being late

In article ,
Karen G wrote:

As a parent, how do you handle being late and how do you choose what you
can be late for?


Well, for the most part I figure out before signing up for an activity
whether anything else will impact our ability to get there (and pick
up) on time, and if so whether this will be a problem or not. That
determination depends on the rules and structure of the activity -- you
can always ask if necessary. As my children get older, I find there
are more things that I can drop them off a little early for or pick them
up a little late from without it being an issue the way it is for most
preschool programs (where the children require more active supervision).

Depending on what your school's drop-off routine is like, you may find
that children arrive throughout the first 15 or 20 minutes, and that
this is expected and worked into their routine. Or you may find that
they want to start circle time precisely at 8:30 (though if this were
really the case, I'd expect they would open their doors earlier than
that to allow time for the children to arrive, remove outerwear if
necessary, say their goodbyes, etc.).

We have a "near" conflict this year, as my older children's school and
my toddler's preschool both begin at 8:30. However, the older children
start their morning meeting at 8:30 and are expected to actually arrive
by 8:20 so that they can be ready on time. Also the doors open at 8.
So in fact I will be able to drop them off early, then go handle
preschool drop-off in a more leisurely manner since my 2.5yo will need
help with outerwear and may need more protracted goodbye routines since
this will be his first experience away from us. (And then, one day a
week, I will go *back* to the older children's school to volunteer for
the rest of the morning. The older kids will do their meeting while I
am dropping off Micro, and I'll be back by the time they really need
me.)

--Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01)

Karen G wrote in :

I have some overlapping schedules for the first time this fall as my
oldest child starts preschool and my middle child is involved in
activities. Wednesday morning they have to be at different places at
the same time. I looked at this problem in two ways--can one of the
child arrive early, and what are the consequences of being late.

(snip)

preschool class where drop off is already going to be complicated, I
think the consequences of being late will be significant. (Although I
wonder how many people will be consistently late.) Obviously, if the
middle child misses 10 minutes of dance class it won't be the end of the
world, but I don't want to make it a habit.

(snip)

As a parent, how do you handle being late and how do you choose what you
can be late for?

Lateness is a hot button for me, especially with a spouse who is habitually
tardy (ask me some time about his "window of on time" concept). For one thing,
I think it can be perceived as arrogant (not to imply that you're being
arrogant, Karen!) because it basically says, "my time is more important than
yours." You might take that concept and look at your situation -- in which
case will you be most likely to use the time of others the least wisely? If
dance class will start on time without your child, then you aren't having much
of an impact on that. OTOH, if the preschool was starting at a more leisurely
pace thant it seems to be doing, it would be easy to pick that one to be late
to. In other words, the impact it has on the child's activity is one
consideration, of course -- but another one is the impact it has on the
class/other children/teacher involved in the activity.

Now, with an ADD kid who has a hard time organizing himself in the morning and
can easily become sidetracked by, oh, say, one of the dogs sleeping in an
especially-cute position, it's a wonder my son and husband get out the door at
all.

But. I go to work early so that I can get home soon after school ends. So I'm
not here when they leave, I don't usually witness the nail-biting suspense of
trying to get out the door, and I don't drive them both nuts with my nagging
along the way. (Honestly, these last few weeks when I've been between jobs, I'm
a nervous wreck by the time they leave the house!)

They do usually make it. Barely. Henry would probably be better off if he got
to school a little early, in time to get himself organized, but he seems to
have learned how to make it work, and who knows -- if he were there early
enough to get distracted it might be worse.

Another factor is impact on your kids beyond the loss of instructional time:
Henry gets embarrassed if he is late -- would that be true for either of your
kids? If so, that might tip the scales or you might address it by being sure
the school and the kid know that it's unavoidable, having some sort of
agreement that the child will always be a few minutes late so that the child is
not queried about it.

-Dawn
(Who, the handful of times I've been late for picking Henry up from something,
has been met with an incredulous, "*You're* late? I was sure it was going to
be Dad.")

"Karen G" wrote in message
...
I have some overlapping schedules for the first time this fall as my
oldest child starts preschool and my middle child is involved in
activities. Wednesday morning they have to be at different places at
the same time. I looked at this problem in two ways--can one of the
child arrive early, and what are the consequences of being late.

