What do parents who work full time do when theres no school?

[Anonymous]

Also, OP, if you post in the Camps forum and tell us where you are, you'll get actual concrete suggestions for camps. Pretty much every camp out there has been attended by the kid of someone on this forum.

[Anonymous]

It's why I'm at work this week (and last): I blew my PTO taking care of a sick kid, and covering snow days and days when school was closed but work was not. My DH, who, like yours, works a "demanding job", magically has two weeks off over the holidays.

I spent a week of PTO this fall alone on school closings for FCPS.

[Anonymous]

We also check with high school kids to see if they are available to watch our kids for the days we need coverage. Usually this includes winter break, spring break and the beginning and end of the summer. I keep a list of high school kids that are at the public school and the Catholic school because they often have different weeks off. When I ask I let them know which days I need help with but that they don't need to do the entire week. This helps me get coverage so dh and I don't have to use all of our leave.

If you don't have your own list of high school sitters start with trying to find a Girl Scout leader and asking if they have the contact information for a ten troop in your area. If they don't, they should be able to get you the email for the Service Unit manager. This is like the leader for all of the leaders in your area. The SU Manager will know who the teen troops are and should be willing to help you find some girls looking to earn money.

[Anonymous]

Daycares and tae kwon do places provide care during breaks and teacher workdays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a master spreadsheet with each of my vacation days, DH's vacation days, and the days (and weeks) DS doesn't have school. First I fill in the weeks with camp, and then begin filling in 1 week for family vacation, and each parent taking 1 week vacation with the kid. Rest of each parent's vacation days are allocated to one of the kid's no-school days. That always leaves the first week of break in June and the last week of break in August with no coverage. I usually cobble that together - take kid to my parents to spend a couple nights, to his great aunt's to spend a couple nights, trade off babysitting with two other families. And we usually end up with at least "bring your child to work day."

For sick days...I take a "family sick" day. Glad my organization has that option!

This honestly sounds terrible. And you all have a lot of annual leave at work! Kudos to you for making this work as long as you have. We are going to use up all our annual and sick leave after maternity leave and have no clue what to do after. Won't have leave for years and have no local family.

Well, the only awful part is that we only get a weeks vacation together as a family. If we had the money we could certainly hire a babysitter or find some camp for those other weeks and days, but honestly covering that many weeks of camp already stretches us. Our county camps are generally too chaotic for my kid to enjoy, so I feel badly making him do them, but they would be more affordable.

The spreadsheet part is mandatory, though. This is the way I keep from murdering my husband, who the first year of school would decide to take a couple days off for himself because he was feeling burned out on days the kid had school, but then not have vacation days left to take when the kid didn't have school.

That said...this all has applied from Pre-K through just about now, in third grade. Kid can now entertain himself safely while one of us works from home, so while I still have the spreadsheet there is a lot more flexibility.

[Anonymous]

We both took more flexible, slightly lower paying jobs. We could both absolutely earn more money, but we would have to pay for a nanny with it.

I took a huge paycut two years ago - my job was predictable, but not flexible. I now work from home 95% of the time. I am back up to 93% of my salary and am so much more relaxed. Before I started, I had ZERO hours of leave. I now am at the use it or lose it point, so I can take vacation when I need to.

My DH works from home as well (100%). He could make more money - but would rather spend time with our young family at this point. We are fortunate that we have the option.

For the summer, we will do some type of camps. Everything else, we either take the time off (Christmas, Spring Break). For one offs, we just work from home. I make sure that he can cover me if I have meetings I need to call into, and vice versa.

[Anonymous]

At least in Montgomery County, there are 1-day camps on those random professional days when kids are off from school. You need to look for them. Many schools have on-site childcare which will be open on those days off from school and for breaks.

[Anonymous]

There are camps for spring break, some of winter break and those weeks you mentioned in summer.

