do you put your children in kids clubs while on hols?

[goodbyemrschips]

As in the title ''do you put your kids in kids clubs while on hols, if yes why and if no why?

I have always viewed holidays as a time to relax and recharge. (And have a lot of sex.... but then we had DS).

Both DH and I work full time (him in an office, me as SAHM).
We find we are knackered in the evenings.

If putting DS in a creche on holiday means a few hours to chill and revitalize our relationship then I think it's a good thing.

No, 8y DD has never been to a holiday kid's club.

We have rarely been on holiday in hotels. We tend to prefer to rent villas or apartments instead.
e do ometimes holiday with family or friends with their children too, so she does getsome child company at times.

I am sure DD would quite enjoy it for a little while, but TBH we really like our family holidays together and like to be out and about doing things together. Especially for DH as he has less holiday time than I do, so it is even more valuable to him.

Despite this, at parks and playgrounds, etc. whilst on holiday DD normaly ends up making a little friend to while away some time with.

Nope, never used nurserys hol clubs etc. Think they shoul be allowed to play and develop without structure at times

DS is an only child and loved the kids club last year. Having said that it was a very low key affair that he could come up and see us if he wanted we ( probably stupidly) plonked ourselves on the seats beside it and it only ran for a couple of hours a day.

We made good friends with the parents of one of the other children at the club and it meant DS had a little pal to play around with during the day. As he is only 4 he clearly needed adult supervision at all times so we didn't actually get much more relaxing done as a result, but DS had a good time and so did we.

This year his main requirement for holidays was somewhere with a kids club.

I think child personality is a big factor, as some people have said - some kids frankly need the stimulation, like my boys, others prefer to sit nicely and hang out with parents (my DD was often like that, but not always, as sometimes she would make a little friend and go off playing). Sometimes I take one of the boys away for the weekend, just the two of us, sometimes we are with another family in a villa, sometimes we're just in a house loaned by friends somewhere, hanging out much the same as at home.

Only once have I had problems and that was when DS2 took a dislike to the kids' club in a Kinderhotel, and cried mournfully at the gate looking at me with accusing eyes, so I had to spring him really (nothing wrong with the kids' club, we hung out with the carers and still write to one of them as have a shared love of Terry Pratchett, DS2 just didn't take to it).

Also some parents are rubbish at engaging with their kids, but have the sense to surround them with friendly professionals who are better at it. I don't see a problem with that necessarily. It takes all sorts and it's not a competition.

Next holiday is to an island in Fiji where you get a nanny per child (under 5) included in the price of the room.
We will still spend plenty of time with the kids (3yo and 2yo) but I need a holiday too, and a little adult conversation a cocktail and a good book are what I really need right now!

PS I bloody loved kids' clubs as a kid. Even if I didn't speak the language, I had a much better time there than with my boring strict wrinklies.

Generally not as tend to do self catering, independently booked holidays. This year for example we are going cycling. But for dh's 40th we went on a sailing holiday. Took the kids out of school - awaits flaming and they had sailing lessons for ds and dd1. They spent about 4 days of the week at kids club for a few hours and because it was out of season they had almost one to one attention and did loads of watersports. We spent 3 days completely together doing family stuff and the rest of the 4 days swimming together and playing card games. We chartered a boat for dh's birthday and had the best day ever together. Was an amazing holiday but a one off (paid for by getting loan on our mortgage in the days pre credit crunch when you could do such things). Now we have dd2 it's a challenge to find something that suits everyone but no plans to do a kids club type holiday again even though it was a great experience when we did.

We are off on a Neilson holiday in June, both DD (will be 8 months) and DS (will be 2.11) will be attending kids clubs, i think the hours are 9:30-5:30 with DD coming out for 2hrs at lunch. As long as neither hate it both will be attending for at least 5 hours a day whilst I & DH sail, windsurf, read a book and maybe even have sex or catch up on sleep. I am a SAHM and love my dc but I need a break. There are plenty more hours in the day to also do things as a family.

No because

1. Have hardly ever gone on a holiday with a kids club.
2. We enjoy each others' company a lot on holiday, with the option of making friends with others nearby or not.

No, only did it once when dcs were very young, and decided that sort of holiday really wasn't for us.

Now the dcs are older, they enjoy each other's company immensely and prefer to play with each other, and friends they pick up along the way, in an unstructured way.

