Creating boundaries with pupil

[Soggywetleaves]

I do private tutoring and one of my pupils is a 12 year old girl, she’s lovely but very anxious about her homework and getting everything right. I go to her home twice per week at set times to help with her homework.
She’s quite disorganised and often loses text books and doesn’t know when her homework needs to be in by.
A couple of times she has Whatsapped me in a panic, often late at night, because she has realised she has homework to be in the next day. I’ve helped her by going through the work etc, but I’ve said she needs to send me the homework on the day she gets it so that we can go through it during the lessons.
Yesterday afternoon she messaged me in a panic again, with four pages of maths homework, I said to her I was away for the weekend and would be happy to go through it with her tomorrow during our lesson (I wasn’t away, but was having a lazy afternoon doing Halloween crafts & baking with my 5 year old, plus making a roast etc)
She melt whatsapping me saying she’d really appreciate any help at all etc. I felt bad so gave it a couple of hours then started writing out all the explanations for the sums and examples etc. It took me a couple of hours, in between cooking and so on. I sent it all, told her I was doing my Dds bath and bedtime and said we’d go through it further at her lesson tomorrow. I sorted Dd and got into bed later-9 ish and she texted me her answers for me to look at, she did well but some corrections which I had to correct and text back and explain to her etc. This went on for a couple of hours, then she had finished, she was very grateful and thanked me. I’m happy to help her, but not great with boundaries and can find it hard to say no to things.
Dh says I must draw a line on this or if I’m happy to do it, to at least say I want to be paid for it?
Would you expect to be paid for this, would you say no to this?
They pay very well for lessons, I enjoy the job and helping her so don’t want to lose the work, but I’ve never had this situation before
What would you do?

I dont think a 12 year old considered your contract, no 🙄

@Canisaysomething Please read the post, the child doesn’t have my number, I don’t think she has a phone, I’ve no idea. This is the mums phone and the mum messages me first, so it is via her mother and likely instigated by her as she’s unable to help.

This would be my approach. They're taking the piss, but you've let them. Answering client queries after 10pm any day of the week is lax boundaries, unless you have agreed special circumstances/rush job and get paid accordingly.

OP you need to toughen up and start saying no.

What I would do is decide an Out of Hours rate and then tell the parents.

Dear CF parents, After the extensive extra time I spent with your DD this weekend I have realised I am doing far more work than just the X sessions you are paying for - in the last month I have done Y hours of work for free. I cannot afford to work for free, especially not to this extent, and it is encroaching on my personal time. Therefore going forward I will have to start charging for this time and will be charged at OOH rate. I am not guaranteeing that I will be available 24/7 but if I do work with your DD outside of our sessions it will be charged for

@Cigarettesandbooze Yes, 100%

@Orange67 It’s via the mum

Would you charge the same amount per hour for outside hours or more though?

Send an email explaining what you are prepared to offer and the costs. If you do want additional hours, I would ask the parents if they wish to arrange extra support for their daughter in light of the recent messages or whether they prefer to keep to the current pre arranged tutoring sessions. I would however, also be clear that whilst you are sympathetic, you cannot respond to messages outside of pre arranged sessions due to other commitments. She should not be messaging you expecting ad hoc help. Given she is using her mum's phone, it is likely that the parents are what is termed CF on here. The only way to deal with these people is firmly. I am a teacher and find that if you respond to out of ours emails from parents once, they will start messaging you at all hours and for all kinds of things. Keep it professional. Make sure they know that you only respond to messages in business hours and that you cannot provide tutoring without notice on an ad hoc basis.

I would also suggest that the parents approach the school to discuss what homework is set so they can help her to organise what she does need.

@melj1213 You’re right, I admit I have an issue with this as I know she really needs help and she’s not getting any and I do feel for her.

You need to formally agree something with the parents, if they put in writing they're happy for their DD to lead on how many hours she needs with a retrospective invoice then being sent for however many hours that was then that's fine. Even though it was via mum's phone they could easily claim they hadn't agreed to additional hours and a 12 year old can't give consent as an adult does so whether they should morally pay becomes at odds with whether they are contractually bound to pay. Another option would be to agree x hours a month, or to say as long as one of the parents has given the okay before you do any of the work then that's fine too. You should also draw boundaries depending on what's agreed.

My kids had tutors
How on earth has she got your phone number
Block her
And only message her parents
Inappropriate

I'd charge more for unsociable hours.

maybe add on a flat fee for online support but do give hours that are appropriate e.g 3pm-8pm only

This makes it worse
Wow
What sort of parent does that .
Definitely nip it in the bud .
Sorry for my earlier reply, genuinely didn't pick up on this in op

There are two issues here and I think the parents are laughing tbh, as they’re getting tutoring for their daughter for free!

You should ask that any direct time (be it online/texts or face to face) tutoring needs to be paid for in terms of time - eg £30 an hour, or whatever it is you charge.

You should also say that this needs to be planned in advance, via the parents, or else you will not be able to provide help. So if she gets maths homework she finds difficult, they then message you asking for 2 hours when you’re free. You schedule them in and then get payment for it. If she messages a night before it’s due, you say no, that’s too short notice and remind her that all communication must go through her parents.

Currently the daughter is running out of time, using her mum’s phone to message you and getting you to do hours of work for free! They don’t care whether you’re busy either. So you saying you don’t want them to drop the paid hours with you, just isn’t taking in the full picture. Deduct all the free hours you’ve given them and then see if they still look like a good customer. Take into account the fact they drop things on you last minute and don’t care if you’re busy with your own family. To me, they don’t sound like a family I would worry about losing and they’re taking you for a ride here.

