Is the childminder right to charge me this way?

[Fiona2011231]

Could you pls advise?

Since September, for the first time I have been using a childminder. We pay her a full-day fee (8 hours) for fiver days per week.

During the week, there is one day when we always pick up our child one hour early. However, we still pay her the full-day service. Initially we did not know we could have picked up the child early. And when we know that we could, we still pay her the full fee.

Last week, we came a bit late, exactly 6 minutes late. She said that we need to pay her for another half an hour.

This is not about the money. I want to ask if her payment request is normal for a childminder. On our part, we had thought since we always pay the full fee even though we pick up the child early once a week, she would be more reasonable when we are a bit late.

Is my expectation reasonable? From now on, should we not pay the full fee on the day when we can pick up the child one hour early?

Your advice is greatly appreciated.

The reason CMs and nurseries have late fees is because parents regularly take the piss, not just now and again but a lot of them do. In fact, people take the piss generally with child minders, nannies, au pairs, if you don't then that's good but there will be 3 parents behind you that will. The fact that someone mentioned up thread that there should be no Christmas bonus for the OP's CM just because she dares enforce something that is in their contract shows how little regard some people show their children's carers.

People are willing to pay their washing machine engineer more money and respect than they do to the person who looks after their child.

There will be a reason she fined the OP, probably because she's been shafted before.

Some childminders don't mind and are happy to offer this level of flexibility. For others, it doesn't work for them and they take steps to discourage it.

Neither is wrong if it works for both childminder and parent.

It's unfair to accuse a childminder of meanness and being unreasonable for implementing a policy that is very common for all childcare settings. Lateness obviously doesn't work for this childminder so the Op will need to ensure she's on time in future, or rethink her childcare if it doesn't work for her.

Sorry,I should have said a SOME people.

This wouldn't work with my CM and I would honestly find another. Anyone who travels on PT in London knows 6 minutes is nothing.

Having said that I pay for full time which is 9 hours and regularly collect at 7.5 hours. When I travel for work DH has to collect and then it's usually a 9.5 hour day.

And the suggestion of no bonus at Christmas. Well I'd probably go this way if I was not allowed any flexibility. I'm paid a bonus to go above and beyond at work. Which includes the odd overtime.

Really glad for my lovely, flexible CM!

£6 ??? And that's half an hour fee. You pay £12 ph to your cm?

Or did she charge you £1 per min but in your opening post you said you had to pay half an hour ?

@Blondeshavemorefun: No, in my case, she charges £12 per hour. So £6 is for 30 mins.

@Blondeshavemorefun: I meant to say she charges £12 per hour if people are late - outside the normal hour.

OMG £12 p/h that is one expensive childminder. What part of the country are you in? Is this the standard rate for childminders in your area.

She charges £12 an hour? Bloody hell, that's steep. I'm in the SE in London commuter belt and my cm charges £6 with no late fees if it's within a reasonable time.

If you are not usually late, pay on time etc then I think charging you is a shitty thing to do. And it's a bad business decision.

Well you will certainly try not to be late again!

I think it harsh but I suppose it was her legal right to do it.

If I was you though I would now feel there was a mark against her!

Harsh I know but generosity can work both ways sooooo if I was you I would ask her if the hour your pay her for if you can use it as a potential ten minute extra on each day incase you are late! If you're not late fine, but if you are then you're covered

Wow. That's a nanny rates

Maybe look into having a nanny

£12ph for a cm is the highest I've heard. I'm in South east and some charge £7/8 but average is 6ish

Oh £12ph late fee. That makes sense not £12 ph whole day fee

£12 per hour is the out-of-hours cost.

She is perfectly entitled to charge you the full amount for the days and really the late charge but I would be really pissed off if my CM did this. If you were regularly late fair enough but once for 6 minutes?! She gets the benefit of you being early one day a week, yet she doesn't give you the benefit of the doubt for a few minutes? Things like late fees are in contracts yes, but a a bit of give and take is fair. I wouldn't give her anything for Christmas either as its 'not in the contract'

It's better business sense to treat lateness as a black and white issue and begin as you mean to go on. The OP is unlikely to be late again. Upthread other CMs are being taken advantage of because they've been flexible.

And it's extraordinary how many people are willing to annoy the person who looks after their child.

Mama - to quote a pp 'would you ring up your phone company and complain about being charged for going over your contract?'

