© 2024 St. Louis Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Summer + children = creativity

playing300.jpg
Rachel Heidenry | The Beacon

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: June 23, 2008 - Your kids have been dreaming about summer ever since September: the start of vacation, no school. Actually, you've been dreaming about it as well, but your dreams have been more like nightmares. That one where you had to stash your preschooler in the office supply closet, with a stack of coloring books and a snack-filled cooler, was especially chilling.

For working parents, summertime can be a real hassle. And with the cost of summer camp on the rise, finding ways to keep your children supervised and occupied during July and August can seem a bit like filling in those little bubbles on an SAT test: You know the answer's right in front of you, but you just can't see it. Well, don't despair. Here are five tips for managing your kids when school's out of session.

Can Still Do This Year

Shared Child Care: While hiring an in-home babysitter five days a week is cost prohibitive for many working parents, you may be able to split the cost by teaming up with another parent in the neighborhood: hiring one sitter to mind your two families. Be sure that your sitter has experience supervising more than one child, and be reasonable about your expectations. Anything beyond three mobile (walking or crawling) kids might be more than one sitter can handle.

Family: They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and this is doubly true for grandparents! If your parents live in another state and don't get to see your kids regularly, ask if they'd be willing to have them to stay for part or all of the summer. To you, it's babysitting. To them, it's a chance to spoil their grandkids. Alternately, see if any of your siblings or cousins want to set up some kind of vacation rotation: they take your kids during their work vacation in exchange for you taking theirs during yours. It means giving over your summer break to minding a house full of kids, but, if enough of you band together, you could potentially get most of the summer covered. As with an in-home sitter, be sure enough adults are in the house to handle all those kids.

Plan for Next Year

Office Day Care: If your children are young, talk to your employer about setting up an on-premises day-care program for the summer months. With a little research, you can make a pretty convincing case that on-site day care will actually help, not hurt, the company's bottom line. For example, Rachel Connelly and Deborah S. DeGraff, authors of “Kids at Work: The Value of Employer-Sponsored On-Site Child Care Centers,” estimate that companies can save upward of $150,000 a year when reduced absenteeism is taken into account. You may need to contribute financially, but the cost will still be far less than traditional day care or an in-home sitter. And if the space already exists, you might try to arrange something for August, when many camps close for the season.

Summer School: Many Missouri schools offer summer programs at little or no cost, presenting an opportunity for your kids to catch up on subjects they struggled with during the year or to get a jump start on next year's work. If your local district doesn't have a summer school program, check out the one offered by the St. Louis Public School District. The program offers options for children from kindergarten through high school, and is available at no cost to any Missouri resident, even those who live outside the district.

Camperships: Just as many private schools have scholarships for deserving students, summer camps are increasingly beginning to offer "camperships," which allow kids to attend at reduced or no cost. Some St. Louis-area programs offering camperships are the Special Education Foundation, Circle of Concern, Kateri Day Camp, and Camp for All Kids. Competition for camperships can be fierce and the deadlines are often early in the year, so start researching now if you plan to apply for a campership in 2009.

Keeping your kids happy, healthy and safe during the summer months can be tricky for working parents, particularly when budgets are tight with rising food and transportation costs. But with a little patience and ingenuity, you can ensure that your children have an enriching summer while you're at work.

Mary-Beth Brophy is a writer, university instructor and devoted aunt to three amazing kids. She divides her time between New Jersey and Scotland and is working on a mystery novel.