CMs - do you take pre-school kids to parent-arranged daytime clubs?

[chickenmama]

This has been causing me no end of problems and I'm wondering what others would do...

I took on 2 children on who had 2 clubs organised on the same day. One clashed with a school run but the other was ok, and the other kids I have were happy to join in. When the contracts were signed it was agreed that a family friend would do the first club but this worked twice I think and then got forgotten about.

It now seems like it's my fault that the kids miss some of this session. And today, when 2 out of the 3 kids I have were sleeping and I decided not to go (after asking activity leader if awake child could go in without me but told no), I got a very pissed off sounding reaction from the parent. I'm not sure what the parent expected me to do in this situation!

I did once, when I only had one mindee on the day of the activity and the parent arranged a lift for me and agreed it would only be until I got other mindees on that day.

I've said no ever since because its unlikely that all mindees would be the right age/get a place on the group and that all parents would be willing to pay for it. And its not fair for any other mindees to have to sit and wait/watch when they can't join in.

As all my mindees are p/t they arrange to go to groups with their parents on the days they're not with me. When they're with me I choose what we do so when we go out its for everybody to join in.

I refuse point balnk to take schoolis to after school clubs, I have it in my contract

After School Clubs. I cannot pick up from after school clubs, at * School, as this would involve either waiting around with the younger children in the car, (a round trip with waiting time of a hour.) or doing 2 trips which would still mean an hour in the car which is not acceptable. IF your child is going to clubs please make other arrangements for their collection.

Yes, luckily with one of the clubs all of the children can join in and enjoy it.

The other one though is lunch time/nap time for my dd/nursery drop off time. On the days my dd is awake for it, she usually has to sit at the back and ends up crying for most of the session as she's over tired. I've also had the odd day where my other mindee has been with me and had to sit at the back and watch too.

It's been so stressful all the weeks we've been going and when I get that kind of response from the parents I wonder why I agreed to it at all.

I wouldn't either, we all do something or no-one does