How do you manage after school activities

[Anonymous]

Most of the sports have volunteer coaches who work too. It's busy, but not as bad as it seems. Most sports, at least short of the hard core travel types, are 1-2 practices in the evening and games on the weekend. And if you occasionally miss one, no one worries. Baseball is the trickiest with games during the week and somewhat random scheduling.

[Anonymous]

Baseball is the trickiest with games during the week and somewhat random scheduling.

And, the games can last forever. Lax is recommended.

[Anonymous]

We love LAX and touch football.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are a dual career couple?

My kid is in first grade, but it looks like kids start specializing in their sports by at least third grade, which means after school practices. I also have a younger kid I like to see every day and right now I enjoy eating together as a family every night. How do people manage to take their kids to after school practices without disrupting family life or work constraints.

We are not a family that has the luxury of a lot of work flexibility. Do we need to hire a driver, nanny, or someone so my daughter doesn't miss out on sports?

It is not easy. We try to carpool as much as possible. Some seasons (notably, spring) are harder than others. Perhaps you can find some activities where you can do the lion share of the transportation and then you can find a family who can do the lion share for another activity. For example, there may be an activity early mornings or right after school, right at the school, one or two days a week. You could offer to drive to all of those which can help a family who may have young children at home who may not want to get them in a car early in the morning. Then another season that family might have an easier time bringing your kid to the soccer/baseball/LAX/track/pool/field, etc. You'll hopefully find, as we do, that when we are planning, a few weeks before registration we are sending and receiving texts to try to schedule carpools. I won't lie: it doesn't always work out and then it is a real pain. There are many times while one kid is in a field practicing, my other kid is in the attached playground, and I'm in the car between the two either on a call or on a laptop working. It is a scramble at times but it somehow comes together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are a dual career couple?

My kid is in first grade, but it looks like kids start specializing in their sports by at least third grade, which means after school practices. I also have a younger kid I like to see every day and right now I enjoy eating together as a family every night. How do people manage to take their kids to after school practices without disrupting family life or work constraints.

We are not a family that has the luxury of a lot of work flexibility. Do we need to hire a driver, nanny, or someone so my daughter doesn't miss out on sports?

Yes, I had to switch to part time and we are considering a nanny instead of afterschool care just for this reason although with the part time so far it's working ok. It's been a drain of about $15,000 just switching to part time to make the afterschool activities, homework, and family time work at a reasonable level.

[Anonymous]

my kids are younger, but we recently had a roundtable of working parents at my office. it seems like most people have settled on the after school sitter/nanny to drive kids to practices and the like. and/or carpooling with others. they also said carpooling was most plausible if a parent could go part-time and drive the kids at least once/week. a few with older kids let the kids rely on public transit too for part of the equation

[Anonymous]

I quite my FT job and work PT at home while they are at school. I found it harder to be a working mom while they were in school. Between days off, snow days, delays, activities, school events, etc... it just made it easier. We have to sacrifice a little more but it is worth it.

[Anonymous]

I quite my FT job and work PT at home while they are at school. I found it harder to be a working mom while they were in school. Between days off, snow days, delays, activities, school events, etc... it just made it easier. We have to sacrifice a little more but it is worth it.

Just wait til middle school!
That's when you really need to be around.

[Anonymous]

I agree with PP. The irony is that young parents think they need to be around the most when their kids are young. I think the older they are the more you need to be around.

[Anonymous]

We only do weekend activities, or those scheduled as part of the school's aftercare/enrichment program.