To wonder why people need to "Survive" school holidays?

[SaggyOldClothCatpuss]

There are always threads about this. I've been there, done the small child phase. It's hardly life shattering! We have a garden, a playground nearby and a local beach, tv and nearby friends.
I love spending time with my Dcs, but don't feel the need to occupy them for 24 hours a day! Why would you need to survive your own kids?

[mrsjay]

infact I still struggle not just when they were smaller,

[cory]

HappilyUnhinged, that is all very well, but sooner or later the time will come when the dc are not necessarily happy to spend all their leisure time with you- and then it makes a massive difference whether you live in a place where you can happily watch them go off to do their own thing or not. A little money helps too, so you can let them try safe activities.

Mine are 12 and 16. They will be happy enough to spend time with me if we are going somewhere/doing something interesting, but not happy to spend 7 days in a row just pottering at home or down the park with me.

So I am very fortunate that we live in an area that is tolerably safe for them to go out with their friends, and that I can afford to give them the bus fare for the occasional trip into town.

I am also very aware that not everybody is that fortunate.

[Aspiemum2]

I too have to wonder at the point of this thread. You are obviously very fortunate, not all parents are. Not all children, even older ones can occupy themselves.
Some children themselves struggle with lack of structure and routine so juggling the needs of a NT child, a child with asd and 9 month old twins can be pretty tiring.

I adore all my children but the holidays can be tough at times

[SaggyOldClothCatpuss]

I'm not boasting, or a wonderful mummy. They're teenagers now and it's often HELL! But they're my children and I've never needed to survive them. And believe me I'm very much from the 'healthy neglect' school of parenting! I just don't get the term survival and it crops up here often. Our local beach isn't all that, you could easily substitute park, wood or car park!

[13Iggis]

Good weather, enough money for outings (ds wanted the zoo last week and we couldn't afford it ), space in the house to be alone at times, friends and family close by.
All these would help massively. curses tiny flat in cold Scotland
Btw I am very happy to be married, but we find the 6 week summer holiday just a bit more togetherness than we can handle! So not sure why it should be different for children.

[HestonsFatCock]

I have just had a difficult half term; dss are 4 and 9. The aged gap and sibling rivalry has bitten with a vengeance this half term. They have gotten physical and if they weren't beating the shit out of one another, they were arguing over what to watch on tv, where to go as a family etc.
I had never had this in the past, but Ds1 is now acting like Kevin the teenager and Ds2, who we never had the Terrible twos with, is now somewhat of a Pissant.
I made two women with younger children laugh in the park the other day; while the Dcs seemed happy playing, I stupidly thought I could sneak a quick call to DH. It all kicked of with constant whining and interruption, so I cut the call short, telling Ds2 that he was behaving very selfishly. The two women with push chairs, having overhead said "oh no, the dreaded half term eh?" sympathetically as they walked past. My reply was "I am surely going to die of the school summer holidays!". They were bent over their prams laughing at such an honest response. I am dreading the summer holidays.
So Op, YABU in the kindest possible way.

[Lovelygoldboots]

Christmas has the same sort of issues. Summer kids are supposed to be running in fields, clad in boden, eating dairylea with a Supergrass sound track.

[piprabbit]

Because, delightful though my children are for 95% of the time, when they spend too much time together over the holidays they physically fight and I have to become a sort of ninja referee to stop them causing each other lasting damage. The house echoes with screams and crying and calls of "Mum, mum, mum, s/he hurt me". Then I sanction them, and they hate me as well as each other. Tis blissful!

When my mojo is working all runs fairly smoothly, but I am ill and very tired and broke and right at the moment my DC-wrangling toolkit is empty.

[mrsjay]

'I feel so sad [sad face, sad face, crying face, crying face] for those children whose mommys don't like the holidays. I LOVE them. Just being with my little ones makes me happy. Just off to do some baking and then soft play. Yippeee!'

I remember them well I just love spending time with my little man or princess we can just chill out I love snuggiling with them just us nobody else

[SaggyOldClothCatpuss]

And FYI, when my kids were small we lived on the local shitty estate. It's not exactly Urban Surrey.

