Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

It’s a smaller group that needs the evening session and you can get by with using a few lanes. Our pool is big so using a few lanes a few nights a week is NBD. But it would depend on the pool size.

Anonymous wrote:Summer swim is discriminatory to working parents.

Guess what? The world does not revolve around working parents.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

Why would you have to shut down the pool? Is it that tiny? We have a separate lap pool so, yes, laps are restricted on weekday afternoons. Our pool leadership are smart enough to recognize that keeping their many, many working families happy and contributing to swim team is more important than catering to the relatively small number of adults who want to swim laps in the late afternoon. They can do laps during early bird, anytime between 10am and 4pm, and then from 6 - 10pm. I swim laps myself, so I understand wanting to do so, but these adults don't get priority over everyone else, all the time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it has worked well for us to hire a summer sitter for the first 5 or so weeks of the summer- it means the kids can be relaxed when school gets out- they get up, go to swim team, and then play at the pool all day with the sitter. At the end of swim team, we go to camp. Our pool has tried camper practice early in the morning, and has also tried the evening practice. The early morning camper practice is hard on kids b/c they are not with their normal age group and it is just not as fun. The evening practice was a lot of effort for the board and coaches, and poorly attended. After being at camp all day, most kids don't want to go to swim team practice.

Didn’t see this post before I posted above, but this is something we would be super interested in, how much does it cost and how do you go about finding a sitter for that type of set up?

$15 an hour or so depending on age- I would pay more for a college age non-driving sitter. Do you know the parents of the teens at your pool? Or your swim team reps? I would talk to parents you know and try and get recommendations- then approach the kids. You want a kid who 1) likes kids, and likes to be at the pool; 2) is the type to be interested in helping with younger kids on the swim team; 3) whose parents want them to be occupied over the summer and are thrilled for them to have this kind of job.
Keep your expectations reasonable- a 14-15 year old is fully capable of 1) supervising children 2) engaging your children in play; 3) following a schedule and explicit instructions you give them.
a 14-15 year old will not, on their own, necessarily exercise 'mom' judgment about things like 1) appropriate purchases at the snack bar or ice cream truck 2)doublechecking independently that sun screen has been applied, a healthy lunch is packed for everyone, etc.

FWIW- for older kids I prefer a younger sitter. Its a little counterintuitive but the younger teens still want to play, which is great for the older kids who don't need as much 'safety' supervision. A college age sitter who drives can be addicted to their phone, and not actually engage with the kids as much.

by schedule and explicit instructions I mean things like here is their packed lunch, before they are allowed any purchases from the snack bar, they must have finished their lunch. Make sure they have a drink of water at every break so they are not getting dehydrated. The ice cream truck is a treat- it is allowed 1 x a week on friday, and is a reward for good behavior all week, I will give you money for this on Friday. If there is unexpected thunder, please call me at xxxx, and if you don't reach me, call xxxxx, to come pick you up. My expectation is that you are in the water with the kids every day.

This is really sage advice. We have a lot of issues with teens/college kids LIVING on their phones and paying attention to nothing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it has worked well for us to hire a summer sitter for the first 5 or so weeks of the summer- it means the kids can be relaxed when school gets out- they get up, go to swim team, and then play at the pool all day with the sitter. At the end of swim team, we go to camp. Our pool has tried camper practice early in the morning, and has also tried the evening practice. The early morning camper practice is hard on kids b/c they are not with their normal age group and it is just not as fun. The evening practice was a lot of effort for the board and coaches, and poorly attended. After being at camp all day, most kids don't want to go to swim team practice.

Didn’t see this post before I posted above, but this is something we would be super interested in, how much does it cost and how do you go about finding a sitter for that type of set up?

$15 an hour or so depending on age- I would pay more for a college age non-driving sitter. Do you know the parents of the teens at your pool? Or your swim team reps? I would talk to parents you know and try and get recommendations- then approach the kids. You want a kid who 1) likes kids, and likes to be at the pool; 2) is the type to be interested in helping with younger kids on the swim team; 3) whose parents want them to be occupied over the summer and are thrilled for them to have this kind of job.
Keep your expectations reasonable- a 14-15 year old is fully capable of 1) supervising children 2) engaging your children in play; 3) following a schedule and explicit instructions you give them.
a 14-15 year old will not, on their own, necessarily exercise 'mom' judgment about things like 1) appropriate purchases at the snack bar or ice cream truck 2)doublechecking independently that sun screen has been applied, a healthy lunch is packed for everyone, etc.

