Creative Solutions to Summer Child Care

Have you looked into various options for summer childcare, and none of them are a good fit? Does your family and/or children have special needs or extenuating circumstances that make traditional summer child care difficult if not impossible? In that case, it’s time to get creative!

Summer child care is intended to prevent boredom, provide learning opportunities that you don’t have during the school year, and, in many cases, to allow the parents to work during the day. Your family might have a combination of these reasons for seeking out child care, or entirely different reasons. Regardless, sometimes you need to think outside the box.

Here are some ideas for creative solutions for summer child care.

Trading Families

It’s probable that, if you discuss your summer child care needs with other parents, that they have child care needs, too. Even if they don’t, you could still propose something. For example, maybe your friend would do a “day camp” type of thing at his or her house for one week, and then you could do the next week. Or if that doesn’t work, maybe your friend would keep your kids during the day for a week and you could have them over for dinner the following week.

Another idea with other families is to get together and let your kids play together while you socialize with the parents or get some work done on site. The point is to mingle the families so that kids get some good play time and adults can do what they need to do.

Summer “School”

While enrolling your children in summer workshops and classes is an option, an outside-the-box idea is to hold a summer school yourself.

Have you thought about teaching kids art, music, science, reading, or something else during the summer? It might be a way for you to earn extra money, especially if you have to scale back on your work during the summer months due to lack of child care. You could also suggest that someone in your family, church, or circle of friends start up such a “school,” and you can drop your child off with them. If you can’t afford to pay them, perhaps you can trade child care and watch their kids another time.

Play Dates

Have you thought about play dates as child care? They aren’t the typical child care option, but if you think about it, play dates can be a chance for your child to play with another kid which frees up some time for you to get housework or paying work done. And of course, dropping your child off for play dates frees up time, too. Talk with parent friends about setting up regular play dates during the week and you can alternate.

These are just some suggestions to get your creative thoughts flowing. You might come up with a really innovative idea!