Oh man, that's sad. Seems like the parents need parenting classes. 1st of all, I looked into providing chilcare from my home last summer and would have offered breakfast, lunch and snacks. I think you are offering more than enough by feeding them lunch when they get there, snacks and dinner. How late are they picked up that they need dinner too? Don't the parents care about eating together at all as a family? I don't think you can do much to change the parents. I might just suggest that they try to sign them up for a breakfast program at their school if one exists. My almost 4 year old refuses to eat breakfast, so when we go out for morning activities, I have her drink milk before we leave, at least and then bring along some fruit and either go out for an early lunch or come home and have lunch right away. Kids will tell you when they are hungry and should be fed within reason when they are hungry. Sounds like they are being malnurished at home if they are so starving all of the time. Maybe you could, depending on a contract you might have entered, either raise the ammount that you are charging and just feed them bigger meals and bigger snacks and that way, you don't have to feed them every 20 minutes, so they are not corrupting your children's eating habits, and also, you will be reimbursed for the extra food expenditure. Either that or require them to bring extra food along with and have them eat their extra healthy snacks in the kitchen and try to occupy your other children in a different room while they eat. Hope this helps. Also, it bugs me to hear that a parent just keeps their kids home for no good reason. What is this teaching the kids? Not good work ethics, that's for sure. I took my kids who are not school aged yet to the mall a few months ago and there was a mother there with her two kids and they were sitting and eating lunch at McDonalds. She was talking to them, almost as if she were broadcasting to everyone there because whe was bragging or felt guilty. Anyways, she was talking about how much fun they were having on their day off from school, "just because". It made me so mad. There are soooo many teachers' inservice days, the weekend and hollidays where the kids don't have to go to school.
