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So make sure you have child care sorted
The long summer holidays are only a few working weeks away, which strikes fear into many working parents, particularly those with children in child care services that close over school holidays.
With most working parents only getting the standard four 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 well before the holidays start.
Make it easy on yourself by doing a Vacation Care Search now to find services nearest you that offer OOSH care and run vacation programs.
Out of school hours care services
Usually only provide care for children who are at least 5 years old.
Check with individual services on their minimum age requirement.
If your child attends a school that has out of school hours care facilities, you may be lucky in that most of these services also offer Vacation Care. These services are also usually open to children who don't go to that particular school in the term time registering with them, so it's worth making enquiries with out of school hour centres in surrounding suburbs.
Share the load
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 formal vacation care is to share with other parents.
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 or 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 with the other parents, so you all know just how far you can or cannot push the friendship!
- 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 "pull it out of the bag" ideas in times of need!
Holiday activities
You don't have to spend a fortune on entertaining the kids. There are loads of things you can do over the holidays that will keep them entertained. Try to remember all those things you used to do as a kid to occupy your time. There are loads of ideas on the web and you can also get some great books with ideas to keep the kids occupied.
Simple activities can be great fun and have a learning element:
- Arts and crafts - making boats, painting, finger knitting, loom bands volcanoes and puppet theatres…
- Write and present a basic play or a song
- Science experiment activities (like making sherbet or slime! - easy to look up on Google!)
- Dress up days/historical dress days - or make your own costume
- Country themed day - kids have to pick a country to dress as and learn about, bringing some facts about their choice
- "Cinema" days (at home or at the local cinema)
- Treasure hunts - either things you've hidden or simply a list of things to find like -"a dead bug", a hair brush, a pink flower etc.
- Park and picnic outings
- Outdoor pool days to the local outdoor pool
- "It's a knockout" or sports day type competitions
- Nature trails - great for an all day learning and fun experience in a local nature reserve
- Rockpool excursions to the local beach
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
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