It's been awhile since I've interviewed for spots, but I like to ask the parents their philosohy and expectations of discipline. Let's face it, one year olds are starting to learn and test boundaries and how they do things at home will have an impact on your dynamic within your daycare. I've had parents tell me that they use a tone of voice as deterrence and discipline...turns out the voice was a sickly sweet, sing songy wishy washy romper room voice...not gonna fly in group care. . If little timmy is about to bowl over little emily, using a sing song voice isn't going to work when there are up to 5 other kids vying for toys and attention around you. KWIM?


Go over illness policies too. Make it abundantly clear what is and isn't acceptable in group care/your home. I've also had parents dose their fevered kid with advil before coming and not telling me about it until it had worn off and the fever had returned....Deceptio n equals immediate termination in my contract. Some, not all, parents are too selfish to want to take time off work or make suitable alternate arrangements for their sick kid.

Make sure you feel 100% comfortable with bringing the family into your care. I've had parents tell me that they were on the same page as me with how I run things and how I discipline and when their kid started biting and grabbing the other kids by the hair and dragging them around, they just ignored it and played dumb....made me realize they fed me a line to get a spot.

I don't mean to be so negative, but I've had a few reprehensible families in my 2 years, so I have lots of "what if" questions in my arsenal now.

Also, make sure the parents know to have an alternate lined up in the event you need to close. I had to close because my daughter whacked her head off a coffee table and I had to wake her every couple of hours to check for concussion. Working the next day would've been hell so I closed for the day to take care of her and to get some sleep. One of my families admitted that they didn't think about having an emergence alternate lined up for these cases. They just had an alternate for planned days off and holidays.