Why do people not like using holiday clubs?

Why is it madness to suggest that some children thrive on unstructured downtime during the holidays?

”Unstructured downtime” can mean a great deal of things though can’t it?

People talk about it as if it was an unambiguous good thing and sometimes it is. But quite a lot of the time it means sitting around watching TV or YouTube or playing XBox. In no known universe are those things preferable to being in a holiday club.

Unless family childcare is 100% reliable and your relative looks after your dc in a way that you approve of, professional childcare is a better bet - it comes with fewer strings and judgements at any rate.

That said, you sound a bit sniffy about term time working - not everyone has good childcare options available and sometimes provision is both patchy and expensive.

I think you are right to not leave the dc with mil if she doesn't do with them what you'd like, but I don't think kids always need to be busy. Doing nothing or having no set commitments can actually be very good for children. They need to learn to entertain themselves or relax , without constant stimulation and provision of activities.

Our kids love their holiday clubs. They usually have a week at an art based one where they work on a particular style of drawing/painting, a water sports based one with sea kayaking, coasteering and similar and then a dance camp for one and a residential film/drama one for the other. We also don’t really do tons of “downtime” round the house weeks we are off with them. The odd day sure but typically we get out to the beach/parks/national trust, arrange play dates, go to museums/have day trips on the train etc. I find the kids just get sullen and snappy with too much time in the house. We are in today and have played a couple of board games this morning then we are all having a chill hour and will do some Lego later this afternoon. I also tend to get them involved in jobs round the house and encourage them to play in garden, read, paint, craft etc. I do feel like on days in we all (me included) are on screens too much and it isn’t the best

you do have a choice mother in law offered

just to add some parent do take a pay cut happily to spend time with their children. You seem very money orientated where as a lot of other parents would put their child infront of earning an extra 10/20k. we just about manage on our salaries

Lone parents have a double whammy - they are less likely to be able to afford to work term time only jobs (unless they are not pro rata - think I've got that the right way!) and also need to use holiday clubs because they are working and don't have a partner's support.

The guilt can be bad. I have people telling me "oh a couple of weeks of screen time won't harm him". True. But I've been a lone parents from when he was 7 - that's a lot of school holidays.

A couple of days of this won’t do any long term harm but the idea that this is preferable to an organised club simply because there’s no structure is madness.

Why is it madness to suggest that some children thrive on unstructured downtime during the holidays?

Some children clearly thrive in the structure of holiday club, but for others the environment is stressful and overwhelming, especially when they're there every single day and are basically in a "school routine" all year round.

I went to a holiday club that took place at my school. I hated it. It felt like I was in school year-round and only got a break at weekends. But a different set-up with specific activities (for example) may have felt entirely different.

My ds always loved the local council holiday club. He used to spend his summer days while I was at work, cycling around the grounds of the local senior school with his little 'tribe'. Or reading his book in the shade of a tree, or playing cricket or making chocolate brownies with the carers.

He was very clear he didn't like SuperCamps which he said was too regimented, endless sport and no holiday at all. So I booked the provision that he enjoyed and we were both happy.

If your dc is happier and more engaged at holiday club, that's all you need to know.

But you do have an option. Your exMIL has offered to have them. It sounds like you just don't want her to.

my kids would've hated holiday club. Holidays for us are about relaxing and having no alarm clock or strict constraints. i do work term time only in a school- i don't think i could stand a normal job with 21 days holiday a year. i'm not pro rata though.

Clearly you are missing the whole point of this thread. The people posting here use holiday clubs because they are working. They don't have time to take the kids swimming, meet up with friends and anything else that needs adult supervision

@roses2 i rather think that you have missed the point. OP is openly questioning/criticising parents (particularly single) who make a different choice to her i.e working term time only so the DO have the time to do that

@Youdirtylittlehamster

I was raised by a SAHM when we were teenagers we always went to my Nan’s when mum went back to work. I was dead against my two boys going to holiday club but my wife told me to get over it. My mum was not happy as she saw it as we’d rather send them somewhere else even though they didn’t go every day and went to Nan’s as well.

