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 ?

I was out there whilst my child playing out tonight. Young children don't play out unsupervised around here, but they ride bikes, scooters, go karts about in the road due to small gardens.

Things have changed, but sometimes I think we had more fun than kids today, even though we had very little. Although all the kids played out at the same time so it was safer

Wish it was longer tbh

I guess you've never worked in a school then?

I didn't get NT membership from dh OP, I got it from my parents.. you could always ask your siblings to club together and buy it for you as a family for Christmas.

I agree with you shithappens we probably did have more fun.
And there wasn’t so much obvious disparity between Well off kids and poor kids due to social media. I remember playing out for hours when dm worked and going to my grans for lunch and back out again all afternoon until she came home.
My dc are still small but even people I know with pre teens/teenagers wouldn’t really leave them unsupervised for these periods, even in nice areas where it would be fairly safe it just doesn’t seem the done thing now.

@MyOtherProfile I only have one brother. He gave me £20 in a birthday card of which I will reinvest some in a nice bottle of wine for his birthday. I don't think the leftover will cover NT membership. My parents kindly gave me £60 and I managed to DS school shoes, plimsoles and Asda school trousers. That's now I roll

Don’t want them longer as i work term time and already lose 13 weeks of wages per year. Once my youngest is of an older age I’m out if term time as I’m losing too much. Plus with holidays being expensive during the school holidays i cant really afford them.

Ok I get that you are far worse off than anyone else, nothing we suggest will work for you and for you alone we should drop summer holidays to a couple of weeks. Or you could get a job. Except of course that's not possible for you either. So yes, two weeks summer holiday it is.

I take holidays to cover my childminder when she is off but I don’t bother taking weeks of separately as I get charged if I am off and the kids aren’t at the childminders as is her policy. So they are still in a routine of having to get up early to be dropped off for me to go to work, no different to being at school. When I am home with them after work, on my days off we went out, we did crafts and all that but they still harped in for the last 2-3 weeks about wanting back to school

The issue isn’t with the under tens, you can keep young children easily entertained for days on end with the most simplest of ideas that cost little or nothing.
The real issue is the age group 11-14 that are too old for clubs and camps, that usually stop at age 12, and there is very little to fill the gap unless you are happy for them to hang out in parks etc (I am not keen on this idea) 6-9 weeks keeping older pre teens and teenagers happy is a challenge to say the least, particularly on a small budget.
Things that worked for us: ice skating, tennis, morning jogs, sketching, sleepovers, baking and cooking dinner, ball in the park and picnic and roller skating.

Nope. We make by on hubby's income and it's very tight each month. We made the decision for me to leave my well paid but ever so stressful job (60 HR p.wk job as Engineering Coordinator) to be at home more while our boys are young. Our parents have all passed and we don't have any family within a 200 mile radius, to help out. We have to go without a LOT of mod cons and we just about manage the mortgage, bills and food each month. BUT we wouldn't change it for anything. We use our creativity to do fun things with our kids, often for little pennies or nothing at all. We play board games, go for walks, go swimming (when it's free for the kids), make up little projects, ie studying the cloud groups and guessing the weather next day (it costs nothing to look up in the sky and do that). We fuel our musical kids by Online tuition on YouTube (not private tutoring), we fuel our youngest's maths ability by dad making up measuring projects around the house and baking (yes, there's a lot of maths and science in baking), doing science experiments with common household items...you get the drift. We're aren't rich financially, but we don't care; we're millionaires in other ways. Our teenage kids are happy (which reflects at school too). They also support 2 animal charities and we go for walks on the reserves, FOR FREE. We empathise with anyone who is working ridiculous hours, with little time to spare. I've been in that position too. It's wrong - like the earth is flat wrong and I'd love to change things. EVERYONE deserves to have equal family time, especially in the summer hols. It sucks that not everyone can. So please don't think for a moment that I don't relate or understand, be because I really do! xx

A lot of people seem to be missing the fact that the shortness of the holiday is the reason that there is a lack of childcare.

As mentioned, in the US they have 10+ weeks. So you can actually make a business running a summer camp with that amount of time to get earnings over. No one is going to open a standalone camp program for 4-6 piddly weeks off.

