Planning for the summer holidays. Do you end up spending a small fortune?

[QuickQuacker]

I have 3 DC . One is a baby so I won’t count him. The other two are 10 and 9. One has ASD and is a very reluctant “doer” , preferring to stay at home. He will also refuse to go out for bike rides , walks etc so I have to take him out to “do” a planned activity or he becomes reclusive.

I’m trying to plan for the summer holidays. We have a U.K. break booked for one week which also includes a couple of day trips to “big ticket” places.

We then have a smaller weekend away to visit family where we will also do a couple of days out.

Their usual after school clubs are still on throughout the holidays.

We also have tickets to two different day trips booked a while ago and those are a week apart.

I’m looking at the calendar with the weeks stretching out wondering how on earth we’re going to fill it without spend spend spend.

We have swimming passes so we’ll do that for free.

Country walks, picnics in the great outdoors and “unplanned” activities are no good for our family due to DS total resistance to going out.

What is everyone else doing? Do you book activities for every day?

That sounds a busy schedule! I work so will juggle childcare with my DD dad. However hoping to plan play dates and childcare swops with her friends. A few days out and a week away campingvis what we've planned. The rest of the time she'll have to occupy herself or with her friends. At that age (my DD is also 10) they enjoy company of others and have a bit more independence, so try not to put pressure on yourself to entertain constantly, especially of you have a baby too.

@Rainydayss yes the pressure to entertain is what I want to avoid but DS with ASD is unable to do this himself. He gets very upset if he is ‘bored’ and no encouragement to do different things such as drawing , colouring , baking etc will appeal to him. He does not enjoy other people’s company and again , it upsets him if he’s required to socialise . It makes things very tricky .

Ah that's very tricky. Does he have a close friend he could invite over to play? The summer holidays seem so long when trying to fill up the days, hopefully fingers crossed for nice weather and garden/paddling pool if you're lucky enough to have them. Could he do a project at home which involves daily work? Growing veg, painting a shed, etc

No, we never used to spend a fortune.
We didn't have that money to spend, so I became very good at seeking out free things to do.
I would also involve them in planning, and preparing (so they would help make the picnic - in effect, another activity - again, less time where they needed to 'occupy themselves' whilst I did jobs. We also used to save things (bus tickets, leaflets, even something like a feather they picked up), and print out the occasional photo, and make 'scrap books' of our Summer - again, occupying some more time.

We used to try and go out every day - different parks, woods, streams, feeding the ducks, go on a local train ride, various free activities at the library. We were lucky enough to have free swimming for children when mine were little. Things like open days at local fire stations, local fetes etc etc.

Then all the stuff like "gardening", chalking, just playing out in the garden, cooking, at some point getting all the jobs done, painting, making dens etc. Paddling pool when the weather was nice.

All that said, none of mine have ASD.

That does sound really tricky! Without being regimented, I think we will be planning one bigger outing per week (eg soft play/a wildlife park) and smaller outings for days we’re at home (playground, walk into town, something like painting or baking if wet).

We are breaking up the holidays as their DGPs will help a little for two weeks and we will also visit them; we also use a childminder who will provide us with some holiday care for our older DC. We have a week where we will both be off and plan to fit in two or three bigger/more expensive trips.

DC1 is quite a stickler for knowing what the plan is and has “gone off” a lot of things this year. He’s almost six but we will have DC2 (toddler) in tow as well. So I think we will come up with a plan on a weekly basis but we definitely won’t be paying for stuff more than once or twice a week! To be fair, DC2 just fits in with whatever DC1 wants to do, and much of what DC1 likes is relatively inexpensive (a bus ride, etc).

Usually break up the 6 week summer holiday with a 2 week holiday abroad (we aren’t doing that this year!) and fill the other 4 weeks with a mixture of spendy days and free days.
Try and have ‘an outing’ 2 or three times a week, might get the train to London and do some museums/lunch/shops, head to the beach, things like top golf and go ape, swimming, bowling, just whatever we fancy.
Other days are filled with things like inviting someone round for cake and a cuppa (relatives, often grandparents!) which mean shopping for ingredients and then making a cake, having friends round, parks, walks, pub lunches, garden play (making obstacle courses or nerf targets or water games), taking a picnic somewhere…
2 of mine are older teens and still like to come for the spendy days out as all expenses are obviously paid for them but often make their own plans for the other days. This leaves the younger one without a buddy - I find it much nicer for us both if we include other people for some of these days! So I’ll take out him and one of his friends or just invite someone round.
Basically, we do have a mixture of what we do, I don’t like to plan too much in advance but I’m off the whole time anyway so can just take it day by day.
I spend a lot, will probably be much more this summer as we won’t be away for any of it!

These sound like great plans

DS does well with structured, planned days out which don’t involve “pointless walking in a forest “ . He is not good at entertaining himself at home unless it involves his Xbox (screen time is limited but he spends all day waiting for his allotted time instead).

He will not spontaneously go out to play with the other DC. I do need to plan in advance but I won’t want to spend ££££ every day . I think we have enough planned but I don’t want to end up with a battle of the Xbox on the days we don’t have anything planned.

I was like @backforgood and was a demon for free stuff locally - yy libraries, crafty things at museums, theme events at NT places. Some of these would only last an hour but it made an outing, maybe a picnic too, getting there on the bus.

One MN idea is to write things on bits of paper and put in a jar - then when you have nothing to do you take one and you must do it - play monopoly, have a water fight, get new books at the library, do a scavenger hunt, make hot chocolate and watch a movie... You get the idea. Somehow when they have picked it, it goes down better than suggestions from you!

It's so hard isn't it. My 9 year old is autistic and is just the same.

When he was younger we would generally go for a walk in the morning then have the afternoon at home. But now it's a job to get him to leave the house.

Some days I do just let him play on his PlayStation when he feels like it. He talks to his friends on there so I tell myself it's good for his social skills!

Other days we go out for walks but there is always a purpose. Like we will walk to the cafe for lunch or a snack.

I tend to alternate quiet days with days out as that seems to work best for us.

Also we belong to a local Autism support group who have event days that we go to. Ditto a disability football club that he belongs too. I have a neurotypical 8 year old as well and she loves going to those places too thankfully!