Dear CF parents, After the extensive extra time I spent with your DD this weekend I have realised I am doing far more work than just the X sessions you are paying for - in the last month I have done Y hours of work for free. I cannot afford to work for free, especially not to this extent, and it is encroaching on my personal time. Therefore going forward I will have to start charging for this time and will be charged at OOH rate. I am not guaranteeing that I will be available 24/7 but if I do work with your DD outside of our sessions it will be charged for^

Omit the words in bold. Otherwise you are accepting you have done this month's extra foc. Send it to both and let them argue amongst themselves. If her parents are in denial about their dd issues that is not a problem you can solve. Is dd their only child? Maybe the school they have chosen is not the best fit if she is overwhelmed and unsupported.

A couple of hours prep for a one to one lesson in KS3 Science?
OP are you actually a qualified teacher? Why do you need so long to prep?

This isnt really helping her long term. Her school teachers do need to be aware of her actual understanding. That's why she really should do the homework without your help.
Your lessons absolutely need to be going over what she doesn't understand and teaching her how to do it. But I think she should perhaps hand in homework as she was able to do it. Maybe the class teachers can then see what needs re explaining in class?
I'm shocked her parents are not the ones helping her organise herself and supporting homework though.
Are you covering all her subjects at secondary level??

She is messaging you because you are allowing her to.

You stated it’s her mum who messages you first, so she is aware her daughter is messaging you out of hours and at weekends. While I totally get that you want the money and don’t want to loose your client, messaging on a Sunday and at 10 o’clock at night is incredibly cheeky.

You can’t bill them for yesterday. They obviously do expect you to do it for free because you haven’t said no!

So moving forwards, you need to message her parents and say that while you can be flexible, you need to establish a few boundaries. And you need to decide what you are comfortable with. And what you are prepared to accept. There is no way I would be dealing with anything at 10pm…. and Sundays are family days. So be very clear exactly what you are prepared to do. And that going forward you will have to charge for this additional workload. I think I would say something along the lines of I am not available after 9pm weekdays and and work done between 6-9pm will be charged at time and a half. Saturday, if you are willing to make yourself available should also be time and a half.

There is no way I would message my daughters tutor at 10pm at night or a Sunday…. Very cheeky behaviour.

Are you aware of the new DfE safeguarding guidance for out of school activities including private tuition such as this?
I think you should read through that and make sure you tick all of those boxes but then also think about whether much of this behaviour is really appropriate. The lines are clearly blurred but you seem to be excusing that on the basis it's the mum's phone.
Then you need to decide what you want to do here. Are you being paid more than the going rate as you're expected to provide ad hoc support at other times or are they paying above the going rate as you're particularly well qualified, in demand or get on with their daughter.
If you are going to charge more, then I suggest you send an email saying you have reviewed the support you have provided this half term and, in addition to the regular hours, have provided X hours at weekends, X hours outside regular hours (and you can set what those hours are) and X hours during regular hours. You could then say that you think you should review the arrangement to work out how best to support the child but you would also like to make it clear that you will not be available between certain times (in my view, no 12yo should be doing homework after 9pm at the very latest). It might be that, at weekends when she may be catching up on homework, you offer to be available at certain times.
I also think you need to stand back and think about the whole arrangement. Given her age, I am guessing the girl is in Yr8 although maybe Yr7. By providing all of this scaffolding, are more fundamental issues being hidden? Does she have additional needs? Is she at risk of being places in a higher maths set than she should really be? After all, you don't know if she is acing extension tasks or test type tasks which the teacher isn't expecting many pupils to do well on. I am concerned that if she needs this much support in the lower years of secondary, she will really struggle by the time it's GCSEs. It may be that continuing support from her is the best solution for her if the parents are able to throw money at the problem but there will be benefits of the school at least knowing where she struggles.

I'd state my out of hours rate at time and a half, if/ when you are free to do the work. They aren't going to find anyone else willing to work for free so they have the choice of paying you for the inconvenience, paying someone else for it, or sticking to the original hours.
Write to the parents stating the number of addition hours done this month and that you will need to invoice for them on top of the agreed fee for the originally agreed work. As a goodwill gesture, as comms have not been good so far, I'd offer those at your regular rate but be clear it needs to be at the OOH rate going forwards.
Start treating this like the business it is and not a weird friendship!

Her parents are just offloading all responsibility for this onto you, when you only officially teach her for a couple of hours per week.

I think you should write a message to her mum saying "I've done an extra X hours this week, which I will be charging at the usual rate. However I'm afraid if I'm asked to do work for her after 6 pm or on Saturday or Sunday then I will have to charge double rates as this is massively affecting my family life. I'm sure you understand."

Do her parents work for themselves? They would surely understand your position if so.

You still have to figure out how to say "no" when you need to x
Once you can do that, it doesn't matter what they do because you'll be doing what you want, not what you're guilted into doing when you don't want to

This was my thought as well ADHD possibly with the disorganisation, no concept of time and anxiety.

I would say to the Mum that you need to put in a few boundaries to be able to continue with tuition and manage your existing family/work commitments.

1. From now on homework must be sent in advance of lessons - as soon as received.
2. You can not be contacted outside the hours of X and Y.
3. If additional tuition/support is provided outwith tuition times, it will be chargeable at X rate.

Hope that helps.