I advertise constantly whether I have a spot or not. You never know when a situation will present itself when a family with leave or you are forced to term and to have a constant stream of enquiries coming in that I can keep a record of enables me to have people in the wings wating for daycare. Yes theres a number of them who will have found alternative arrangements but it still gives me an option rather than being forced to keep children on when its not an ideal situation with limited options.

I wouldn't tell the family because they will likely drop you very quickly and then you are out of pocket and if you can't afford that then like you said, you should try to fill the spots first. It sounds like you are doing all you can and have great strategies in place. I personally want to thank you for making such a great effort to correct these behaviours. While I know we have to think in the best interest of all the children in our care to make sure they are safe, it still seems all to often on this forum do people post that they wouldn't have put up with it for a moment and would terminate immediatly. These kind of "acting out" behaviours are normal and won't be corrected unless the adults in the childs/childrens life work hard to find the route cause and correct it. How is this going to happen if every caregiver washes their hands all the time. I commend you as it seems you are a rarity and this family has been lucky to have you working so hard on the brothers behaviour. I imagine its highly likely that they are allowed to run riot at home and that the parents aren't keeping anywhere near as close an eye on monitoring and correcting this behaviour as you have been doing.

Good Luck filling the spots and make sure that in the meantime, you take a bit of extra time for yourself in order to manage your own needs during this stressful situation.