Caravan holidays and camping

[Torvy]

Ok, I'm not quite sure what I want from this- a hand hold, advice, positive vibes and prayers, a space to rant?

Basically I'm taking my kids away with my parents for a week, then going on a seperate camping holiday over the BH weekend. The OH isn't coming with us to my parents because she needs rest and work, but will be coming with us on the BH weekend.

When we planned this months ago it seemed like a great idea. Play time with their cousins! Grandparent babysitting on tap! Kids in the middle of a field so limited damage potential! However, I had a (unforeseen) conversation with my mum where she decided to share her very negative and pessimistic opinions about my parenting with me on the only day out with our kids that wasn't shared with their cousins, and subsequently I told her that this was unhelpful and hurtful. My mum is therefore currently not really speaking to me properly and is acting like the injured party despite saying the most outrageous things to me.

My feelings about that aside, I'm now looking down the barrel of 6 days in a field with my bonkers kids, my mum who will only be passive aggressively victimy, my dad who is determined to be a grandad on steroids and will unintentionally wind the kids up with so much excitement I just know they are going to spoil out bevause it is too much, and on top of that, they will be looking after my neice and nephew who are similar ages but can do no wrong, so will be parenting them and therefore comparing them to my two. That means my mum also tries to parent my kids rather than being grandma.

(My mum reckons I have simulataneoulsy bitten off more than I can chew, whilst I am also over dramatising the children's needs and if they just had firmer parenting with firmer boundaries they would be ok. Then she tries to take over and give ridiculous consequences she doesn't intend to follow through and shame the kids into behaving and is always shocked when they escalate beyond all belief.)

Anyway. She is also refusing to commit to any sort of timetable, saying they will take it as it comes, which is a ballache because I can't do a visual timetable for our kids, and wants to 'take it as it comes'. I've put in a few things each day that I know I can control (meeting friends, watching a dvd), I've got a portable dvd player for bedtime routines and will stick to our other routines as much as possible, but I'm just a bit demoralised I guess. My mum will be all hands off now, and like 'well what do I know about parenting' and refuse to engage, but sulk, and my dad will try to make up for it and I don't have the energy to deal with them as well as my two who will be climbing the walls with excitement and exhaustion.

I've packed chocolate, downloaded some TV shows and meditation podcasts on my phone, got a box of wine for the evenings and promised myself as many fancy coffees and icecreams as I want if I don't let myself get unduly cross at the kids because I want to prove how well therapeutic parenting does bloody well work and they are determined to prove me as wrong as they can by running butt naked through a patch of nettles with a stolen traffic cone on their heads or whatever nonsense that has gotten into their heads.

The kids won't care, and will have a blast because they love camping and mud and running around buck wild.

So, any advice for me? Mantras? Suggestions for self care? Resources to help a mother adept at passive aggressive eyebrow raises? General sympathy? All appreciated!

Sorry no helpful advice, but do we have the same mum?!😆

@Torvy

I love your posts, you paint such a vivid picture of your lives and the children.
I think they sound like amazing kids

I do have some thoughts but a bit pushed for time this afternoon but will return.

But do you have headphones/earbuds, huge sunglasses and a big floppy hat?

Different fields. Wine. Lots of it. Oh, and litres and litres of bubble solution for your two. Separate wands, of course. AD2(8) is always the Pied Piper of Bubbles on every campsite. Alternatively, you could leave the rest of them camping and check into the nearest Premier Inn or boutique hotel, confident in your mum’s superior parenting skills. Even better if they are in a remote site with no phone signal.

Can definitely recommend this as a compelling holiday read.

@Torvy

To be honest I think I would just take charge, decide what you want to do with your kids, and tell your mum she is welcome to come along with the cousins if she wants, if not you'll see her at lunch, dinner or whatever.
I think running wild butt naked with a traffic cone on your head sounds like good fun to me. Don't recommend the nettles though, I have vivid memories of being pushed into a ditch of nettles by my brothers when I was about 7.
My point is that I think we spend far too much time fretting about getting our kids to behave "properly'. If they can't run a bit wild on holiday in a field and not worry about other people when can they? Within the bounds of public decency and safety of course.
I would also retreat at strategic moments to a deckchair with aforementioned ear plugs, dark glasses and pretend to be asleep

I wonder who will have the most fun, your kids or the cousins.

