Summer Things to Think About

Summer child care is here. Summer care can be a huge success or a nasty failure and it depends on a little prudence, thought, and the ability to see summer from your child’s point of view.

Stop, look and listen to the needs of the child. Here are some pretty obvious things to consider and most of them have to do with time -- yours:

Don’t tack your older child’s care onto your family day care provider’s load. Realize just how important summer time is for children -- especially school aged children.
Find a summer child care situation which is not only fun, but has some merit of adventure. Not all families can use one childcare provider. Someone might suffer; think about this:

When providers have a regular chorus of babies, you can bet school aged children will miss out. Schoolagers who sit around waiting for some other family’s baby to wake up, or be changed, or be fed so that they can do something until that baby needs more primary care will go back to school in August wondering where summer went; that’s a shame.

Older children need space and time of their own to swim and take field trips. They need friends to play with and an agenda all to themselves.

Once you have a good place for the kids, ask yourself: During the ten weeks or so of summer, will you be taking a vacation? Will you be taking time off? Will you be getting comp time? Will you be traveling for your company? The buzz word here is time.

Off hours are golden time and it’s time to plan way ahead. These are the times your children will value most. Whether it’s a vacation with all the bells and whistles, or just some half days off, children are delighted when they are the focus of their parents’ attentions.

Spend your time off with your child especially during summer weeks. If you have an afternoon off, or a morning, or a few days, you need to spend them with your child.

Nothing hurts a child more than a parent who walks into child care at the usual early morning hour wearing jeans or sweats and announces that he/she has a day off and then leaves Johnny till close. Come on, parents, wake up. Children’s feelings are fragile enough. Steamrolling them into the pavement does not bring families closer.

Some parents get so carried away with the few dollars of child care costs that continue in your child’s absence. They forget about the genuine welfare of the child. Would parents nix vacations because the rent or mortgage has to be paid in their absence? You are paying tuition, and tuition in any school that requires it is a weekly event.

Yes, good providers who work faithfully every day will expect payment on your days off simply because providers don’t work by chance. If providers worked by chance, they could call you at noon any day and say, “I’m taking the afternoon off; come get Johnny.”


Pick your child up early as often as possible. Try taking shorter lunches and leave work early if possible. This lenghtens the time you have with your child and still allows kids to keep a decent bed time.

Keep regular hours if possible. And remember: children who must be awakend in the morning -- every morning -- are not ready for a full day of summer camp. They are sleep deprived.