After school care = coronary or divorce?

In article , H Schinske wrote:
How much does the aftercare cost, anyway? I've always assumed it would be (a)
very expensive for the amount of time and (b) difficult to get into after the
year begins. It's of course entirely possible that neither is the case with the
situation the OP is facing.

Private after-school care can be very expensive, but after school
programs associated with a public school are usually pretty
cheap---they have to be in schools like ours, where half the students
need to be subsidized for the school lunch program.

The aftercare programs do fill up, so adding mid-year may be a problem.
There is one way to find out---ask! This might reasonably be a job
for the spouse who is interested in pursuing the afterschool program:
finding out all the relevant information.

------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
(Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.

First of all - THANK YOU to everyone who provided such thoughtful
advice. As you can tell from my first post, I was a bit stressed at
the time of writing. Many of the things people posted really gave me
some things to think about and see things in a different light.

We did talk with our daughter about the after school program before she
started, and she was quite enthusiastic about it. Today, I picked her
up from her first time at the afterschool program, and she told me that
she loved it. She was already asking, "Can I go again tomorrow"? The
program is run very well, and I could tell the kids had many different
activities to suit their interests.

I'll let you in on a little secret - most of the stress in this
situation arose from some (unrequested) input from our daughter's
grandparents. They were strongly against the idea of our daughter in
such a program, which is why we began the discussion of trying to
rearrange our work schedules. If anyone out there suffers from the
"meddling-grandparents" syndrome, you have my sympathy. Well meaning
as they may be, the problems and heartaches that arise from such
univited advice can be a real problem (we've been dealing with it for
years)

Thanks again, and apologies for not posting sooner.
at

wrote:
What does your daughter think about all this?

Our school has a daycare located within the building, and an
afterschool program, and our kids have repeatedly expressed the
desire
to participate!
They can come straight home after school, but they see the
afterschool
program as a fun thing, and they are jealous of their friends who
stay.
Mary G.

wrote:

First of all - THANK YOU to everyone who provided such thoughtful
advice. As you can tell from my first post, I was a bit stressed at
the time of writing. Many of the things people posted really gave me
some things to think about and see things in a different light.

We did talk with our daughter about the after school program before she
started, and she was quite enthusiastic about it. Today, I picked her
up from her first time at the afterschool program, and she told me that
she loved it. She was already asking, "Can I go again tomorrow"? The
program is run very well, and I could tell the kids had many different
activities to suit their interests.

Glad to hear that.

I'll let you in on a little secret - most of the stress in this
situation arose from some (unrequested) input from our daughter's
grandparents. They were strongly against the idea of our daughter in
such a program, which is why we began the discussion of trying to
rearrange our work schedules. If anyone out there suffers from the
"meddling-grandparents" syndrome, you have my sympathy. Well meaning

I resemble that remark!!!

First, I think whether you regard them as meddling often has to do
with whether they are her parents or his. If they were your in-laws,
I'm surprised that your spouse wanted to do the extended care that the
grandparents were against. If that was so, you are lucky to have such
an independent spouse - makes dealing with them easier.

If they are your parents, then you must deal with them and don't ask
your spouse to do it.

as they may be, the problems and heartaches that arise from such
univited advice can be a real problem (we've been dealing with it for
years)

In such cases, I would always ask them to give the reasons why they
think as they do.

We've been visiting one set of grandchildren for about 10 days (longer
than usual) while our dd goes off her thyroid medication to have
chemo. This has made her slightly crankier. I often see things
coming (the children getting tired, the children getting hungry and
getting whiney as a result) that my dd ignores because she's very
single minded and concentrates really well. Normally a good thing.

So when the dog (not trained yet) comes and looks at me and then goes
to the door, I suspect that he may want to go out, and let him out,
while she's engaged in arguing with one of the kids, or fixing dinner
or whatever. And when I DON'T see it, and he craps in the bathroom (a
good place for it IMO), then she gets mad at him, when really it's her
fault. She has a lot of balls in the air at once, and I know it's
hard.

Her dd went to school under protest yesterday before saying goodbye to
the dog (who was to go and get his shots) and her mom ignored the
pleas because they were late, so (IMHO) she said she didn't feel well
and the nurse called dd to come and get her. She's a real drama
queen. There was nothing wrong with her - she just wanted to see the
dog. A friend of dd who came over went in and talked to her and said
that if she came home when she wasn't really sick, that when she WAS
really sick, no one would believe her. She went to dinner with us and
ate well, and then came home and had no problem all night.

When she goes over her ds's homework, (especially math which he's in
Kumon (sp?)) she gets very impatient when he doesn't write neatly,
check his work, whines, cries, gets sullen etc. But I see myself in
him - I had great problems concentrating on math at his age (5th
grade). I'm not sure my method or dh's method would be any better
though. I did suggest that maybe he wouldn't actually cry as much if
he was fed first, and she did that yesterday, and it went much better
I think. There was still some whining, but not as much.


Thanks again, and apologies for not posting sooner.
at

wrote:
What does your daughter think about all this?

Our school has a daycare located within the building, and an
afterschool program, and our kids have repeatedly expressed the
desire
to participate!
They can come straight home after school, but they see the
afterschool
program as a fun thing, and they are jealous of their friends who
stay.
Mary G.

grandma Rosalie