{"id":10099,"date":"2018-07-09T10:07:24","date_gmt":"2018-07-09T16:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=10099"},"modified":"2018-07-09T10:07:24","modified_gmt":"2018-07-09T16:07:24","slug":"is-there-a-summer-care-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/07\/is-there-a-summer-care-gap.html","title":{"rendered":"Is there a “summer care gap”?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

My oldest child just turned 18.\u00a0 That means that I\u2019ve been dealing with the question of \u201cwhat do the kids do in the summer?\u201d for \u2014 well, for quite some time now, and have solved it in a number of ways.<\/p>\n

The summer when my oldest had just finished first grade, my younger two were in daycare, so for convenience\u2019s sake we used the \u201csummer camp\u201d option offered by the daycare, which was not bad, actually, and included field trips and swimming in their pool (they had an extra-large play area).\u00a0 Other summers we uses the day camp offered by the park district, the summer school\/enrichment classes from the school district, and, when each of them was old enough, sailing camp at the manmade lake, with Boy Scout camp and a nature camp tossed in for good measure.\u00a0 Plus, I worked three days a week until my youngest turned 4, then five reduced-hour days, telecommuting, after that, so that we didn\u2019t need the \u201cextended care\u201d options of the 9 \u2013 3 camp, and I was able, when my kids reached middle-school years, to varying degrees just tell them \u201cstay out of trouble and stay out of my hair\u201d and send them over to the pool (a couple blocks away) as much as possible.\u00a0 Oh, and, until the team shake-up and new manager, I was able to take extra (unpaid) time off during the summer because this was our slow period.<\/p>\n

And, incidentally, here are a few data points on local (northwest suburban Chicago) park districts\u2019 day camp options:<\/p>\n

Arlington Heights:\u00a0 $316 for 2 week sessions, 9 \u2013 3, with extended care from 7 \u2013 9 ($106 extra) and 3 \u2013 6 ($158 extra), running from the first week of vacation through August 10th (leaving a 1 1\/2 week gap before school starts).<\/p>\n

Rolling Meadows:\u00a0 $360 for 3 week sessions, 9 \u2013 4, with an extra $95 each for late stay or early arrival.\u00a0 Runs through August 3, with an extra by-the-day option for the week through the 10th.<\/p>\n

River Trails:\u00a0 8:30 \u2013 3 pm, $377 per 3 week session, with before & after camp for $87 and $174.\u00a0 Runs through August 10, with an extra week running all the way up to the start of school.<\/p>\n

(Yes, this means that Arlington Heights is the outlier in terms of cost; I don\u2019t know why.)<\/p>\n

And in Chicago:\u00a0 varyingly 9 \u2013 3 or 10 \u2013 4, June 25 to August 3 (or August 17, by location), with the usual extended hours, for fees starting at $140 (why so cheap?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know whether certain locations receive special subsidies rather than subsidies following specific low-income kids).<\/p>\n

I will also add that my first year of signing up for \u201cdaycamp,\u201d based on the stories of parents scrambling to find care, I signed my boys up as soon as registration opened up.\u00a0 I\u2019ve now learned that there\u2019s plenty of space available.\u00a0 The only real difficult has been years when for whatever reason we weren\u2019t able to plan our vacation for the very end of the summer, and had to figure out what to do with the boys instead, because that stretch in August when the daycamps close down but school hasn\u2019t started yet is tough.<\/p>\n

So this is the background I bring to reading stories about the \u201csummer care gap,\u201d such as this one at New America<\/a>, from late June, which is a follow-up interview to a report, The Summer Care Gap<\/a>, published in May, which the author, Amanda Lenhart, summarizes and gives personal context to in a Slate article<\/a>.\u00a0 Her lament is an upper middle class one, that of finding suitable activities during the day and a late-afternoon babysitter who will be more accommodating to unexpected overtime than an \u201cextended care\u201d option.\u00a0 But working-class parents have the more difficult task of financing vacation daycare; subsidies are available but the system is difficult to navigate.\u00a0 And her dream is, in part, greater vacation time and shorter school vacations, but also \u201cmore subsidized, high-quality, and engaging activities that allow kids to explore their passions, try new things, or keep up with academic subjects and have days that mirror the length of the average workday.\u201d<\/p>\n

A similar article in the New York Times<\/a> from two years ago raises the same issues, and came to the same conclusion:<\/p>\n

A real investment in affordable summer learning programs could improve children\u2019s success in school, while relieving their parents of a stress that shouldn\u2019t be part of the season we still refer to as \u201cvacation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But is putting elementary-school aged children in daycare all summer long the answer?\u00a0 The local park district\u2019s daycamp is a very practical solution, though it hardly conforms to Lenhart\u2019s vision of kids \u201cexploring their passions\u201d and I suspect that Lenhart\u2019s children\u2019s summer consists more of coding camps or other programs that promise to give your kid a head start on everyone else in the fall.\u00a0 Perhaps the Chicago Park District\u2019s programs have enough economies of scale and grant money to ramp things up beyond playing capture the flag and swimming.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s my worry:\u00a0 (middle class) kids are overscheduled enough as it is.\u00a0 There is a real benefit to balancing formal activities with family care and other informal arrangements for grade schoolers, so long as the neighborhood is safe, in providing them with unstructured time and the opportunity to meaningfully \u201cexplore their passions\u201d rather than be instructed in their \u201cpassions\u201d in a classroom all summer long.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image: \u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Daycamp.jpg; By MSchottlander1 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My oldest child just turned 18.\u00a0 That means that I\u2019ve been dealing with the question of \u201cwhat do the kids do in the summer?\u201d for \u2014 well, for quite some time now, and have solved it in a number of ways. 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