CM CLUB: Do you charge a late fee? Am I just a big old meanie?

i dont have late fee payment in my contract but i think i may need it with current mindees as mum frequently rings with five mins notice,then turns up anything from 30 to 80 mins late i obviously charge for an hour.last friday she did not ring after 15 mins late i rang herand she said she was on way she turned up another twenty mins late.so she was 35 mins late.i did not charge her.But will have to start rethinking as her excuse is normally stuck in traffic(bearing in mind she takes the tram then the train to work)It does piss me off as my kids would like some attention too.

I agree totally with ayla99, we are tired after a day's work, especially if we have had children from 7am till 5.30/6pm, then have to try and cook our family dinner, get my youngest into bed at a reasonable time and then start planning/go to courses in our time and without extra pay.

I know sometimes it is hard with traffic jams or lack of public transport in some areas but if you sign a contract with hours that we mind your child, be considerate and think about our families' needs.

You can increase your late collection fees if parents don't seem to mind paying what you're charging now, but you need to do a new contract showing the revised fees.

If you don't mind working to the later time you can agree a new contract with the parent which states the longer hours. If this is later than you really want to work or the parent comes later still then you need to make a decision about whether you want to be working with a family so inconsiderate.

I would be sitting down with parent and explaining that its important I have a consistent "clocking off time" just as they want to go home to their families at the end of their working day, childminders want to do the same. After mindees are collected, theres still cleaning up/tidying, having your own dinner & time with your own family, evening courses, your own children's evening activities, plays or parent's evenings, planning, paperwork etc and sometimes we might have the audacity to plan a night out or invite friends & family round for the evening! Its not fair on their children either, not to know when they're being collected.

If the childminding arrangement is going to continue I need to know I can rely on parents to arrive consistently before the agreed time. They must obtain my agreement if they have a meeting or other commitment that will make them collect late. Where parents regularly collect on time I can more easily forgive the odd lateness due to heavy traffic/roadworks etc, but if they continually collect late I would be forced to give notice as the impact on my family and my own commitments is too severe.

I have had a parent be three hours late before. The one i mind now has parents that think ten mins notice is ok. whenI politly asked that they pick child up on time, give more notice or get back up plan I wa told I was moody. How do you deal with people like this M tells people i am her friend who looks after her DD no i am her cm and had never meet her before. I have complained about lateness she offered to baby sit for me to make it up! what..........

Wish tut

Which I could charge for every parent who is late picking their child up from school. I'd be a millionaire!

But I've never been late picking up ds from the cm, nut if I was I know my cm wouldn't charge because a) I'd phone, and b)she'd know it was a genuine emergency and not me taking the p*ss.

I think it depends on the situation, the relationship you have with a parent and if it is a regular occurance.

I do think you have to give parent s the benefit of the doubt, but if it keeps happening then something would need to be said.

elusis, i have one psrent in similar position and thats what we do, one mum last week asked if i could have her ds ready so she could run back out as she needed to get to bank before it clsoed..i told her to leave her ds with me(i was still working anyway) and collect him when she was done(only about 30mins later), if people are honest and respectful i will help them out.

I undertstand but we also have commitments, I don't mind being flexible as long as it does not encroach onto my family time. They need me as well and my finishing time is 6pm because I often have courses I have to go on such as first aid (for the benefit of your children's safety)and these start at 6pm because we have to do a 12 hours course which is not always near our homes.

The only time I'd charge is if they were constantly late without a good reason. If stuck in traffic on either public transport/train or in a car they could text or phone via hands free and I usually listen to the news on the local radio to confirm whether their story is true!

We are not paid (well I'm not anyway) for our sick days off or holidays and alot of us are not valued either despite the work we do with the children.

When DD was a baby I used a childminder instead of a nursery. And a big factor in the decision was the rigin nursery hours and charging system. I knew I had a job that would require flexibility in pck up time. This was of course discussed and agreed before we signed the contract.

If she had chaged me a tenner every time I was late it would have been unafffordable. Instead, we agreed that it would continue at the set hourly rate and then on Friday she would tally it up and tell me what I owed her.

I appreciate some childminders are interested in providing this kind of flexibility, but do keep in mind that this felxibility may be why some parents use you instead of the local nursery.

Our nursery charges £6 per 15mins or part thereof that you are late.
Its in the contract. We have never had to pay it because just having it there in the contract is enough to get us there on time. I think its absolutely reasonable to pay extra if the childcare provider has to pay staff overtime, or you are taking up a childminder's own time.
If they didn't charge it I am sure parents would gradually turn up later and later.
Occasionally we have sat outside with ds's and their friend in our car when her mother was 5 mins late.

