Summers offer tons of opportunities for families to spend some quality time together, but between summer camps, summer sports, play dates, and parties, do you feel like all you’re doing is driving your kids around? Carpooling is a solution that not only ensures your kids get to where they need to be, but that you and your family can truly make the most of your summer.
How Carpooling Makes a Difference
With tons of activities to get the kids to, plus your own work schedule, you’re sure to run into scheduling conflicts where you just can’t get your kids to every activity. With carpooling, though, you can work with other parents to set up rides so everyone gets to where they need to be. You’ll only be responsible for driving some of the time, so you’ll have more scheduling flexibility.
Consider setting up carpools to get kids to:
- Summer camps
- Play dates
- Birthday parties
- Summer sports practices and games
- Regular group classes like music or tutoring sessions
For us, as working parents or parents that choose to only own one car, the extra productivity time that we win is motivation enough to team up with other parents. But there are plenty of other benefits to carpooling besides just saving you time. Carpools can:
- Reduce emissions, making for an eco-friendly choice
- Give your kids the chance to develop friendships with other kids
- Save you money over paid transportation options
In short, carpooling is a great option when you need transportation to different summertime activities.
How to Arrange Safe Carpools for Kids
When it comes to setting up carpools for kids, you’ll want to maximize safety while still keeping things convenient. GoKid is designed specifically for this. With GoKid, you can choose which parents you want to invite to drive carpools, so you know your child is always with someone you can trust. You can message participants right through the app so everyone’s always up-to-date, and automated reminders will ensure you never forget when you’re scheduled to drive.
You’ll also want to keep a comprehensive schedule to make your summertime activity planning easier. List all of your family members’ schedules together in one centralized calendar so you can see scheduling conflicts ahead of time, giving you plenty of time to set up carpools if needed.
- Cozi is a great app that can make viewing your entire family’s schedule easy. It keeps all of your events and activities on a central calendar, and color coding makes it easy to tell at a glance which family members are involved in which activities. Anyone in the family can access the calendar, so everyone stays on task.
- Google Calendar is another great option for family scheduling. Because you can access it on desktop and mobile, you’ll always be able to see your calendar. Create multiple calendars for different family members, then use color-coding to view them layered in a single calendar for a more comprehensive view.
Scheduling carpools for sports activities? Then be sure to take advantage of GoKid’s integration with TeamSnap. Now, you can connect both your GoKid and your TeamSnap accounts. Then, pull rosters and event schedules into GoKid. With the team rosters and schedules, you can create carpools for practices, games, and other team events.
With GoKid, scheduling carpools is easy. You’ll get your kids to and from their summertime activities even when you encounter scheduling conflicts.
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