In both cases, a dance class and preschool, the doors are not open until
the exact time. The dance class has a limited number of children
(usually about 4 to 6), so it is really easy to get started on time. I
was surprised that the preschool operated with the same
paradigm--particularly for a class of 20 children.

As a parent, how do you handle being late and how do you choose what you
can be late for?

I was thinking hard about this, as my kids are now in 4th grade
and high school and have been in activities and pre schools
since they were small, and I came to a startling conclusion.
I just never signed up for two things that started at the same
time! Or maybe I did, but when I signed up I knew the
carpool beforehand. We now have a whatever gets in the
family calendar first rule. If there is already an activity
at say 4pm, and a second child is invited to an activity
at the same time, they can make their own arrangements
to get there. But when they were small, we just didn't
do that.

In article , H Schinske wrote:
wrote:

For the
preschool class where drop off is already going to be complicated, I
think the consequences of being late will be significant.

At my son's preschool it wasn't a problem at all. The only time it was crucial
to get the child there right on time was when there were field trips, or the
parent was in the classroom (it was a co-op and all parents were there a
couple-three times a term). People often showed up late for whatever reason.

A dance class would be quite different. I would put that first in terms of
getting the child there right on time.

The preschool my son went to had very strict earliest arrival and
latest departure times, but you could drop off and pick up at any time
within the day (except for scheduled outings, of course). It was
completely standard for some kids to come at 7:30 and others at 9:30.
In such a setting, there is no notion of "on-time" for drop off,
though there definitely was for pickup with substantial late fees if
you made the staff stay past their normal quitting time. At one point
we paid for a full-day slot, even though we only needed or used a half
day, because there were no half-day slots left.

It may have helped that the preschool was associated with the
university, and most of the parents were students or faculty with
irregular schedules. A preschool associated with 9-5 employer may have
more rigid rules.

A dance class is a different matter, with a short period and
substantial disruption if a student who comes late and needs to have
an explanation repeated. I'd say this was an easy call---one needs to
be on-time for the dance class, but the preschool can be flexible.


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

"Cathy Kearns" wrote in message om...


I was thinking hard about this, as my kids are now in 4th grade
and high school and have been in activities and pre schools
since they were small, and I came to a startling conclusion.
I just never signed up for two things that started at the same
time! Or maybe I did, but when I signed up I knew the
carpool beforehand. We now have a whatever gets in the
family calendar first rule. If there is already an activity
at say 4pm, and a second child is invited to an activity
at the same time, they can make their own arrangements
to get there. But when they were small, we just didn't
do that.


I have to agree with Kathy. In my many years of parenting, we've never
had a scheduling conflict. Last year, when my kids went to two
different schools and got out at two different times, I switched the
times in my head once or twice, and was home expecting to see one kid
and the other was there, but we just never had had a conflict. One
thing I do is, never schedule any activity on the same day as the
other kid's activity. Since we're not big on activities anyhow, that's
always been very easy to follow. This year, DS is doing basketball and
lacrosse, DD is doing track. They both will take the late bus home 2X
week (leaves school at 5:20) on the same days, so they'll have each
other to walk the 1/2 block from the bus stop.

Both kids have Hebrew tutoring 2 afternoons a week, but that's
together, so no conflict there. That's about it!

When my kids were in preschool, and all through their schooling there
has been before and after school programming which should alleviate
any time conflicts. Their preschool opened at 8, but you could bring
them at 7 if you paid for the time. It closed at 3 or 6, depending on
what program you signed up for. Being early or late wasn't really an
issue.

Marjorie

In ,
Kevin Karplus wrote:

*The preschool my son went to had very strict earliest arrival and
*latest departure times, but you could drop off and pick up at any time
*within the day (except for scheduled outings, of course). It was
*completely standard for some kids to come at 7:30 and others at 9:30.
*In such a setting, there is no notion of "on-time" for drop off,

Wow. Is that typical of preschools?? Our preschool program (9-12) starts
at 9 am, and that's when you are supposed to have the kid there. I mean,
they don't give you demerits for being late or anything , but the kid
misses out and the teachers don't really like it if you're late. I know
they "spoke with" a neighbor of mine who was consistently late (because
she had to drop off her other kid elsewhere first) because they felt her
son was missing out and that it was disruptive for him to come in, as he
often did, in the middle of story time. I kind of thought most preschools
would be like that but of course I only have direct experience with two
preschools one of which I no longer remember very well 30 years later

Of course, IMO preschool lateness isn't the end of the world and in the
OPs situation, I'd drop the kid off late.

