Unhappy at aftercare

[Anonymous]

My first grader liked his aftercare program last year but recently started complaining about it. He’s complaining about it often enough to make me think he’s actually bored and unhappy. I’ve been encouraging him to find something he likes to do etc but his moodiness about it persists. He has some friends there and I usually see him playing with kids or doing an activity when I pick him up, and sometimes he gets upset to leave before he finishes an activity. So i don’t see evidence that he miserable there but nonetheless concerned about the frequency of complaints. I can see how it would get boring after awhile and maybe the novelty of it has just worn off for him. Is this common and if so, what have you done about it? We need to use aftercare. It’s not possible to switch my hours around to get home when school ends and I don’t think we can afford a part time nanny. So how do we make the best of aftercare?

[Anonymous]

A few possible reasons:. Not intellectually stimulating for him. He is tired at the end of the day. They don’t let him do his preferred activity whatever that may be. His friends don’t play him or do the activities he wants to do.

[Anonymous]

If he has friends who have a nanny or parent home in the afternoon, maybe you could get him a weekday afternoon play date once a week or once every 2 weeks to break up the monotony? If he’s just bored with the particular games/toys/activities aftercare offers and/or the kids he enjoys most don’t go to aftercare.

[Anonymous]

We did drop in aftercare because my kid begged to do it in K so we did it maybe once a month, ( we have an afterschool sitter for the other days)
well in 1st she did it once and then it never got mentioned again. Not sure what happened but for some reason she went off it.
I think for some kids its just a really long day.
Do you any other options you could do twice a week maybe, just to break it up a bit for him?

[Anonymous]

Is there another program that he can take the bus to in the area? Sometimes daycare centers do this..

[Anonymous]

It’s often chaotic, loud, and disorganized. Some kids don’t cope well with that or enjoy it. You could explore getting a sitter instead.

[Anonymous]

My house is walking distance from the elementary school, and I found a high school student to watch DC after school. It has worked out great.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, saw you can’t afford a sitter. Any possibility of shifting work hours so he’s not there as long? Beforecare is usually quieter and more chill.

[Anonymous]

It’s a long day, IMO. Especially for kids in K-2. An entire day of school plus the load, chaotic aftercare can be tough. I go in there to pick up my kid sometimes and the music is blasting, etc. Our counselors are good, but they’re also teens so they like it loud and chaotic. Plus, your kid is with some of these kids for a long time. Face it, sometimes other first graders can be annoying!

Maybe you could do a sitter part of the time? Or find out what it is that’s bugging him and offer suggestions to fix it in aftercare?

Ours lets a small group of kids who want more quiet, or to color, etc go to a separate room. And kids who want to run around can go elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

It could just be the winter blahs. Are they going outside everyday or staying in more often?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It could just be the winter blahs. Are they going outside everyday or staying in more often?

Thanks, that's a good point, and may be part of it. They've been making an effort to get the kids outside each day, weather permitting. I think they cut the outside time short yesterday (or that was my son's impression), so that didn't help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, saw you can’t afford a sitter. Any possibility of shifting work hours so he’s not there as long? Beforecare is usually quieter and more chill.

No, I'd need to find a new job, and so far this situation doesn't seem bad enough to warrant a job change. I don't think the chaos bothers him much, it seems to be more frustration that he doesn't get to do what he wants to do. I've been encouraging him to think of what he would like to do, instead of focusing on what he doesn't want to do, so that he can find ways to make it more fun. He might also just be bored with the structure and wishing for time at home to just do what he feels like doing.

A nanny would be beyond our budget but it's possible we could make a high school sitter work on a part-time basis, if we could find someone. Maybe even once a week to break things up and see whether that makes a big difference.

Thanks to you and other PPs for the suggestions.

[Anonymous]

If you have a friend to share an after school sitter with, it evens out to roughly the cost of aftercare. I've used teenagers for years and it has been really good. My kids get to be in their own home, with neighborhood kids whose parents SAH or have more flexible schedules, and the cost is the same as aftercare for two kids.

[Anonymous]

There's a handful of programs we can use in our area. I allowed my oldest son to do a little switching around when he got bored, so a year with the martial arts program, and a year with a more general program, so long as the space is available, transportation is provided, and the program seems safe and is affordable, I'm open to it. Other than that, it is what it is, unfortunately. The aftercare does get dull, and the women who run ours aren't crazy about going outside; seem to find any excuse to keep them inside. So, I get it but we still have to work within limits.

I'm not really interested in an afterschool babysitter because i think it would a) lead to electronics after school; and b) be much less reliable. If they are sick or quit, then what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's a handful of programs we can use in our area. I allowed my oldest son to do a little switching around when he got bored, so a year with the martial arts program, and a year with a more general program, so long as the space is available, transportation is provided, and the program seems safe and is affordable, I'm open to it. Other than that, it is what it is, unfortunately. The aftercare does get dull, and the women who run ours aren't crazy about going outside; seem to find any excuse to keep them inside. So, I get it but we still have to work within limits.

I'm not really interested in an afterschool babysitter because i think it would a) lead to electronics after school; and b) be much less reliable. If they are sick or quit, then what?

For what it is worth, and I'm not really trying to convince anyone, our teenage babysitters have been extremely responsible. If they have been sick or had a conflict, they always asked a friend to cover for them. There has been a bit of flux as one sitter decides to go out for tennis, or the school play, but it has never been hard to find another local teen to take over a few days a week.