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[quote=Anonymous]No, I don't think our AP is bored.

She works early mornings (6.30 - 8.30am) and is then off until early afternoon (2.30pm). During her time off she goes to the gym, takes classes, does her homework, goes to the library, goes shopping or plans weekend trips. Our current AP is an avid reader who can spend the day holed up in the family room, reading. The previous AP was into photography and spent a lot of her free time on that (planning trips, taking and editing pictures, doing photobooks and I know she was active on a photography forum). She sometimes joins a friend who works mornings for trips to the zoo, the park or the playground - her friend watches one toddler and I think enjoys the adult interaction. After dinner (7.00pm) AP meets her friends, they go to the movies, have coffee or (second for her) dinner.
Our kids are still at an age where they need the AP for more than just driving them around - she supervises homework, plays with them, takes them outside, they bake, go swimming, to the zoo or the playground. She usually does two loads of laundry a week (kids' and hers), usually in the afternoons when they don't plan to go anywhere.

She may be bored sometimes, when she doesn't have plans for the evenings. Hanging out with us isn't the funnest thing to do for a young adult (we are amazingly boring as a family) but if she doesn't have evening plans she skypes with family or friends, watches netflix, reads and I think our current AP journals (the old fashioned way, not online).

Does your AP only seem bored or did she tell you she is bored? 
Waiting for others to get organized or to know when they are available stinks but as this is nothing you can do anything about you also shouldn't overly worry about it. The APs she hangs out with are most likely not the only APs she could spend her time with. She chose to spend her time with people whose schedules don't match hers, while it's a bit on an inconvenience, it's nothing for you to worry about.

Now, being bored 'on the job' is your problem but very little you can do about it. As soon as your children have grown out of 'needing' an AP but can't yet be left alone or take themselves from A to B all you can do is be open about this at matching. She picked a HF with older children, again this was her choice. She might not have known exactly what she was getting into (they never do) but she could have matched with a family with toddler twins if being bored had been something she worried about. Would your kids rebel if you planned one AP-kids activity per week? There are lots of fun things to do for school-aged kids in DC. Is there anything the kids have always wanted to do that you have been pushing up because you can't fit it in? Buy a family guide to DC or have them look up activities online. It might come at an extra cost but if you are really worried, maybe it's an option. I assume you could also add more chores (kids' laundry, cleaning kids' rooms, changing sheets weekly etc.) to her schedule, ice skating does sound more fun though.

She is in a different country with loads of things to do. If she is bored, she is bored by choice. With school-aged kids and 25 hr weeks she has loads of time to find things to do that she enjoys, to pick up new hobbies (she could start photography classes, start a vlog, pick up knitting, learn how to cook...). If she is bored during her time off? It's by choice. All you can do is support her in finding things to do which could possibly help her to meet people with less erratic schedules.[/quote]

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