Our daughter's nursery charges £1 per minute. This is really tough when you are dependent on public transport, as we are, which can break down/be delayed at any time. We always pay our nanny overtime if we're late, I would expect to pay her. But it does work out less than £15 for a quarter of an hour!!!

I think a warning is a good idea, and perhaps some flexibility if there is a genuine emergency or situation outside of a parent's control (ie. the bus crash mentioned above). But some parents will take the mick if you let them and it's probably really necessary to have this in the contract...

Message withdrawn

yes as I sometimes have plans or other children to sit for straight after caring for children. Unless made aware of the lateness or cancellation it is only fair on the childminder etc that they are compensated for overtime.

yeah parent of one of my mindees said her old nursery charged £1 per minute for lateness!

Nurseries often have this sort of clause in their terms and conditions.

Eg. source £1 per minute for first 10 minutes, then £2 per minute thereafter.

It is important that any such charges are reasonable and are agreed prior to care being provided. Therefore it is a change to the contract to impose late fees on existing families and it is important to get them to sign a new contract which clearly sets out the fees they agree to pay.

If you charge too much, then if it went to court, the court may decide that the fee is unreasonable. What is and isn't a reasonable amount is not clear.

My unwritten policy BTW is to waive the late collection fee for a "first offence" but I explain to parent that if it happens again I will enforce the charge as stated in the contract.

I've been late for first aid, had burnt/dried up dinners and had evenings when I've barely had time to exchange a sentence with my own children before they go to bed. And this for people who were not stuck in traffic jams or had problems at work etc but situations like the mum who got her eyebrows done after work.

So I now charge £5 per 30 mins before 6pm and £5 per 15 mins after 6pm. I do work with some very considerate parents now - recently I asked to finish early as a one-off and parents refused a refund and my offer to make the time up by working late another time. So I'll "bank" the time and if they are unavoidably late sometime in the future I'll waive the charge.

If parents want to drop off late or collect early I don't have a problem with this as long as they let me know in advance to check where I'm going to be. Then they can choose to meet me in the playground, at library/toddlers etc or wait til I get back home. It can cause problems even if you've not going out eg, if child arrives at a time they'd normally be mid-nap or mid-meal but I figure these challenges are all part & parcel of what I'm being paid for. I know I'm probably in a minority in this attitude, I know childminders who expect parents to arrive within 10 mins of the contracted time and one who considered giving notice when the parent continually arrived late without phoning first.

I do charge them if they are late and they don't bother to phone and let me know. I do have family commitments such as our own children's swimming lessons and certain training evenings that I have to attend such as safeguarding children and first aid which starts at 6pm and if you are late for them they tell you off which I think is very unfair when you have driven in bad traffic, not had anything to eat and are tired.

Its in my contract too that if they don't pay me for that week they are told no minding until you are paid, its never happened yet! We are a business like anyone else, you cannot buy something without money so why should we work without pay!

thats a bloody cheek DMO!

picking up early doesnt work for me eirther as i still work till 6 with other children anyway.
one parent whose child starts at 7.30am arrived at 8am one morning (sometimes this is worse than the child being pick up late) so the morning after she arrived at 7.10am cause i had to make my hours up

my fee is hourly rate for every 15 minutes theyre late if no phone call(if they ring to say im stuck at work/in traffic id be more lenient), i give mine 10 mins grace but tbh Boho, collecting early another day doesnt really(for me anyway) make it good as they are prob still working anyway with other children, but the lateness(in my cisrcumstances) of collection go's into my free time(to be clear i have a parent who sometimes colelcts early, but then will turn up 40 mins late-on a night i had to pick dd up from aprty!- with no call, didnt answer texts or even say sorry!..that is what late charges are for, but even then i didnt feel i could cos for the next 2 nights they came 30 mins early

You are exactly the type of parents we are encouraging, BOHO!

I've got a late fee of £5 per 15 mins, I've only had to charge it once or twice to the same parent and since then, she's never done it!

I give my parents the benefit of the doubt for 15mins, after that its as above. Some parents find it far too convenient to take the micky out of the fact that we don't have a home to go home to, because we're already in it, iyswim!

That would be very annoying if it happened often, I can understand that.

But it seems an awful lot of money for ten minutes, and sometimes, stuff just happens, traffic, anything. I would find it prohibitive if there wasn't a bit of leeway on both sides.

But then I am rarely late and always pay on time.

Its to stop people who take the piss bohoho.

Everyone is late soemtimes through circumstances out of their control and i doubt many minders would charge every single time but some parents are a nightmare and are constantly late either dropping off or picking up and late with payment too.