If not, why?

'Annoy the person who looks after their child'. WTF, how about we flip that stupid statement and say it's amazing how many CM are prepared to annoy the person who helps them pay their bills.

Stupid comment hey.

mamababa - in that case, lets hope giving the OP's baby a cuddle when he falls over (and all the other million little kindnesses/care above and beyond CMs show to their mindees each day) is "in the contract" too.

Again, why on earth would you try and antagonise/not get on well with the person looking after your baby?!

CMs are self-employed and sure charging for 6 minutes may not have been a well-thought out plan if its caused the OP such upset, but as has been said, we don't know if the OP has had late-collecting parents in the past, was advised to charge by her local council or a childminding forum or whatever. But at the end of the day I think it is very wrong to imagine that the CM was sitting there gloating at her ill-gotten gains! She may have felt awkward and upset about charging, but not wanted to set a poor precedent.

I've never had to charge late fees (although they are in my contracts) as I've only ever had very occasional late fees, but I have had to threaten to charge late-payments fees as 1 set of parents permanently messed up their payments (4 of them - 2 sets of childcare vouchers, plus top-up fees from each parent!) and paid some fees late.

I felt sick about the situation and each month had to spend ages trawling through my online banking trying to identify which payment was for which month (and for which parents as other parents used the same voucher companies and sometimes combined payments) - as some were so early/late/missing that it was hard to tell which was which - and then had to contact the parents to ask them to pay. It was really, really awful and I did feel it affected my relationship with the parents as I felt that it showed little respect for my care of their child! The same parents also permanently were messing up breakfast time by being 10-20 minutes late in the mornings.

Thank goodness they left, but it has impacted how I treat my other parents. I've had a new family start and I've been really strict over a missing payment and variable drop off times - again they may think I'm being a cow, but I can't bear to go down the route of being aggravated by inconsideration every bloody day when I have to feed 4 or 5 babies/kids and get 2 of them to school every day.

Well thank you. I guess I must have more respect for the people who care for my child than you do.

"Possumpoo" No its very, very different. If a parent annoys the person that looks after the child then (my fear as a parent would be that) the child may not be looked after as lovingly. I would expect them to be professional, but that does not have to include cuddles/extra attention to detail that goes above and beyond that.

Worst case scenario for me - in your flipped situation - is that the child's parents give their (6 weeks) notice and I call the parents on my waiting list and start interviewing. I'd rather that than be annoyed by parents taking me and my care for granted.

There needs to be mutual respect and turning up late, not paying on time etc etc is not showing this.

"I've never had to charge late fees (although they are in my contracts) as I've only ever had very occasional late fees," - I meant late parents - d'oh!

I'm glad my child-minder isn't that pedantic.

I agree that she is entitled to charge you, but for the sake of a good relationship, I think a word of polite warning would have been better on the first occasion.

I pay my child-minder by the hour, but we work out all the hours and holidays for the year and arrange a monthly payment. It has generally worked out that I pay her an extra hour each week, due to school clubs changing. As I have a national job and can get stuck on motorways, this compensates for the odd time that I am late (3 times in 12 months by about 15 minutes). Over the last 12 months, she has been paid £208 extra, which has more than compensated for the 3 lates. We communicate constantly and agree on payments.

If I am working from home, then I will let her know the day before that I will do the school run. I obviously still pay her. This generally happens once a week.

We are flexible with each other and I would never take advantage of her, but she knows that and is very flexible back.

I wouldn't have a child minder that wasn't flexible and charged for a one off late pick-up.

Well as I've said before, I have a great CM. We have had a very strong difference of opinion once, so much so that the CM thought I would remove DD and send her to a nursery. She was visibly upset at this thought and that is why DD is still there. She's doing it because she loves kids. It's not just a chance for her to stay home with own as I think it is with some CM.

I'm glad I've got a CM who enjoys and is good, at her job.

OP if you are fine with your relationship with CM don't worry what the rest of us think! It has to work for you and your family.

I am flexible with my parents. They know they can request an early drop off, or phone to let me know they're running late. They also know they will pay for it and are happy to do so. They accept that I have to make arrangements for my DD's school bus drop off if they want to come early and they also know that I have to leave at closing time sometimes, because training courses start half an hour later, or DD has to get to after school activities.

Dying to know what the strong difference of opinion was!