Originally Posted by mrs.meg:
The SA kids are all siblings of the little ones, so if I choose to lose the SA, then I would lose my little ones, but maybe I just need to say no SA and get all new ones anyways, not sure. I do feel the SA ones are difficult, then in the summer, they do not take naps, so I get no break at all. I have GOT to make some sort of change, that is for sure.
The having little ones in the home day care is how many parents of school aged kids get home providers to care for school agers. It's their anchor into part time care, no notice care, and summer care.
Unforntunately, many providers feel like they HAVE to agree to care for them in order to have the income on the younger child or children. Often the school aged kids are in the home day care for a very little amount of money. The provider really pays for this during the summer when they have to do hard time in order to secure the younger kids salary during the school year. Go through the threads in July and August on this board and see how providers fare once the newness of the summer care has worn off.
It's a big cycle of unhappiness. It's not that hard for the parents to find separate care for the school aged child. It's not that big of a sacrifice to take the kids to two places during the summer. It adds a little time to the parents routine but it's not that hard.
What IS hard is getting the school aged care cheap. When they go to a separate program they don't get a discount for sib care. The stand alone school aged summer care is expensive even with their large ratios. It's not cheap to keep staff because these kids require SO much supervision and intervention. It's not cheap to keep supplies because they are so destructive.
It's not easy to keep positive parent relations because by the time kids are this age they are very powerful and can clearly lobby for what they want. In order to stay alive you have to keep these powerful children happy. Many programs have turned to screen play because it keeps the kids sitting, playing without fighting each other, and allows the adults caring for them to do screens too (phone and the internet).
Having this age integrated with young children without having additional staff is one of the most difficult child care situations in home care. I tried it when I first started and then moved to school aged only on the evening shift. Eventually I couldn't even manage that because I found the kids just getting harder and harder to deal with.