FWIW- for older kids I prefer a younger sitter. Its a little counterintuitive but the younger teens still want to play, which is great for the older kids who don't need as much 'safety' supervision. A college age sitter who drives can be addicted to their phone, and not actually engage with the kids as much.

by schedule and explicit instructions I mean things like here is their packed lunch, before they are allowed any purchases from the snack bar, they must have finished their lunch. Make sure they have a drink of water at every break so they are not getting dehydrated. The ice cream truck is a treat- it is allowed 1 x a week on friday, and is a reward for good behavior all week, I will give you money for this on Friday. If there is unexpected thunder, please call me at xxxx, and if you don't reach me, call xxxxx, to come pick you up. My expectation is that you are in the water with the kids every day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got babysitters for the swim season and then did camps the rest of summer. Split it with another swim team family

Just out of curiosity, how much do these high school/college age sitters cost for swim season? Both my DH and I largely work from home, but would be interested in having a sitter who takes care of the kids from say 9 am to 3 pm, basically take them to practice and hang out at the pool with them for the day. For reference my kids will be 10 by summer and are more than water safe (one is a club swimmer), so should be a pretty easy gig (lol I wish I could have done this when I was in high school for the summer!).

If you are in walking distance (hopefully) to the pool you could probably hire and older kid on the team (15-18) for this job. Then you could pay per day an amount ($40 or $50 per day). If you have a driver then probably more and I would add a tank of gas a week into the cost.

Anonymous wrote:Some pools have swim team practice in the evening.

Yes, I would recommend calling around. Also where you live depends on whether you can even get a membership to a pool. Our pool has a several year wait and caps on the number of kids allowed on the swim team. So ask all these questions in advance.

Pool waitlist
Practice times (when school is in session and when it is out)
What skills are required for the team (this can vary greatly from team to team)
And is the team capped (i.e. even if you meet all of the above will being new not allow you entry)

Some pools have swim team practice in the evening.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got babysitters for the swim season and then did camps the rest of summer. Split it with another swim team family

Just out of curiosity, how much do these high school/college age sitters cost for swim season? Both my DH and I largely work from home, but would be interested in having a sitter who takes care of the kids from say 9 am to 3 pm, basically take them to practice and hang out at the pool with them for the day. For reference my kids will be 10 by summer and are more than water safe (one is a club swimmer), so should be a pretty easy gig (lol I wish I could have done this when I was in high school for the summer!).

I pay $15 an hour for 3 similarly aged kids. Just FYI- its much harder to find a driving sitter. If practice is at 9am, you can drop them off at practice, and have sitter pick them up on foot.

Anonymous wrote:it has worked well for us to hire a summer sitter for the first 5 or so weeks of the summer- it means the kids can be relaxed when school gets out- they get up, go to swim team, and then play at the pool all day with the sitter. At the end of swim team, we go to camp. Our pool has tried camper practice early in the morning, and has also tried the evening practice. The early morning camper practice is hard on kids b/c they are not with their normal age group and it is just not as fun. The evening practice was a lot of effort for the board and coaches, and poorly attended. After being at camp all day, most kids don't want to go to swim team practice.

Didn’t see this post before I posted above, but this is something we would be super interested in, how much does it cost and how do you go about finding a sitter for that type of set up?

Anonymous wrote:We got babysitters for the swim season and then did camps the rest of summer. Split it with another swim team family

Just out of curiosity, how much do these high school/college age sitters cost for swim season? Both my DH and I largely work from home, but would be interested in having a sitter who takes care of the kids from say 9 am to 3 pm, basically take them to practice and hang out at the pool with them for the day. For reference my kids will be 10 by summer and are more than water safe (one is a club swimmer), so should be a pretty easy gig (lol I wish I could have done this when I was in high school for the summer!).

it has worked well for us to hire a summer sitter for the first 5 or so weeks of the summer- it means the kids can be relaxed when school gets out- they get up, go to swim team, and then play at the pool all day with the sitter. At the end of swim team, we go to camp. Our pool has tried camper practice early in the morning, and has also tried the evening practice. The early morning camper practice is hard on kids b/c they are not with their normal age group and it is just not as fun. The evening practice was a lot of effort for the board and coaches, and poorly attended. After being at camp all day, most kids don't want to go to swim team practice.

Anonymous wrote:If they don’t offer it, you need to push your team to have later afternoon practices for pre-team/full team as an option. Carpooling, too, and you do pick up if that’s still too early. There are ways to do it, and summer swim was great fun for our kids.

This would be a nonstarter at many/most pools. They aren’t going to shut down the pool to general membership at the busiest time of day.

Lots of kids that age on our team come to to practice with a sitter. There is also evening “camper practice “ two nights a week for everyone except the youngest group (at our pool, if your kid was 6 and could manage one length of the pool, they would be eligible to attend).

College sitter. If swim team is early enough they can then drop them at camp.