To think the school holidays should just be August ?

[yellowbeard]

It's too long. I think a break in routine does kids good, but it's too much all at once. I think in Italy August is considered Holiday month ( not sure about the school holiday length ) but I know a lot of businesses close down for August there. Aibu ?

shit, so you work through all summer and the other school hols?

I think the English school holidays are about right. Here in Spain, the kids are off from the middle of the penultimate week of June until the 9th September. Now that's long!! Too long. They don't get any half terms, I assume to compensate for the long summer, so they have really long, tiring terms. Also only a week at Easter. In September and June they're only at school 9am - 1pm with after school care only available until 3pm those months. Bloody nightmare for parents. I much prefer the English system!!

Yes I’m teacher and I chose that profession because I knew it would be more practical. I always wanted to work with children but initially wanted to be a social worker

They're too short. We should have all of July and August off to get more of the nice weather.

They're kids! Not mini-adults. They need time to be kids.

We have had 9 weeks off here in Dublin.My kids are ready to go back.Im lucky im a sahp and my kids have plenty of friends nearby.But they want to see their school friends as well.

^ Why can't you plan ahead to arrange childcare if you don't have a solid childcare option like an afterschool facility that offer full time in holidays”.

Not everyone has holiday childcare options. If you work full time, live rurally, have elderly parents, distant family, partner works away..., then holiday childcare is very difficult to arrange, however much notice you have.

DC1 had GCSEs this year so had a long holiday - its been great - a chance to really unwind and relax. Especially as last summer school set them lots of homework and said they needed to revise for tests on the inset day before the start of term, so basically had no holiday at all. DC2 has had the same summer from hell as about to go into Yr11 and is massively looking forward to the long holiday next year.

Well there we are, *shithappens", you think I'm a 'lazy, entitled parent'... and I think you're in entirely the wrong profession. Our paths will never cross

Yup it’s all good 🙂

As a child I always wanted to go back in Sept too - the 6 weeks could feel very long - but it so depends on your lifestyle as a child. We always went away for 2 weeks but my parents worked (could juggle a bit or I could go into their offices with them), I saw a few friends, but by the last week I just wanted the routine of school and I didn’t even like school much!! I’m a bit like that now and I’m half dreading/half looking fwd to getting back to routine.,

I'm on week 9 of the school holidays with 1 more week to go. It's horrendous. We're also bored rigid as we cannot afford to travel anywhere or do any fun things this summer. We live rurally so DS has no-one to play with. It's tough with an only child.

4 weeks - really? My kids are both high achieving, albeit completely unsuited to our outdated, literary ed system (I said system; no qualms with the thousands of conscientious teachers who are unfortunate to be in it). Both kids work SO hard all year and being family-orientated they happen to CHERISH THEIR SUMMER BREAK with me and dad and WE cherish it too. One day, all these kids will inevitably be part of that hot pot we call the commercial world. It's fierce and they'll spend many decades in it. So I'm all for them having as long as possible in their holidays just to be kids and HAVE FUN.

Doesn’t matter how hard your kids do or don’t work to cherish your holidays? Weird
We’ve had a lovely holiday and my kids went back to school today and I really missed them was odd but time for them to go back. Just makes me appreciate the fun time we’ve had over the holidays.

Totally agree. The world is competitive and fierce enough. Kids aren't robots. Mine leave the house 0730 each school day, return about 1615, then have inconsequential homework to do. That's more than a 45 hour week. Not even some adults do that!!!! This is the time for them to BE KIDS, get creative, be spontaneous, have oodles of fun and ENJOY their childhood. It will be gone in a flash...and I LOVE having my kids at home to have fun with them. That will be gone in a flash too...

Presume you're not a teacher 🤣🤣
Honestly the kids need the break. Everyone knows they have to factor this in when they have kids. It's only from age 4-13ish.

I guess all the holiday cherishing is being done by family's who have a lot more disposable income than us. We have no extra money to save or spend holidays or not Or maybe they have rolling gardens with swings, trampolines, climbing frames, their own woods.

I am lucky to be a SAHM, but that is due in part to my DH's long hours and lack of family support. I used to work to in London and it's not possible to do that in my circumstances with my DH's business.

then have inconsequential homework to do.

It’s a side issue but I wouldn’t be making my kids do inconsequential homework after an 8 hour day. Human beings aren’t designed to work incessantly at any age - kids need regular, decent breaks from school and I think 6/7 weeks is fine. Yes is a pain in the arse childcare wise but that’s all part of having kids. School isn’t childcare and children aren’t worker bees.

I'd like a week added to Easter and Xmas so the holidays are more similar in length. The autumn term is long and I always feel like the Xmas holidays start too late and end too early.

So you just got bored of your kids?

Income low.

Accommodation, one bed flat with post stamp garden.

We're soo not ready for the holidays to end.

I wish the school holidays were longer, make the school day longer but increase the holidays. At ds school the day ends at 2.45pm, another hour a day wouldn't make much difference & would mean that there could be around 5 weeks extra holidays which would reduce the heating & energy costs of running the buildings. Holidays could be 8 weeks in the summer, 2 weeks for half term, 3 weeks at christmas, 2 weeks half term, 2 weeks at Easter, 2 weeks at spring bank. Terms could even be broken in to thirds with a week break between the first & second third.

Satm and you think the holidays are too long?

I can kind of understand those who juggle work with childcare but you are at home???

I guess all the holiday cherishing is being done by family's who have a lot more disposable income than us.

That's a cop out. I used to get family national trust membership for my birthday every year which opened up lots of free entertainment options. We arranged play dates and picnics with other families which also kept us busy for free. We went to local free museums. We did always have a good holiday away too but there are plenty of ways to occupy children in the summer without spending lots. We also used to make boredom buster lists from Pinterest of things to do on home days.

Often being a SAHM is a choice which involves less disposable cash. You could opt to get a job and have more cash if you really can't think of cheap or free ideas. But if you really want to continue being a SAHM then occupying your kids in the holidays is part of your job description unless you are loaded.

We have done very few paid activities this summer. My children are younger though (5, 4 and a baby), so I get that it’s harder then they’re older and hard to please!
We’ve mainly spent days meeting friends in parks with a picnic. Also bike rides, splash pad, having friends to play, paddling pool/obstacle courses etc in the garden, free museums etc. We’ve had 2 days over the 6 weeks where we’ve done a paid outing (a farm park and a water park).

MyOtherProfile I used to think like that too because that’s what I did when we were going through a difficult time with dh redundancy and my part time salary.
We were skint but I still took the kids out to parks, library, found free events, we played games with balls (my dcs still go on about a game we played when I chased them with a soft ball trying to hit them with it), we had picnics in the good weather and splashed in the puddles in the rain.
They had no idea we had no money.
I recently met someone who lives in a flat with no garden and their local park is awful, run down and she doesn’t feel safe there due to the kids hanging out and drug paraphernalia around.
If you can access nice safe parks, count yourself lucky.

That's very true Charles but there are often buses that don't cost too much to get somewhere nicer.