How do you survive the holidays with demanding kids and...

[btfly2]

very high expectations asking every single day "what do we do today"?

I got mine to make a list of what they liked to do last year, indoor and outdoor, wet weather and dry weather, family activities and individual ones they could do without me.

We aimed to do things on the list but they knew some days would be spent at home) the park.

Anyone telling me they were bored would be given extra homework to do. I didn't get many complaints about boredom.

You could adopt the 1970's style of parenting I grew up with

'What are we doing to day?' - 'I don't know"

'I'm bored' - 'What do you want me to do about it?'

'It's raining' - 'go and read a book"

we learnt to entertain ourselves and I think it's a useful life skill

1 weeks holiday(which includes both sets of gp), one week alone time with his dad (they love a bit of one on one time and play badminton and other random things) 1 week and one grandparent one week at another. A week at soccer camp (love this) and then a trip with me (this year London but normally more local (Scotland). Then we just share the last couple of days we just have the one DS so it is maybe easier but that is pretty much how we have always done it.

I always start full of enthusiasm, with lots of planned day trip, invitations to have their friends around and worthy projects at the ready and by the last week of the holidays I'm reduced to pleading with them to, "just find something on the telly please and I'll get you more Haribo".

So, to prepare for the inevitable decline into substandard parenting, I have them booked in to forest school for a handful of days in the last two weeks.

Up to that point, I've got a wall plan for the holidays with all our pre-booked stuff, including a small camping trip, meet-ups with friends and local stuff that's on that I found in Primary Times/ local papers/ Facebook. Then I have a list of regular places we can go, parks, museums, beach, library ect divided into good day weather and rainy day weather stuff.

I have a new Xbox game hidden in the house for when the shtf.

How old are your kids? I'll be honest, I don't find the summer holidays particularly taxing and we don't do much really. I'm a teacher so have the holidays off with the kids. We tend to use tesco club card vouchers for days out to keep costs down. Dd plays with her toys, watches movies, we go out to the park etc. I do expect dd to entertain herself at times. She has enough toys/crafty stuff/dvds to be able to fill some time.

It is worth getting annual membership of a farm or soft play or something.

We have membership at a farm where the kids can pet the animals and they always have activities on for them and at soft play - happy days

I find we get this more at the beginning of the holidays when they aren't used to having hours of unstructured time.
Mine are 7 & 5. Sometimes, when they are busy doing one thing, I will get one of the boxes off the shelf (the marble run or the dressing up or something they don't play with that often) &, when they finish whatever they are doing, they leap on it excitedly whereas if I'd said "what about the marble run" they'd groan at the idea. Other DC may not be so easily out flanked!
I've also stocked up on arts & crafts materials, saved random empty containers, bought them some sticker books, gone to the library and just got some bits so there are a few new & different things to do at home.
I've also done a list on my phone of local free attractions. Many of them are parks up to about 7 miles away with a particular attraction the DC like. That way, if we're all getting on each others nerves at home, we can go out for a few hours without doing the same old things again.

I don't think that parents should feel the need to entertain their dcs all the time.
My dcs used to complain about being bored until I adopted an idea that I got from Mumsnet. The idea of Cinderella duties.
Cinderella duties include : cleaning windows, wiping down cupboards, cleaning skirting boards,etc. If my children complain about being bored , I ask them to do Cinderella duties. My dcs never complain ...,,,
Ding Dong- I laughed at your 1970's style of parenting. That's exactly what my dm would say