There are tons of camp programs. Day ones, week long ones. Lots of the schools round here have day camps running at them. Are we just exceptionally lucky? One of the providers even does a residential week.

The Christmas holiday is ok as it is. I'd rather have time off in summer when it's (theoretically!) warm and light. Christmas is not a good time of year to be off school for ages as you're shut in the house from 4pm with the kids driving each other mad. Earlier summer holiday like Scotland would be my ideal as the best weather is often the last few weeks of term.

No thanks!

6 weeks is good.

Also if reduced to 4 weeks you then have office and business staff all trying to take off the same fortnight and it just doesn't work. In some companies 6 weeks is bad enough to manage let alone shorter.

And extra time in the colder months - October to April - isn't good for those wanting warm holidays. Not unless they've got the money to fly long haul anyway!

Our summer break is already shorter than most countries have.

I don't!!! In fact were anti homework-at all! But our youngest is on a personal mission to leave school with an exemplary record so he does it anyway, so he doesn't get detention (don't get me started on that one!). And please don't assume that his attitude towards learning comes from me, or is 'taught behaviour'. Our kid's highly intelligent (consolidated by school and specialists - I'm not boasting) and has all the common quirks, characteristics and sensitivities that go with that type of mindset. They're often perfectionist and make their own decision about their learning. I'm NOT being pretentious and any parent with a kid, on that spectrum, will know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. It's actually bloody hard work keeping his motivation up and interests fuelled. I've gone off track, I know, but people are quick to judge/make assumptions when they read comments in black and white. So, apologies if I conveyed a different meaning in the previous post...

I love the school holidays and think 6 weeks is just right, enough time for them to get completely out of routine and properly relax. I know it can be difficult and expensive to cover childcare for all that time but I do feel it's beneficial to the kids. I feel more relaxed too, even if I have to go to work there ain't the usual slog of trying to get the kids up and out of the door by a certain time and traffic is so much better. I always feel a bit sad when the summer holidays come to an end.

I think six weeks is perfect. Any less wouldn’t feel like a proper break and any more would drive us all insane.

When I was growing up in Ireland, primary had July and August off. Secondary had June, July and August. That said, the secondary school day was longer than here - we started at 8.40 and finished at 4, I don't remember there being as many half term breaks but I may be wrong!

It was the 80's though and kids were able to live a more carefree life than they can now.

Harsh...but there's some substance to that. We have little pennies spare but our kids are SO happy. I spent their first 9 years at home for them, albeit after years of working full time and turning my creative hand to wedding photography at weekends (during the 9 year gap). We don't regret it one bit or the fact our home is a bit ramshackled due to lack of funds. We made the decision that if we had them, one of us would be with them. Teachers have often praised me for the work we've put in to our kids - it shows. I went back to work 2 years ago but have now stopped again (consequently so has the extra income). But we make it work and our kids are always smiling! however, let's not be complacent and assume everyone can make that choice. We feel extremely grateful for the time with our kids but not everyone feels confident to make that choice. Way too much social and peer pressure, forcing them in to a false sense of inadequacy if ' they don't have', let alone the real lack of work-family balance offered in the work place....

@4creativitynewworld I have made sacrifices to be a SAHM, but then apparently I'm not able to complain about having no money. I could get a job.

It's interesting to hear different views though.

You have made sacrifices to be a SAHM Op, but one of those is to have little disposable income. I made a choice to stay in teaching when I would have really liked a career change, so that I got the school holidays with my children. We all make choices and sacrifices.

But you weren’t originally complaining about having no money, you were complaining about the length of summer holidays. Folk as far as I can see are pointing out it’s unreasonable to complain about having your kids at home when you’ve made the life choice to be a SAHM, meaning childcare in the holidays is part of your role. If that doesn’t suit you any more you can choose to get a job and sort out paid childcare, a consequence of which may be that you have more disposable income but less time with your kids.

We find the summer holiday difficult. Ds is 14 but functionally around 18 months and also has challenging behaviour. Any activities for NT children are out of the question. Even those for children with sn are for higher functioning children who don't mind being in a large group. No support workers/ respite workers will work with him because his needs are too specialist.
So it is me looking after him on my own most of the time with nowhere to take him where there are not likely to be problems. We manage but it is hard and I think he would be happier with shorter holidays. He needs the specialist facilities that his school can provide