My parents help out sometimes

Grandma camp (better for a week here and there when kids are older)

Work from home when kids are sick. usually when they are sick they nap a lot and want to watch tv so it's not so bad.

Many companies have a emergency back up day care option. Look into whtether yours does. This has saved me many times.

Find an occasional babysitter who is college age or has a flexible job who might be willing to work the ocassional work day for you in a pinch.

Befriend people in your neighborhood who might want to share child care duties. For example, she takes your kids on the oct teacher workday and you take hers on the December one.

[Anonymous]

As other PPs say, there are a ton of camps that pick up the slack for the times that your camp seems to be off.

As far as sick, why can't you use sick days for that? Whether it's sick days, vacation days, or PTO if that is what you have, you and your spouse should generally switch off, unless one has some sort of meeting that needs to be done from the office.

Also, like pp said, loo k into emergency care at your or your spouse's work. We have that, too, and it covers sick child care.

Also, how will you not have leave "for years" ? I can understand the current year (of birth), but after that?

WOHPs do this all the time, and how it's done is what you've read. Yes, vacation may go down (I hated all the snow days early this year) in some years, but you should be able to cover sick days with you and DH's own, work supplied emergency care alternatives, care.com occasional care, college age kids with flexible schedules, etc.

[Anonymous]

I just want to say good for you for thinking proactively. In the school forums there seem to be so many parents genuinely surprised that schools are not open 24/7 365 for their convenience. I exaggerate a little, but not much.

[Anonymous]

In Fairfax, SACC offers camps during the summer and coverage on teacher workdays.

[Anonymous]

The other thing to mention is if you do aftercare at school - in Fairfax County, it's called SACC, then they almost always have camp on teacher work days and other holidays. There is also SACC you can sign up for the summer. Like someone else said, you have to do your research, there is always a camp even if you have to go to a different one. For the last week in August, our kids went to camp at Cub Run Rec Center through Parktakes. We're in Fairfax county. Not sure where you are located.

[Anonymous]

We alternate who takes off when a child is sick. Fortunately, my wife has more leave than I do and we both have optional telework. Our preschoolers are now old enough that if one stays home sick, they can play and/or watch TV (all they're up to when really sick) and the parent home can get about 4 hours of work on a 10 hour day so that we don't have to take a full day of leave.

For scheduled days when their preschool/daycare is closed, we have an agreement with the kindercare in our neighborhood where one child used to go for half a year. We can call them and if they have openings they will allow us to pay by the day to leave them there. Last, we have a list of the teachers from their first daycare and friends who are teachers. During the summers, we've found that local teachers are often willing to come to our home and care for our children for a day or two to make some extra cash. If you don't have friends who are teachers, contact the school where your children go and ask if there are any teachers who are interested in taking childcare jobs during the summer. Many teachers make relatively low salaries and would welcome the extra work during the summer.

[Anonymous]

What are you doing with your 2yo?

I actually quit my job when my older child started kindergarten. There were like 15 snow days, countless 2 hour delays, million school events during the middle of the day, random teacher work days on top of the regular winter, spring and summer breaks. I just didn't have enough PTO.

My child attended a church preschool's aftercare and they absorbed some of the breaks but then I felt insanely guilty for sending my child there for spring break.

[Anonymous]

As soon as the local school district publishes their calendar for the year, the neighborhood rec center and arts centers we have through out town release a schedule of day-long camps. There's coverage for just about every day of the year except federal holidays, NYE's, Black Friday, and one of the weeks of August. If you're on top of it, that can cover the school closures, of which there are many.

Now, for Dr's appts and parent-teacher meetings, snow days, and school functions during business hours, and staff development days at school - those add up really quickly. It's a mix of sick leave, back-up care from work, vacation, and some flexing of work hours here & there.

We did it for about 6 months before getting an au pair. We went from being so stressed out every day that we couldn't enjoy the little time we had with the kids to being one of the more relaxed both-working parent families we know. So worth it.