Reply To: What to do when parents are late to pick up their child?

  • Hadiya

    Member
    November 22, 2022 at 10:28 pm

    I would check in with the parent and make sure everything is okay first. See if there is an outside factor causing the tardiness and discuss how we can support them. Maybe we could reach out to another family member that the child is allowed to be released to and see if they could pick the child up.
    I would ask them to make sure they are proactively communicating with us so we can be prepared to provide extra support for the child since 20 minutes can feel like an overwhelming amount of time to them.
    If the parent is unable to make a change, I would then discuss with them that picking their child up earlier could be an option. Overall, we shouldn’t have children here after hours and I don’t want the child to development any negative connotations about the center because they may feel like they’ve been left there when the parent is late- this could create a difficult drop off in the morning as well.