YES !!! I am freeeeeee

[Spixie33]

I just finally told the parents of my only after school child that I am discontinuing after school care next fall.

Halleluliah.
I have wanted to tell them that I don't want to do after school care anymore ever since January of this year. It only took me 5 months to finally get the words out.
I will finish up the school year with her and then be freeeeee.

It really was a terrible fit since she was my only after school child and I would have to bundle up all my small toddlers in winter, rain and cold and get down to the school and pick up this child for a pitiful fee. lol

Weight is off my shoulders and parents did not seem upset. I explained to them that it was too hard with all the toddlers, etc and they understood. Phew ~!

[Sandbox Sally]

Congrats for working up your courage!

[Emilys4Guppies]

Good for you!!

[mom-in-alberta]

Atta girl! It did not take me long to realize that I prefer not to do school age care, either.
Packing up all the small people to do pick-ups, trying to find activities for all age groups without someone getting bored, not to mention the extra food cost. I found that I dreaded PD days where there was no school, because it meant an entire day entertaining both age groups.
And I may have gotten a more difficult group of kids, but I just have less patience for "He said this to me. She isn't playing right. Whine, whine, whine." I would rather deal with toddler sharing issues and reminding little ones that we don't bite/kick/hit!!
I think if I was to transition out of doing home daycare, I may do b/a school only for a period of time. That way I would be off during the day most of the time, and all the kids would be the same age, approximately. It would be kind of nice to do some more advanced activities and crafts.

[playfelt]

Once my own kids were able to go the bus stop by themselves that was it for me and school age. I do not regret it one bit. The other positive thing is that by reducing the ages in care to a smaller range I was able to get rid of some of the things that caused issues and that made the whole day go better such as tiny lego, board games, craft supplies the school age kids used. Those just aren't in the playroom anymore.

[Sarah]

I will open my daycare in about 2 months and was planning on getting school age kids since I myself have 2 age school boys.

From what I read, you don't like it? I do not want to get in a situation I will regret, and I am just getting better following a burn out in my job (not daycare) and I don't want to have a situation that will cause me to go back down the road of the burn out you know what I mean.

But I thought since I have two school age kids anyway, why not have more?

I even thought it would be great to have only school age kids. This way I would be with my daughter all day, alone and taking care of her only!

I also thought of taking 2-3 day kids max and 2-3 after school kids?

More experience sharing girls please????

My interviews will start soon and I need to know where I am going with this...

Sarah

[Spixie33]

Well....some people have good experience with school age...I just did not.
I guess I focused mainly on toddlers and accepted only 1 school age child. My own son and the dck were the same age so I thought it would be good. My daughter is 4 and the dck was 6 and my son was 6 too so I thought it would be easy money.
Personally I made a few mistakes --
Having only 1 after school child but 2-4 toddlers around (depending on the day) meant I could not focus on both age groups appropriately or entertain them with activities appropriately because I was torn.
Also....my after school dck wanted to pretend that my dc toddlers were her 'babies' and would often try to drag them around or confuse them by wanting the toddlers to call her ' mommy'. A 2 year old does not understand that a 6 year old wants to 'pretend' to be their mommy so it would inevitably end up that these 2 year olds would frantically start looking around and wondering where their real mommy is because this child kept saying the word 'mommy' to them. Also...the toddlers would become extremely frustrated that the after school child wanted to carry them or treat them like a baby. Two year olds are starting to get into this 'me do' phase and do not want to be babied.
Either way I had to worry by either telling the after school child no repeatedly and make her feel rejected from the toddlers or have the toddlers miserable that they were being treated like giant Baby Alives.
I also made the mistake of only charging $10 a day for after school. the parents told me they would only need about an hour to an hour and a half of after school care. Well....they then went and looked up my ad and checked my open hours and instead of a 4 pm pickup they picked up 5:30 on the dot at closing time from that point forward. So....I was doing 3 hours of care for $10 plus providing a huge snack
School age children also fight a lot and tattle a lot so you will constantly hear your own children and every other child get tattled on. It wears you out
And then the last thing to consider is that their appetite is larger and they are more opinionated on what they do or don't want to eat.

I know some daycares around here only do after school. One lady said she puts them all in the basement with TV and the video games or out in the backyard and that is it. I think it works for some. For me it didn't
The thing is that every child is different and every situation is different so you never know what combination will work for you

[mom-in-alberta]

Like Spixie says, I found the toughest thing was finding activities everyone could do together, since my range at the time was anywhere from just under 12 months to 9 yrs old. Big difference in interests!! I always felt like someone was either bored or lacking in care and attention. It was very sweet to see the bigger kids playing with the little ones, or helping them with stuff. It's just too bad that only occurs in 10 min bursts, and then the big kids are done with it!!
If I did only school age care, it may have been easier. But I don't like dealing with the fighting and tattling etc, in addition to babies crying and toddlers "learning" to share.

[Sarah]

Thankf for the answers!

I sure can see your points!

But I have 2 boys (6 and 8) and they always play together, when they are bored and give them some chores to do (ahahaha) and the boriness disapears magically...

Aren't all the kids that age the same?