No, but we go camping and they disappear off with other children and do their own thing quite a bit. I want to lounge around, drink coffee and read, they want to hang upside down from climbing frames and play endless games of table tennis. We all like cycling and swimming and walking and sightseeing, so those things we do together.

We've done both - we have a big age gap so it can be hard to entertain them together. I like to play tennis, dh likes to sail, so where those things are available, we have used the kids' clubs to give us a chance to do those things we love and can only do once in a blue moon. We also put them in ski school in the morning when we go skiing and bring granny or borrow an au pair to look after ds (6) in the afternoons so the other 3 of us can ski all day!
We have been on plenty of hols with no clubs, camping, or where dd has popped into the club when she feels like it and stayed with us when she didn't. DS hasn't had a lot of choice yet, but as he is quite a handful I definitely feel I need the break!

pika Of course you and your DH deserve time away from your DC to chill and revitalise.
Parents should prioritise time together, I feel.

However, for me, I wouldn't schedule that time away from them on a family holiday.

That time is one of the few periods when our family can spend extended time together, wihtout other distractions. Weekends are simply not the same.

wordfactory - for us, holiday = family holiday

Hmm, all very well if you have the resources/grandparents to provide childcare throughout the year to spend time together with your partner, or indeed doing things separately as in my example above! And both my dc do activities at the weekends in term-time which they don't like to miss too often, especially dd's drama club, so it's hard to get away more than a weekend a year. Summer holidays seem to be a good time for us all to do a bit of our own thing. It's also nice to have some one to one or two to one time with one child on their own, in fact this is when we really enjoy their company and get to know them as an individual, without having to deal with the dreaded sibling rivalry which drags us down and spoils so many of what should be our moments of fun and relaxation together.

I don't understand all this "family time" on holiday business. Is is not a "family holiday" unless you are ALL together 24/7 for the whole holiday?

I don't get it either, lofty. Part of a holiday for our family is doing things that we enjoy doing. DS certainly wouldn't have had a teddy bears picnic and made friends with those children if we had insisted he stayed with us.

isn't it always the case that if you try to get them to go and take part the go all shy and and won't budge
but if you really want then with you to have a good time they are always pestering to go to the kids club!!!!

Too right we do! 1) they really enjoy them, 2) they are always (where we've been) exceptionally well run and structured age wise 3) If it's really hot and we want to relax in the sun, we can do so knowing they are being entertained and having fun inside without us fretting about suncream etc 5) they make friends and we even sometimes like the other parents (!!) and finally, the ones we have used are only 3 or 4 hours a day, they don't go every day - obviously there are many times we want to do stuff as a family, and if i had any doubts about the quality of the club, I wouldn't send them.

We havnt so far but we are going on holiday for the first time in 3 years in september and our dc will be 5 and 2.5 years and i wont rule it out for our 5 year old!! I will however be with him for the first session and if i dont think it is run to a high enough standard he wont go!! I also will only send him once or twice if he wants to go- more for experience for him :) My dd will be too young i think so no point ds going much if she cant go eh :)

I think kids clubs abroad are good but in small quantities and i dont think children should spend all day every day at them. :)

I have done but not every day, for a 10 day holiday we had 5 mornings or afternoons booked in. This is because we both felt that she would have fun playing with all sorts of toys we weren't able to bring with us, it would keep her out of the heat and in air con, and most importantly give us some time to ourselves. We hadn't had a holiday for a while, she was just under 2 and so needed constant watching whilst we also wanted to have a break. I don't and still don't think that we did anything wrong with doing this as we had plenty of time to do things as a family. I also felt that it would be good for dh and I to spend time alone together (rarely happens) and that it would be pointless to go on holiday and spend the whole time inside if it was too hot for dd when there were alternatives. We all ate together, we all played together, she wanted to be with daddy more than me (hooray!) and more often than not didn't want to leave the kids club/creche as she was having so much fun! All in all everyone had a lovely holiday and those few hours were massively relaxing and good for our relationship.

For years the ds's went to kids clubs once or twice during a holiday and then moaned that they were "boring" and that being in the pool was more fun. We had actually liked that the clubs kept them out of the sun for a couple of hours. Then we booked a holiday without a club as it clearly wasn't going to be missed. Only to be told the holiday was "boring" as there was no kids club!

As they have gotten older we have looked not so much for kids clubs but places where there are activities, such as Center Parcs.

OP you asked us if not then why, and I can see you said you would not use a kids club, but I can't see that you gave a reason why. If I missed it then I apologise, but I would like to know what the purpose of this thread was and why you feel strongly about it.