The boys loved it made new friends from different schools. My wife made a new mum friend. My big one played hockey for the first time and stopped playing football and now plays for a hockey team. Little one loves taking a pack lunch as has dinners at school.

All in all I was so wrong about it and they’re had a great time although my Mum is still a bit miffed. I think a mix is nice if you have the support but if you’ve not then I see no issue likewise if you can’t afford it and have to rely on family/friend help. No one should judge anyone’s choices

Yes, exactly. Saying that you feel your kids would be better off doing structured activities than with a grandparent who sits them in front of a screen all day is one thing; saying that you can’t understand why anyone would choose to be paid less so they didn’t have to work in the school holidays is quite another.

Bit of both? Some days off with dg and some action packed ones.

mine went once or twice but having 3 made it quite difficult. plus my dm was a proper nana who took my dc out for picnics etc.,

No, what she is literally saying is I'm saying that it's odd that women will choose for example low paid school office work (vastly underpaid for the skills involved) just to not work school holidays.

So not simply a discussion on her choices and what works for her.

For me, it was the rigid structure of having their day mapped out, being told what to do when (no different from school) and the lack of free time to explore the world at will (without having fixed plans). I was fortunate not to have to work in the holidays when my kids were young and accept that's not possible for everyone - but we had some great adventures together and went on trips to all sorts of varied places.

2 weeks (actually it's nearer 3 for my DS) looking at his phone or playing xbox is not great IMO.
He's 15 so should be out and about with his mates, except many of them are away or also on their xbox. Sigh.
The fucking bus let him down again this morning so I needed to take him to the gym and will need to collect him. We live rurally.

School holidays as a working lone parent are very hard. I'd have bitten my arm off to have had family offer to mind DS when he was younger. I did use holiday clubs and then later on pretty expensive but more specialised football clubs. He didn't enjoy being shunted off day after day.

It's not the end of the world, but after years and years of it I'm just worn down and wish things had been and were different for him.

Obviously it's not up to your mother-in-law to decide what you do with your kids in the holidays.

However, in answer to your question 'Why do people not like holiday clubs?' I would imagine the answer is that different people have different priorities and different kids enjoy different things. Not every child enjoys having every day scheduled and organised, and not every child likes to be with a group of other kids 24/7. Some kids much, much prefer doing their own thing and making their own entertainment.

I would have LOATHED holiday clubs when I was a kid; I just preferred the freedom of being able to get up and think 'Oooh, what do I fancy doing today?' and my older brother was much the same. I also had a few good friends local to me so we'd 'knock for' each other if we were bored, and I could socialise when I wanted to. My very happiest childhood memories are of the school holidays and the mad schemes my brother and I used to come up with to entertain ourselves.

And some parents do just really enjoy spending those days with their kids, if they have that option. My mum always did - she chose to work in term-time only jobs for that reason. She really loved being able to spend the holidays with us and hated it when school re-started.

If holiday clubs work for your family, that's great, but not everyone's the same. I can totally see why some kids love them, and why they're a brilliant childcare solution for some parents. But it's not difficult to see why they wouldn't be ideal for everyone.

I think it really depends on the club, the quality of it and the personality of the child. I did a lot of holiday clubs as a kid.

The ones that were really focused on a skill: tennis camp, pottery camp, drama etc. were enjoyable.

The cheap childcare ones run by teenagers, where everyone is just hyped up and misbehaving. The kids know. I hated those.

They can't sit around in their PJs watching their chosen programme/do their chosen activity whenever they want.

They may have some allotted quiet time, but it's not as flexible as being at home

School, learning, structure, sports, clubs and being with other children is great fun but also very tiring for children. Sometimes you need to let them just 'be'.

There also seems to be an assumption that holiday clubs do not have any unstructured activities or "down time"

😃 agree

She’s come on saying that she doesn’t believe that children should ‘do nothing’ in the holidays and furthermore, that single mums should budget and make better career choices to ensure that their own children can also go to clubs and not ‘do nothing’.

This is disingenuous. What she is saying is that she prefers her kids to be in a structured setting where they are doing something positive that arsing around at their grandparents house doing very little.

And questioning why people assume by default that family care is always better even if the family care is pretty unimaginative. I can totally understand that.