How do families balance two full-time jobs with school-age children?

[Jinglejinglejingle7]

How so ypu practically balance both parents working fulltime? Kids are 9 & 12. 12 year old at Secondary so independent but 10 year old (year 5) still gets taken to school and met half way home at moment. Trying to logistically plan how we do this (again!). In a way it was easier when younger as had wrap around care or child minder!

We did it by alternating who does morning and evening so when Dad does school run I go to work early and finish early. Next day we swapped. Of course this only works if you have a flexible start/finish.

Perhaps in Y6 youngest can walk home alone knowing oldest is home? (Depending on the journey etc)

What are you doing currently ?
I presume you have been managing for the last 6 years or more, so what has changed ?

As to how 'other people' manage there will be as many different ways as there are families.
People with flexibility, people who wfh and live near the school, people use before / after school clubs , some have Grandparents who help out, some arrange their hours so one drops off and the other collects from wraparound care, some have childminders, some have shift patterns that help, some have reciprocal arrangements with other parents with dc at same school.

Yep, primary was tough (I became a SAHM for many of those years, and took a low paid school support staff job for the rest). Hold tight, you are getting very close to all the hard work paying off.

This was where au pairs were brilliant and the way we were able to manage (thanks brexit)
Best thing is to look for someone at a local college studying childcare for example and see if they have flex to pick your youngest up
koru kids is often mentioned on here as a way of finding flexi babysitters
can you both compress or work flexi time to enable drop off / picks ups?

I really on family and friends
No option to work from home or to change start/finish times
Dp works on the water so his finish time could be anywhere in a 2 hour window, 3hours during the busy season

We do childcare as often as we can to reciprocate for those that help us using holiday days ect and family get to use perks from my job
Dc are 9 and 12
9 will not be trusted to walk home till year 6 at least
Dc12 was able to walk home alone at that age safely if I had a day off and gets them self home from secondary via bus now

We have flexitime and wfh so we can do all drop offs and collections between us.

Dad drops off in the morning and works 915-545. Mum works 8-430. Younger child goes to after school club and I pick up at 5. Older child gets herself home

Childminder. Same one we’ve had for nearly 13 years (since DS1 was 10 months). My life would collapse without her. Expensive but worth every penny.

My DD drops her DC off at school and nursery on her way to work. School child does after school club and both are picked up by her DH who starts work early so he can finish in time to pick DC up.

I have 3 kids in primary. I switched to a role which allows me to work from home 5 days a week. We also use wraparound/after-school club at school until 5. I'm lucky my boss knows I'll always get the job done so will log on early/late if I need to so she isn't fussed if I log off for a bit to collect one and drop them to a club etc.

It's really hard though and feels like a constant juggle. My eldest is very sporty and once of mine dances so it's the extra curricular that frazzles me and trying to manage getting everyone from a to b. I manage this by taking it turns with other parents to ferry a group of them to things.

And don't get me started on school plays, concerts, sport days, parents evenings! All really hard when both work full time!

Edited to say - DH works away a lot of the time but if he is here then he will do the drop off before commuting into the city so that I can get stuff done at home.

we had a lovely afterschool nanny (a local older lady) who did 3-7pm 3 days per week. So she picked kids up from school, fed them a snack at home, supervised homework, did their laundry, cooked dinner and kept everything tidy and organised. worth every penny of her salary.

DH and I could then split the dropoffs and the other days of the week between us.

an AuPair can also cover those hours for less money but you need space and it is hard to find people these days.

Can the 10yo not walk home alone? That's what all the children do around here.

It's so much harder than when they are babies and toddlers. I was fortunate that I was able to be a SAHM when mine were in school. For various reasons they were both always in different schools and they also had different needs and interests. It would have been impossible to get them where they needed to be and facilitate their after school activities if I'd been working. I'm sure we would have managed, but their childhoods would have been less rich if I was working full time. I know that we are in a fortunate position for this to have been possible, but I never understand when people talk about going back to work once their children are in school. My advice would be to work when they're babies and if you can stay home for any period of time, make it when they're in school!

I've got 2 in primary. Generally DH drops off, I pick up. So I start work early and he finishes late. He also does compressed hours in order to do pickup on Friday. Kids do after school club Mon-Thurs.

I don't work full time but if I did then I would do the same as I do on the days when we are both working. Drop off to childminders for 7.30am and collect at 6.30pm. It would mean having very little time with my children in the week and my oldest spending long periods of time in his own so that it why I don't. I would also need a cleaner if I worked full time and would spend a lot of money of cook ready meals.

Childminder until the end of Y6. DD did walk to and from school in Y6 but only when DH was working from home so we paid for the childminder more as an insurance then a need for 60% of the time the last year.

We used after school club until the end of year 5, then walked themselves to school and back throughout yr6 and waited for us at home.

8 and 11 here - i wfh a few days a week, DH does shift work so does times when off during the week, grandparents help when both of us at work - getting to end few years now but its been a struggle tbh

We used before and after school care and plot pick up and drop off. I also work from home full time which helps. One of the reasons we went private was the before and after school provision was guaranteed. Now they are in senior school they are given a lift in the morning but come home on the bus unless staying late for games.

What has changed from however you are already doing it? Ours are 9 and 13 - 9 has after school club a couple days a a week, 13 just needs to be driven to dance class some
evenings. 9 walks back and forth the mile to school and between us we wfh most of the week. It’s so much easier now they’re more independent - found the wraparound years really tricky.

It's a while ago now but I had a great childminder who lived close to the primary school. I was a teacher, so I would leave fairly sharp at night and mark when they were in bed. Exh didnt do any drop offs or pick ups unless it was absolutely an emergency. My parents helped too and both children would go to their house for dinner once a week. Once the children hit secondary school, I would take them there as it was on my way. Going home, they walked or my dad would pick them up if the weather was awful. Extracurricular activities were split between me and exh. (Together at the time)

DH and I both WFH full time. Not having to commute to work and having a high degree of flexibility in our working hours has made the biggest difference to our ability to manage everything at home. But I appreciate that not everyone’s job allows this.

Thanks all. Should have said. Ive got new job full time. Dh can work from home some days. Ds 9 cant cross the dual carriage way at moment so thats why doesn't walk all the way home.

After school club until the last term of Y6. No she didn't like it, yes it was boring sometimes but as far as I'm aware nobody ever died of being bored 😊

Well why can’t your 9 year old go to after school club? Or could you carpool on the days your husband wfh and he or you drops off a couple of children from your neighbourhood.