Vacation Care - CareforKids.com.au®

Vacation Care
Summer holidays only 7 weeks away!

The summer holidays are only seven working weeks away (gulp) which strikes fear into many working parents with children in child care that closes over school holidays or with young children in primary school. With most working parents only getting the standard 4 weeks holiday per year, vacation care is a necessity but often hard to come by.

Many child care services do stay open over the school holidays but often require parents to confirm their child's attendance over the vacation.

Make it easy on yourself by doing a Vacation Care Search on our website now to find services nearest you that offer OOSH care and run vacation programs. Search by Service, Postcode or map area.

Many working parents don't have family to fall back on, and if vacation care is hard to come by in your area or budgets are tight, an alternative to vacation care

Make sure you talk to your children's friends' parents about the potential for sharing the duties over the summer holidays. Most parents are happy to entertain the idea whether it's for the whole holidays or just a portion of them to alleviate the need for unpaid leave, expensive vacation activities. Kids get to amuse each other and play with their friends all day and parents get to save some money on formal vacation care and save some of their leave entitlements.

It's win-win, as long as you follow some key rules. Here are the seven steps to harmonious vacation care sharing:

Ensure your children actually like each other and get on!
Try to match up ages and keep numbers even to avoid bickering and odd ones out!
Set time boundaries in advance to avoid any ill feeling when little Jimmy gets dropped off at 5am or picked up after you've already gone to bed!
Agree on daily or weekly allowance costs of activities or treats.
Try to share with parents who have the same parenting style as you and agree on any discipline measures!
Make sure you have adequate booster seats. Sounds obvious, but so easy to forget and you will be liable for prosecution if you're caught making that quick trip to the supermarket with any child without the correct car restraints.

Have a daily or weekly list of activities or a vague schedule and some emergency "out of the bag" ideas in times of need!