Working parents: How do you deal with making sure your kids are taken care of when you are at work?

Question

My kids are in a GREAT daycare, so we are safe now. However, what do parents do when the kids enter school and there are summer vacations and fall breaks? What do you do for child care then? We have no relatives in the area or neighbors we feel comfortable with watching our kids. What do you do?

Answer 1

When they reach schoolage there are alot of options your current daycare may offer schoolbreak care and care for days off, or my children go to a small school that offers afterschool care, then there is the ymca programs and child development programs. it all depends on where you live we have alot of good programs in my town that offer summer and school break care

Answer 2

My daughter is 2 and the mother of one of my neighbors runs a daycare out of her home, and that is where my daughter goes while I am at work. My son is 10 so he is obviously at school during the day, but I did have some trouble finding somewhere for him to go after school. I was lucky that my preacher was willing to let him come to his house after school. During school breaks I take him over to my daughters babysitter.

My daughters babysitter takes one week of vacation every year, and the first year I took her to a daycare where some of the people from my church take their kids, and this year I took a few days off and my sister-n-law watched her for a couple.

Answer 3

Most daycare centers have a summer camp program for older kids that in school during the school year. I'd bet your current daycare has one, you just don't need it yet since your kids aren't old enough.

The only problem is the summer camp at the daycare center is usually quite a bit more expensive than regular weekly daycare.

Answer 4

there are youth recreational programs in most areas either with the YMCA, recreation centers or churches and daycares. if your children are in daycare, they can go there anytime during the week. they should only close for big holidays, but are open year round.

Answer 5

I've always wondered what parents who work do in the summer, since they use school as baby sitters. Fortunately, we decided to actually parent our kids.

There is no such thing as a great day care, except from the parents' point of view. NICHD data has shown for decades that children are seriously harmed socially, intellectually, emotionally, and health-wise, by being separated from mommy under age 5. The data show this damage happens even if granma or daddy or the number one day care center in the country is watching the kids. Why? Because human babies are primates - they evolved to need, desparately need, their mothers, until age 5 or 6.

Before that, there's no such thing as good day care. So, what do you do - either give your kids a second rate childhood with damage that will last a lifetime or parent them yourselves.