Hi Everyone,

I'm new here and new to home daycare. I have 3 kids of my own (5,4, and 1) and I've had a home daycare since the beginning of July. I have been watching my neighbour's 4.5 year old son since the middle of August and he's turned my life and daycare into, well, hell. Please tell me if I'm overreacting or if I should terminate, and how to best go about doing that.

A bit of explanation:
This boy, call him Sam, is in JK this year. He's an only child, and is incredibly destructive. From what I hear from the parents, school is not going well AT ALL. He hurts other children, refuses to listen, talks back, throws sand/rocks/etc at teachers and students, and spends alot of time in time-out. At my house it is even worse. I have my own 1-year-old and 2 other babies under 2, and I'm now worried for their safety. This morning, I had 2 of the 3 babies into my big bike-trailer-type stroller, turned around to get the third, and he pulled the handlebars down to the ground, flipping the babies almost completely upside-down. If they hadn't been buckled in they would have fallen out completely. The problem is his attitude towards things like this. He either doesn't care at all, or thinks it's hilarious. He has ZERO regard for the possibility of hurting other children.

He punches my older kids in the face with no provocation, throws toys at all the kids constantly, hits me, has huge tantrums when he is put in timeout, yells "no" when I tell him he's going to time-out, rips pages out of the kids books in my playroom, piles all the toys into the middle of the floor and jumps on them, has no idea how to clean up at ALL, trips children on purpose, the list goes on and on.

The parents are so blind it's incredibly frustrating. They claim "he's tired" and the teacher has "written him off" and "expects too much." Essentially everything is the teacher's fault, and their solutions involve bashing her behind her back and saying they should make the school switch him to another class. Every time he does something violent, like punching or kicking my kids or other daycare kids, and I explain to the parents what happened, they get this puzzled look on their face like, "oh, he did that? He's never done that before" kind of attitude. They have yet to apologize at all for their son's behaviour. I honestly think they don't know what to do either, so they have just adopted an attitude of "when we're not taking care of him, it's not our problem." He hit me yesterday when I put him in timeout for pushing the babies' highchairs over WHILE THE BABIES WERE IN THEM. (I just managed to catch one baby, I have her in a booster strapped to a chair, and she was about to hit the floor). This morning the mom actually made him apologize for hitting me, the first apology I've ever gotten.

She then asked about Friday morning, where he tripped a little girl in the schoolyard on purpose, and then acted astonished that he would do that. Within 2 minutes of her leaving, he was kicking my daughter at the table while she tried to eat her breakfast, throwing toys, and refusing to listen at all. His "apology" made zero difference in his behaviour.

In my opinion, the parents do not enforce consistent discipline, which is a huge part of the problem. If he won't get his shoes on when he gets picked up, mom puts him in timeout. He stands up and laughes at her. She immediately abandons time-out and tries to bribe him with going out for dinner. He laughs and ignores her, or screams "no" and tries to hit her, she she abandons that and moves on to coddling him and trying to do it for him. Then in the same breath says that his dad is "too hard on him" and the teacher is "too strict with him" and that's why he's acting out. It's ridiculous.

I've tried, for over 2 months, but any discipline that the teacher and I enforce is getting abandoned at home, where he is getting coddled and allowed to run the house, from what it seems to me. I was considering issuing a warning, essentially putting him on probation, but this is happening at school too, constantly, and I know nothing is going to change.

Sorry this is super long, but the parents are in such denial, how do I go about terminating this kid without having it blow up in my face? It doesn't help that we're neighbours, not super close, but our kids play outside together almost daily, and I have a feeling that mom in particular is NOT going to be pleased. They also have no idea that it's coming, but I can't do this anymore. I dread having him show up at my door, and it's hell until the bell rings and he becomes the teacher's problem. Then I pick them all up and it's miserable until he leaves. This is not what I want my daycare to be, and not what I'm comfortable providing the other daycare kids with. Help!