Child Care Options for Flexible Schedules

You have secured your ideal schedule at work maximizing the amount of time you have available to spend at home with your children. However, you still need reliable child care for those hours spent at work. Unfortunately, flexible schedules can reek havoc on daycare arrangements which often require regular hours and full-time costs, regardless of mom and dad's schedule. Consider the following daycare options with regards to your own flexible schedule:

• Babysitters, Relatives, and Friends: enlisting the periodic services of a local teenager or someone you know can buy you a few extra quiet work hours at a relatively low cost. Such babysitters are paid hourly and can be hired to work a few hours here and there to extend your work day.
• Nanny or Au Pair: usually a young adult with or without a college degree, a nanny or au pair is generally hired to work full-time hours but can provide the flexibility of watching your kids in your own home. As full-time employees, some nannies may require you to also provide benefits including housing in a live-in arrangement.
• Child Care Cooperative: coops involve a group of parents who swap childcare responsibilities. Often involving a network of several families, coops will provide several options for care at varying times. The only cost is an exchange of equal childcare hours at another time.
  
• Family Child Care: in home care provided by a licensed provider can offer flexibility to working parents who work longer hours as in the case of a compressed work week. Since family child care providers work from their own home, a provider can watch your child as one of her own brood without interference into everyday activities.
  
• Child Care Centers: some centers offer part-time rates but usually require regular hours. For example, your child can attend a child care center for preschool only, but the daily class times are rigid, for example 3 hours each morning.
• After School Programs or Summer Camps: activities and camps can keep children occupied for a short few hours, again with a rigid schedule, providing extra hours to get work done.
  

Each of these daycare options may suit varying flexible schedules with mixed success. Finding your ideal daycare to match your ideal work schedule will be a constant exercise in balance and discernment.

To search local child care options visit the Maryland Committee for Children. For a nationwide search of childcare providers visit SitterCity (Don't forget Fido. SitterCity also has pet sitter resources).

The Apple iPhone: Good for telecommuters and home business owners?

Friday evening, the Apple iPhone hit the shelves at Apple and AT&T stores across the United States to a market of salivating consumers and a crush of media. The new phone, part cell phone, part web browser, part iPod, may revolutionize cell phone usage. But could this pricey gadget make the lives of telecommuters and home business owners any easier?

What the iPhone can do

Like the original Macintosh computer, the iPhone makes mobile computing fast and simple with no pull down menus and a one-touch button on every screen returning you to the main menu.

For $20 a month on the AT&T service plan (AT&T exclusively for about 5 years) employees away from the office can enjoy access to email and web browsing with the touch of the screen.

Email and voicemail is easily accessible, both as a list of available messages. No computerized operator prompting you to dial one to listen to messages; you can select which message to hear and which to save for later. Word, Excel, and pdf files sent as email attachments can be viewed on the go giving you instant access to important information.

Users can manage interruptions. If listening to music or viewing video, you can accept a call by simply activating the microphone built into the headphone wire, instantly pausing all other media until the end of the call.

What the iPhone cannot do

The biggest concern from business owners has been the lack of third party support for iPhone applications. Apple will design and release software for the phone only as needed. Third party software will not be adaptable to the phone.

While you can view Word and Excel documents on the go you cannot edit them on the iPhone without using some sort of online document service, such as Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets.

The iPhone interfaces best with a Mac. Business owners using a PC will have more difficulty, although the iPhone is programmed to work with both.

The lack of a keyboard makes much typing difficult. Unlike its Blackberry and Treo counterparts, the iPhone utilizes a touch screen keyboard with word recognition software that takes some getting used to.

The battery life of the new iPhone is adequate for most days away from the office. With 8 hours of talk time and up to 24 hours of audio, the battery will need to be charged every other day or so. However, like other Apple products, when the battery dies after a few years, the consumer cannot replace the battery. The iPhone must be shipped back to Apple for a new battery at a fee to the user.

Is the iPhone for you and your business? Does constant access to the web and the office make it easier for you to work or harder for you to separate yourself from work? The success of Apple’s iPhone will soon tell.