Thanks everyone! Just an update, we've arrived and got through the first night with no major issues, and my mum is apparently pretending that nothing has happened, so thats... Something! The boys argued the toss about going on the top bunk and then ended up in the big bed with me and refusing to sleep until 11pm, being hot little wriggly limpet swamp demons determined to whisper to each other over my head. Obviously they have just woken up only half an hour after their normal time so are still knackered this morning.

Yeah, my kids live life in full glorious vibrant detail at full volume, and it's nice to be able to share that with people who get it and don't judge!

I've packed my earbuds (a very good shout) and have decided to team up with my sister this morning to get to grips with what we are doing this week because she can persuade my mum better than I can. It's a good shout to take control of the schedule- I figured if we do it here together, it looks less like I'm being controlling and more like I've just been super inspired by the wonky rack of leaflets in the toilets advertising the local offerings of farms, stately homes and dinosaur themed attractions.

The book recommendations look good, I will give them all a try whilst letting my mum take up the slack with all the grandkids. Hopefully that will keep her too busy to make any horrible comments!

I'm ready- I've got a reclining deckchair, a cheeseboard, some good books and puzzle books and am determined to get at least an hour of bum on seat sun worship every day!

Thanks all- I will report back at the end and note any more useful strategies should anyone else find themselves in a caravan based predicament like mine!

Ok, so just a quick update.

Nobody ran butt naked through the field, although there were multiple out the caravan door willy wavings as the three year old simply couldn't wait to get dressed to get into the on site sandpit and kept escaping to look out the caravan door to check it was still there before I made him come back in and get his undies on.

Strategies that worked included me specifically not talking about the challenges of parenting with my mum, only transporting the children in my car and in that time feeding them snacks and crackers, allowing the children to eat meals with my parents but with the food I gave them, and also giving them the option to eat in the tent with me (now that I think about it, I'm wondering if it is public eating is a real trigger point for my eldest, in addition to eating generally, because he doesn't even like to be at the table with people who aren't us), having a packet of plain crackers available at all times, spending lots of time with the children and helping them to play or take turns and drinking lots of tea after I got them into bed. Sometimes I just sat with tea and chocolate after they were asleep for 15 minutes to savour the peace before I went out to join the adult conversation. My sister (who many of you know has been a bit tricky previously, but has recently had a baby and seems infinitely happier for it) came up trumps and was really kind with the children, so I encouraged the boys to go to her, and that seemed to work well too. I also just let them do what they needed- we went on a steam train ride and I could see the eldest was quite pent up so I let them run up and down in the guards carriage, for example, or stop and spend as long as they wanted looking at a particularly interesting dog poo then show them different types of flies on my phone whilst the rest of them went ahead. I tried not to allow us to be chivvied along with the group at the expense of responding to their needs and wants.

It only went a bit wrong on the last day where the eldest didn't want to leave and suddenly started to hit and spit, but we eventually calmed down and my mum only got one snap in at him about 'we DON'T spit in grandma's house' (thanks mum, because we totally encourage spitting in everyone else's house...) and an overdramatic retelling to my brother about how she dealt with it firmly and it stopped (when in reality I gave him his tablet to regulate, told him about the timetable again and ignored the spitting). But I ignored that.

I also challenged my dad because he was asking several leading questions when the kids had incidents, like "[niece], what did [son2] do to you" rather than "what happened?", and "[nephew] and [son1] were fighting and [son1] came off worse", when it was my son was crying, but when my nephew was crying it was "[son1] hit [nephew]" so much more blamey. It felt a bit like niece and nephew were generally assumed to be the innocent parties or having a equitable squabble, whereas when mine started something it was made to appear much more targeted. Everytime I heard him do that I interrupted and asked a neutral question instead, and asked all parties to explain what had happened prior. Inevitably they had all done something stupid, and I will say that on balance my nephew was more likely to start stuff by pushing and shoving, so it didn't feel like my eldest was too far out of line.

Anyway, all that aside, the kids generally had a great time, and I felt like I had set some boundaries without being too obnoxious. I don't know how relevant these experiences will be to other people as I don't know whether going camping with your extended family on a small campsite for a week is what many people do for fun, but if anybody happens to need some strategies, I hope the reflections above help!

@Torvy @Patchyman1 I think we all have the same mum.

Especially the minimising of needs, but then shock at behaviour.

It sounds like you managed admirably. I would faint at the thought of managing grandparents AND children. Tea and chocolate.