to think its better to leave the holidays mostly unplanned?

[watchforthesnail]

everyone i know seems to have endless lists of ' activities' to keep their child entertained. All very nice and all, and we will do a few things... but mostly i sort of think its ' down time' and they should be allowed to do what they want to do?

DD got up, got dressed and has been outside all day with next doors boy. Dens have been built, clubs organised and rules witten. Weeding has happened!!! water fights and trainging the dog for the circus... They have plans of what they want to do tomorrow and the next day and im quite happy to leave them to it. Shes 7.

I just remember being younger and having the feeling of not having to do anything, or go anywhere and having all the time in the world. I think its nice...

or, am i just a lazy parent?

We have had unstructured holidays for the last few years however this year i decided to plan a few things.

I think this year it was the right thing to do as my dd has taken to spending every free minute on the pc & not playing out as much as she usually would.

It all depends on your life. I work full time and this is my busiest time of year. Neither DD nor I cope well with things left open. So every Monday to Friday is organised and planned Weekends much less so.

Yabu and a bit judgey. It depends so much on the children and the situation - we all know some kids that can happily be left to their own devices for the day, some who would just spend the entire time on the computer and some who would start a competition to see who can jump from the highest tree branch and land safely, and/or try to dress the dog in his own clothes (ahem, DB).

Who cares what other people do?

We are in week 4 of the holidays here we've done beach x zillion, river walks, soft play, zoo, cinema, garden play, blah blah blah but have also had a lot of downtime days. Ds doesn't play out on his own yet (he's 6) and dd is only 2.

They still love all the den building / paddling pool / swing all/ football/ imaginative play etc but we have some time altogether too which is hard at home because they don't play together as well .

Also we were stuck at home all last week because ds was ill and I was going out of my tiny mind!

DD has camps planned for most weeks of the summer, as I still have to work, as does DH, and I didn't want to have her bored with creche all winter by being stuck there all summer too (afterschool club in creche). She will have one week in creche (now a reduced week as school back earlier than we thought - so 2 days are afternoons only).

I have arranged though that she will have a week in her DGranny's house where there is very little structure (things like feed the chickens, go to the "Ball Alley" with DGrandad to practise hurling, walk the dog, but otherwise, take things as they come and probably a fair amount of time playing with younger cousins next door). And I have also arranged for another week off myself (we've already had a 2 week family holiday - school hols started end June here) where we have no concrete plans.

But I also always have a list of possible activities that we could do. Like knowing what is going on in the art gallery, where they have free drawing activities for kids. Or when the tides are in at the beaches, to see if a swim after work and tea might be an option or not. Or knowing that certain festivals are happening, so we CAN go if we want to over weekends - but we often choose not to go. And general ideas of things to do either at home or to get out of the house.

So that when we are bored, or we are going into meltdowns and need distraction, I have options up my sleeve that will either just deal with the boredom (whether indoors or out, allowing for variations in weather - necessary here!) or to keep her away from others and allow her to calm down again.

But she happily spends a lot of time out on the green, playing games, climbing trees, in and out of the various houses (good few kids here) and making her own fun as well without needing me to organise it for her.