What child care do you use for elementary school age kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Aftercare Mon-Fri
Camp for the summer

same here.

Camp in summer with a one week vacation.

in the future when our youngest is in school and on swim team we will do a summer sitter for the swim season.

We don't have family in the area so that is never an option.

[Anonymous]

11:21 again.. we are in fairfax county. SACC is open on teacher workdays which is great. They also have SACC camps during winter and spring break. We haven't used that option yet, but may in the future.

[Anonymous]

If you have space, can afford it, and aren't turned off by the idea, au pair might be a good option.

We have two kids and do aftercare on weekdays, some all-day aftercare on school days off, or my DH and I will split the day and work half-days (I also get all federal holidays off). spring break and one week in summer is vacation. winter break I get off at work (plus a couple of vacation days, as needed). the rest of summer is camps that have a full-day program.

[Anonymous]

We did nanny when kids were in elementary school (and still now they are in middle school). She covers sick days, after school, professional days, and is more around in the summer. Pay full time so it's a lot but she does laundry, shopping and walks the dogs. Expensive but the best if you can afford it.

[Anonymous]

Is there any family who are from foreign country so sends their kids to their grandparents during the summer in their home country? Here in the U.S., most elementary school ends sometime in June. Elementary school in my home country runs until mid-July. I hear some people sends their kids to attend school in their home country till mid-July and have them spend the rest of the summer with grandparents (with parents flying in to spend holiday together one week or so and pick kids up). Is this doable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there any family who are from foreign country so sends their kids to their grandparents during the summer in their home country? Here in the U.S., most elementary school ends sometime in June. Elementary school in my home country runs until mid-July. I hear some people sends their kids to attend school in their home country till mid-July and have them spend the rest of the summer with grandparents (with parents flying in to spend holiday together one week or so and pick kids up). Is this doable?

I know some people do this, though kids are generally older elementary/middle school age. Or, in one case, mom is a teacher with summers off, so she goes with the kid. My in-laws live abroad but would not be able to handle the kids for more than an hour, and there's unfortunately a language barrier.

[Anonymous]

DH and I stagger our work schedules. I do the morning (before school) routine. He does the afternoon (after school) routine. He goes into the office really early and I arrive later. In the summers, we do a combination of summer camps and babysitters. For school closing days, one of us will try to telework or take the day off or have the kids attend a day camp. I usually pick up sick kids since DH relies on metro and cannot get to their schools in a timely manner.

[Anonymous]

We use an Au Pair. Summer we do some camp-- usually 3-4 weeks.

[Anonymous]

Keep your nanny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Is there any family who are from foreign country so sends their kids to their grandparents during the summer in their home country? Here in the U.S., most elementary school ends sometime in June. Elementary school in my home country runs until mid-July. I hear some people sends their kids to attend school in their home country till mid-July and have them spend the rest of the summer with grandparents (with parents flying in to spend holiday together one week or so and pick kids up). Is this doable?


I know some people do this, though kids are generally older elementary/middle school age. Or, in one case, mom is a teacher with summers off, so she goes with the kid. My in-laws live abroad but would not be able to handle the kids for more than an hour, and there's unfortunately a language barrier.

I have a friend who sent her kids to Bulgaria for 6+ weeks every summer to stay with relatives. I don't know what age they started, but I know they were doing it by the time they were 5. Parents stayed in US to work, then visited and picked them up.

[Anonymous]

In Fairfax County so we use SACC for before/after and teacher workdays/early release days. They're closed Federal holidays and as pp said have separate enrollments for Spring break, winter break, and Summer camp. They're closed a few weeks in the Summer so we use a local gym summer camp, take a week vacation and sometimes grandparents will stay a week or two. When our younger child is in elem. school I plan to hire a college student for the Summer (hopefully).

[Anonymous]

PP with the foreign family. Thank you for the replies. It seems doable for some and may be challenging for some. We will have to look into this option as well. THank you.

[Anonymous]

My husband and I stagger our work times. I go in early and he does the morning routine/drop off. I leave work earlier than most and am able to do pickup. It's been really great (though having to go to bed early to get up early is a downside).

In the summer we use camps with the same pickup/dropoff scenario.

[Anonymous]

Op here. Thank you - this is so totally helpful. Still not sure there is an obvious answer for is but this is definitely a lot of ideas.

[Anonymous]

We kept our nanny part-time. She took over housekeeping duties and dinner prep in addition to childcare. Works out fantastic.