[13Iggis]

You could substitute a car park for the beach? (taking 9 month old to play in Asda carpark later in the rain).

[Tee2072]

Northern Ireland has 8 weeks in the summer. How shall I survive?*

*Tongue firmly in cheek.

[cory]

But again, not everybody has access to a wood or park or car.

[MsBrown]

You could substitute a car park for the beach?

I might try that one... Substitute the sand with old fag ends... What a castle that would make.

[forevergreek]

I agree with op. they are only children, most people may have a couple. Hardly a herd of wild beasts.

Little money, no park/ garden/ beach, well:

Going on a mini beast hunt- even snails exist in cities
Bake some cheap flapjack together
Collect leave/ random 'treasure', go home and make a collage- that's half a day and only costs a bit of glue
Build a den
Film afternoon (popcorn/ duvets out)
Painting/ drawing/ play dough
Fill sink with water and let them experiment
Friends over or visit them

All above can be done at home or 5 min walk from home

Add in that most areas do have a park or something for children, children can play with everyday toys/ lego etc.. It's only 5 days this week!

[MissyMooandherBeaverofSteel]

I'm very fortunate that I have a park nearby and plenty of places to go with my dc, who also fortunatley get on with each other so I don't find the holidays a hardship.

I'm also openminded enough to see that its luck that I have those things and not everyone is in that position. And I'm not silly enough to start a thread more or less insulting people who struggle in the holidays because they have to cope with things that I don't.

Bad form OP.

[feelingdizzy]

I never get these,I love lots of people my kids included but wouldn't want to spend 24/7 with any of them,bet they feel that way about me too.

My kids are great easygoing and are 9 and 11 now so much easier but wasn't always that way when they were 1 and 2 and I was a single parent(still am) and worked full time.

Even though things are considerably easier they are still 9 and 11 and I am 38 so not surprsingly we have very different interests,so although I have trained them to enjoy coffee shops and home and away.we still have some work to do!!

[mrsjay]

it isn't even the children we need to 'survive' op you made it out we hate our children there is many factors to holidays to take into account

[floatyjosmum]

Tbh I love the school holidays ... No school run. But mine are now 8 and 11 and do occupy themselves very well!

I try not to remember the toddler years as they were hard and going to farms etc used to cost a fortune!

[SaggyOldClothCatpuss]

So there are people out there who don't have anywhere outside, not even a teeny weeny patch of concrete where they can take their children to play? really?
I don't live anywhere special. We used to live on what in the 70s was the biggest council estate in Europe.
Anyway, that's a tangent. All kids fight, whine and run around like nutters screaming. But they're still our kids. The point of this thread is to counter the masses o threads which will inevitably appear here mentioning holiday survival.

[wordfactory]

I've always enjoyed the holidays.

But I understand that this is due to the fact that I work flexibly so don't have to juggle. That I live somehwere surrounded by countryside, yet can get into London very easily. That I have a car. That I have lots of money. That I have two NT able bodied DC...

That said, I know people in the same situation as me who still hate the holidays. They just find their DC an inconvenience.

[AnnieLobeseder]

Location
Weather
Needing to work
Not being a naturally child-minded person
Children with SN

A week over half-term is okay, but I can imagine feeling relief at the end. 6 weeks over summer, good lord, definitely survival time.

But I'm one of those evil full-time working mums who farm my DC out to holiday camps for other people to deal with so it's not a worry for me.

BTW, OP, do you realise how horribly smug and judgemental your post sounded? Same as any post that implies that other people are inferior parents because they don't respond to any given situation in the same way as you.

[FlouncingMintyy]

Well people don't literally mean survive do they? Of course they are going to survive.

Some people enjoy being in the company of children more than others.

Some people have a partner who is around to share the effort and some don't.

Some people have to work and find childcare.

Some people have hardly any money and live in a tiny flat.

Sometimes it rains solidly for a week.

Pointless thread!