client doing something for a child they are capable of doing I will remind the child 'Hey Johnny you need to let mom/dad know that you can put your coat on all by yourself now ~ show them your flip flop trick' .... in fact I have one little now 18 month old boy who at 14 months would often throw a little fit at pick up time and squirm and fight his dad and throw himself on the floor because his dad is trying to 'do it for him' and he wanted to do it himself but his words were not there yet to tell him ~ once I interjected 'are you trying to let daddy know you want to do that yourself?' the child would nod his head at his dad and grab the coat from him lay it on the floor and do his flip flop trick happily and than stand nicely for the dad to zip it up.

Quote Originally Posted by cfred View Post
...... We had snow up to my knees the year before last. These kids would have been up to their chests...lol....I can see it now! Within 15 minutes, someone's crying. We still give it the good college try, but it's not a daily thing by any stretch.
.....
This is where I truly my spouse support of my business cause he goes out into the backyard after any big snowfall and will shovel the sidewalk back there, a pathway to the House area and than do maze for them and the snow from that gets tossed into a 'hill' and than I shovel off our large deck that has the sit and rock toys, sensory bins and so forth ... so there is lots of space and place for them to move around and explore based on their age ~ babes I can put on the deck so they are not 'sitting' in the cold snow and they can crawl around unimpeded, stand up at the table up there and explore snow and toys, toddlers tend to head for the house area and make food with snow and play and my older ones grab sleds and head to the little hill or play hide and seek in the maze cause they are skilled enough with walking to handle the uneven ground of the hill and so forth.

I need changes of scenery with the kiddies cause I do not like feeling 'stuck' inside the house ~ we go outside daily at least once all winter long, twice if we do not get too wet the first time, unless the temperature drops below -10 or it is storming snow / wind out there ... IME my crew learns to love outside because I love to be outside!