*It may have helped that the preschool was associated with the
*university, and most of the parents were students or faculty with
*irregular schedules. A preschool associated with 9-5 employer may have
*more rigid rules.

I'm so far out of the loop, it's not even funny. Employers or universities
have preschools associated with them? I have heard of employer-based
daycare, but not preschools. I had no idea... sigh

h.

--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large

In article ,
chiam margalit wrote:
One thing I do is, never schedule any activity on the same day as the
other kid's activity.

Actually, I usually try to do just the opposite so I'm not running for
activities every day. If I can work out the drop-off and pick-up times
so both kids are at an activity at the same time, I'm one happy mommy.
But I wouldn't knowingly schedule activities that caused a conflict.
(I say knowingly because they never tell us the exact soccer practice
schedules or locations when we sign up. I think Ryan and Matt will
be practicing at the same time this year, but in almost the same place
so that the scheduling conflict will be minimized.)

--Robyn

Karen G wrote in message . ..
I have some overlapping schedules for the first time this fall as my
oldest child starts preschool and my middle child is involved in
activities. Wednesday morning they have to be at different places at
the same time. I looked at this problem in two ways--can one of the
child arrive early, and what are the consequences of being late.

In both cases, a dance class and preschool, the doors are not open until
the exact time. The dance class has a limited number of children
(usually about 4 to 6), so it is really easy to get started on time. I
was surprised that the preschool operated with the same
paradigm--particularly for a class of 20 children.

As a parent, how do you handle being late and how do you choose what you
can be late for?

I serve on the board of our church nursery school and one of the
biggest complaints of the teachers is dealing with early drop-offs and
late pick-ups. However, they do schedule in 15-20 minutes of free
play time at the beginning and end of class so that LATE drop-offs and
EARLY pick-ups are less of a problem. This is 2.5 hour 2X a day
program, 9-11:30 and 12:00-2:30, so that 1/2 hour break is all the
teachers have for their own lunches. It is very hard if morning kids
don't leave until 11:45 and afternoon kids arrive at 11:50!

In your case I would think the dance class would be more important to
get to on time. But as others have pointed out, we have been able to
avoid conflicts so far with our two boys. We either don't sign up for
something we can't do, or juggle our own work schedules to accomodate
their classes.

Chris

"Karen G" wrote in message
...

On an odd note, I wonder how many case studies were done on me. :-)

Counting the current follow up study, 42.

Best,
Ann

To the OP - ask the pre-school and the dance class people - tell them
what the problem is and see what they feel would be appropriate.

If I were you, I'd ask the dance people first, and then if they say
there's a hard line of some sort, then I'd tell the preschool what the
problem is and give them a heads up that he will be either late or
early whichever they prefer.

It may be that neither of them will care much.

(Robyn Kozierok) wrote:

In article ,
chiam margalit wrote:
One thing I do is, never schedule any activity on the same day as the
other kid's activity.

Actually, I usually try to do just the opposite so I'm not running for
activities every day. If I can work out the drop-off and pick-up times
so both kids are at an activity at the same time, I'm one happy mommy.
But I wouldn't knowingly schedule activities that caused a conflict.
(I say knowingly because they never tell us the exact soccer practice
schedules or locations when we sign up. I think Ryan and Matt will
be practicing at the same time this year, but in almost the same place
so that the scheduling conflict will be minimized.)

I must say that I found pre-school scheduling MUCH more difficult than
any other - mostly because car pools were involved and also younger
children in my family who had to be gotten dressed and stuck in the
car for two trips a day. It seemed like there was never one closer
than the next town which was a half hour or so away.

But after they were in school, I did it another way. Everyone did all
the activities together. The older girls both had piano lessons
together (one and then the other), the whole family including me ice
skated together, they both went to 4H, or after school activities like
gymnastics together, the both rode horses at the same time, they both
had swim team at the same time, etc.

So there was never a conflict between activities.



grandma Rosalie