collecting child from nursery, should I charge the extra minutes to get there?

[Dorange]

Hi. This child used to come in the mornings but now will be going to nursery and I need to collect at 12. I am not charging the whole morning the child is there, I have changed his contract for afternoons only, but now I'm thinking, should I charge the extra 15 minutes will take me to get there (walking)? At the end of the day I will have to leave the house and get there just for him...or does it sound to mean??

Yes you should charge for your time- around here most cm also charge for the morning as well- as they are unlikely to be able to fill a space for a slightly less than half day....so you are being more than generous...

Where I live, cm generally don't charge for time children Are at nursery, but I charge for the 10 mins it takes me to get there. It is an inconvenience to go especially in the winter or in bad weather and I have never been queried about why I charge for that time.

I will bring this up with the parents, thinking on a way not to sound greedy and mean.......specially because I totally forgot about this detail when updating the contract....

Perhaps you could say that you were looking for template contracts to work from and most of them say that you should be charging for that time.

It is hard to change your mind once you have given a price and made out a contract, and I suspect could seem a bit petty. I do now charge from when I leave home for the nursery pick up (as everyone else seems to do), and in fact I now round everyone's charges up to the nearest half hour anyway, so it would be the same for 3-6 or 3.15-6, but I have introduced these changes as new children have joined me and left the existing ones' bills as they were until they left. This is because if the position were reversed, I think I might feel a bit put out to be quoted one price then charged something more once I had "signed up". I therefore chose not to risk creating bad feeling over what was in my case a very small amount of money over quite a limited timescale - but of course your situation may be different.

Honestly I think it sounds money grabbing. Vvv so if you already agreed/done the contract.

I would look at it as, do I get paid from when I leave the house or from when start my work? For 10 mins is it worth losing the contract.

As for rounding off, I wud make damn sure I didn't collect/lose one minute of it. Also do you round down if say its 3 to 6.05 or 6.10. Thought not! There is give and take, and as long as it is equal then I wouldn't do this.

I told the parents I will update the overall fess in January, so it will cover the nursery pick up. I think it is better this way, plenty of notice and fair.

I think going to fetch the children from nursery is part of the job, Holidaysarenice. You wouldn't say a postman's job is putting letters through your letterbox so he shouldn't be paid for getting there. But in any case, my fuel costs a whole lot more than 15 minutes at my hourly rate. I do a lot of unpaid hours too (as do many others I know) - for instance often spending the afternoon cooking dishes for the children I pick up from school or nursery, or completing their development records in the evenings and at the weekends, not to mention letting it go when parents are accidentally late picking up. I am happy to say it's appreciated and I'm not providing a service to anyone who would make "damn sure" to pick up their own children at the last possible minute or begrudge the fees paid. I don't know if you use childcare, but there is generally all sorts of give and take going on.

If they want to pay you from 12 then the child should be delivered to your home at 12, if they want you to pick the child up, then they need to be paying for your time.