I'm curious how others handle private lessons (or even small groups) with students who either skip lessons and/or don't pay on the agreed upon date. How do you handle your own side hustle and what advice might you give me?
I've been here awhile and have had private (or semi-private) lessons many times over the years.
I used to be extremely understanding and lenient about skipping lessons and payment. Probably too much so.
I've evolved into this current setup per student:
Three lessons/month. At the time of the third lesson they should pay for the next month. If they miss the lesson on the day without a couple of days notice to reschedule, that's not my fault (i use time prepping and have blocked out that hour for them).
Problems with this that I've run into are that students don't pay for the next month (at the time of the current month's third lesson). They'll then use the fact they didn't pay to later say they want/need a month off because they're busy with something else.
It's kinda annoying, but I've been letting this go.
Another problem I've had is when a student "forgets" about the lesson and they want to reschedule it. It's as if what I've previously said about missed lessons and early payment meaningless.
Ive put my foot down about rescheduling lessons because they "forgot". As you might guess, a side effect of that is that they just stop the lessons.
Personally, while having some extra cash is nice, I don't want to help/teach unmotivated students or people who think they can dictate the terms after already agreeing (verbally) to the conditions. I'm resigned to just let them go somewhere else.
Am I wrong?
by James-Maki