This year's seemingly endless summer vacation from school has had some parents scrambling to find something for their children to do all summer long. For single parents, or families with two working parents, having the children out of school for so long can become a juggling act. Many families have relatives living out of town that they can send their children to visit for extended periods. One friend is looking forward to sending her daughter to the in-laws' house in a beachside village, where she will stay for a month. For those with an extended family network, this is a good solution as it gives the parents in the city some downtime alone, while at the same time strengthening their children's bonds with other family members.
Many expats, however, do not have such a network of family in Turkey. There is the option of sending the children to their homeland to stay with family members for part of the summer. However, for many, rising airfares and the current economic crisis have drastically cut down on holidays abroad, at least for the time being.
“What are we going to do with the kids until the end of September?” is a common refrain among expats at the moment. Some families planned ahead and had their children enrolled in schools and activities for the summer long before school let out. Others, me included, decided to let the kids have a couple of weeks off to relax and take it easy before starting another round of structured activities. This may or may not have been such a good idea, as now Ali Adem has come to expect to be allowed to stay up later at night and sleep in a little in the morning. While I too am enjoying the chance to get a little extra sleep in the morning, I wonder how well we will all adjust to a different routine when he begins summer school.
Actually, he is looking forward to summer school, as am I. Many of his friends that he used to play with at the park have gone for extended stays with family members living in the countryside. With fewer friends around to visit and play with, he is becoming a bit bored with the summer vacation. After looking at several options for a summer school that centered around the sports he currently has an interest in, we finally decided on one that is nearby, affordable and that seems well run and professional.
Finding the right summer school to fit our schedules, Ali Adem's interests and our budget constraints was a bit of a challenge. It took a lot of time spent surfing the Internet to find schools that we wanted to check out as possibilities. Calls were made, visits planned and a pile of brochures was read through. Some were discarded almost immediately as too expensive, some because they are too far away and some just did not offer enough of what he was interested in. Sports figures big on his agenda, so this involved searching lists of sports classes that were offered at each school being considered. After much time spent sifting through information and schools, we finally found one that seems to be a good fit. Now we are both counting down the days until summer school begins.
What I have discovered from this experience is that there are actually quite a few options for children in the summer in İstanbul. The key, though, is finding out about them. That is where the work begins. Several museums offer interesting and challenging art courses throughout the summer, ranging from one week to a month long in length. Some of these classes, though, only last an hour or two each day, so if both parents are working, those may not be the best options. Until I began this exercise, I did not realize just how many sports centers there are in the city. Some have excellent facilities and instructors, while others leave a lot to be desired. The facilities may have affordable classes, but if the equipment is shoddy, or the classes too big or the teachers unqualified, it's best to pass on those and keep looking.
The summer vacation still has a long ways to go before school starts again, but with a little planning and some research, it is possible to keep the kids occupied and happy without breaking the bank.
Send comments and questions to k.hamilton@todayszaman.com 
