Summer Camp/Child Care for young kids

[Hellraiser97 186]

So I realize I'm late to the game on this, but figured I'd put it out there before a blew a shit ton of money.

Situation:  Wife went back to work in January 2016.  Her job blows and with her commute (going from Circle C to the Domain) she's borderline useless in getting the kids to/from school/child care.  I'm working from home, so my schedule is somewhat flexible, except that sometimes I have to be on site for something and then its not, but all this shit ends up falling on me.  3yo is at Primrose, so her child care is set up.  6yo is just completing kindergarten at public school.  Last year she was at Primrose so summer child care was taken care of.  Over the two week Christmas break, I had the bright idea that I could manage her at home while I worked since its usually super slow in our business (Construction) at that point and lots of her friends on the street would be at home as well.  

That was a complete fucking disaster as my partner was out of town for his honeymoon and due to some backups, a shit load of work was being done on one of our custom projects.  My wife was able to help some the second week as her office was closed, but it still didn't work.  Regardless, I knew it would never work for the whole summer.  So for Spring Break, we did a camp at Lifetime fitness.  She liked it and good news/bad news was that she was pretty wiped out at the end of the day.

So now we come to summer.  I've signed her up for a few camps that I know she wants to do and we're taking a family vacation for a bit over a week in July.  I'm leery, however, of putting her in non-stop camps for the 10 weeks we're not on vacation.  That just screams burn out to me, and fuck the prices on a lot of these things are high for a week! I had a stay at home mom, so I have no experience with this growing up.  My wife basically stayed at a friends house or her older brother watched her.  We have no family that can help out unfortunately.

So what is the experience of Surly in this?  Those of you that are single parents or dual income, do you just do non-stop camps?  Is it possible to hire a care giver but just for the summer?  This whole thing is just beating me down.  Thanks for any advice.

[Baboontyme 2876]

I'm sure you could easily find a HS/college kid. That's where I would start. 

[1978horn 904]

We are dual income and do camps when not on vacation during the summer.  The first summer blew me away at the price per week.  I thought we were going to save a ton of money that first summer with the first kid no longer in daycare.  I found we spent the about same amount per year with most of it during the summer months.  Most of the camps that we do are themed and different every week.  Sometimes they suck and sometimes they are awesome.  Most have some sort of field trip somewhere and a swim day or two as well.

If you can find a friend with kids and and "pay" them it would be cheaper, but would they just sit around the house all day or get out and do things?  I just accepted that fact that I am going to spend at least $250 a week on camps per kid.  My oldest doesn't need camps anymore so that saves us, but I also don't want him sitting at home all day playing video games, so we schedule some for him and we send him solo on a plane to family members on the east coast for a couple weeks and he has a blast without us.

[sachick 1189]

I'm a single parent and kid's dad lives about 40 miles away. When kids were younger I was lucky that they could stay with their grandmother since she was retired with a few camps thrown in because you're right, these camps are fucking expensive. When my daughter was old enough, they could stay home alone with random camps thrown in. We still try to keep my son, 10, busy with camps but we stick to those put on by the City Parks department or the Y. Swim lessons through the city is something we do every year as well as Vacation Bible School, add in a handful of weeks with the city camps, a week with my parents, a week with family in Rockport and it only leaves a couple weeks where they're not signed up for anything which I think is good for them. I think every kid should get to spend some time doing absolutely nothing in the summer.

 

Start summer camp planning early. It's too late for this year to start early, but this is something you should put on your radar by February. Sign up for some camps start in March. I usually have to create an excel spreadsheet with the weeks of summer and plot everything out. It's color coded for each kid too. I didn't do it this year. They're 10 and 15 and I was over it.

[Updawg 2378]

Find out what there friends are doing. Child care centers like circle c will do weekly. That's a break from a normal camp and a little cheaper I think 

[Jerry Callo 8954]

When my girls were younger, they went to camp at the Twin Lakes YMCA in Cedar Park.  They loved it even though, and maybe due to the fact that, it was outside most of the day and in the Texas heat.  As a Y member, the price was cheaper and made it affordable enough.  Not sure what you have down your way, but I'd look for a reasonable day camp that spends time outside.

[Brew 3049]

We always hired a college kid. It cost us about $250 a week for two kids from 9-4. Our kids would still prefer that arrangement over staying with their mother.