If there is a waitlist for aftercare and you don't need it, you shouldn't take up the spot.

I know that doesn't answer your question about your child, but it's selfish and rude for you to take a spot if you don't need it.

Anonymous wrote:No, your THIRD GRADER does not need to come home to study after being in school all day. Do you know NOTHING about child development?

Without knowing more I assume OP meant homework, which unfortunately most third graders seem to have.

They need a lot of playtime but I wouldn’t pay for aftercare for playtime, personally, I guess maybe unless your child is super extroverted?

As much as they want

Anonymous wrote:They need a lot.

+1

Kids need alot of free time to just be kids, I wouldn't even think about keeping them busier til high school.

Anonymous wrote:How much recess do they get?

Maybe 15 minutes but they have been missing recess because they wait for all of the kids to be quiet before releasing them from lunch and that has caused them to be late or miss recess multiple times recently.

I do think sometimes kids just do not get enough time to socialize during the school day and aftercare takes the place of it.

I get you on cost. It seems crazy to pay for what is essentially babysitting for a 10 or 11 year old when they could definitely just walk home and play at home. But yeah, without neighbors to play with, that could be lonely.

Does your school offer any afterschool sports or activities? That's what we do. After school clubs twice a week and then an evening activity twice a week where she sees friends. Sometimes we carpool with other kids to the evening stuff and I will tell the parents they can drop them off early so the girls can play and hang out before I take them.

So my kid is only getting one day a week with no socializing after school, and that will be a day to catch up on homework and also we make sure we do a sit down dinner with the family on that night.

It can be hard to figure this out. When I was a kid, we all just walked home and then played with neighborhood kids until dinner time. It's more complicated now because kids have less freedom to bounce between houses or get places on their own.

This is so kid dependent. But honestly few kids get enough free play. Follow your kid’s lead

How much recess do they get?

No, your THIRD GRADER does not need to come home to study after being in school all day. Do you know NOTHING about child development?

Absolutely worth it. There's not enough playtime even in K.
Think of it as playdates you don't have to arrange.

3rd grade is too young to be coming home alone.

They need a lot.

How much unstructured free play does a 4th or 5th grader need? My DC is in third and tells me that after care is an important time for free play since recess is frequently cut short and we don’t have any peers on our street so casual play outside of school is not an option for us. But I would expect that older elementary kids are not really getting a lot of free play compared to the younger kids and that we will eventually need to find other options.

Is it about time that we begin more focused activities each day or even have DC come home alone and study rather than after care? I think they enjoy the time but it does cost a lot and I wonder if it’s worth it.