How do working parents manage in the school holidays?

[ADJ1151]

Question says it all ^^

I have two Dc. Now my eldest is settled into full time school (she went part time for the first term) I need to start thinking about going back to work...

My husband works and earns a comfortable wage, we do manage quite well on his income but some extra income would be nice.

I’ve been looking at jobs in school hours and also the option of breakfast and after school clubs.

My two children have additional needs which makes it harder I think.

But how do you manage in the school holidays?

My Facebook newsfeed is full of parents asking if others can help out with their children during half term..

The school holidays will me my biggest hurdle. Like I say both my children have additional needs, family either can’t or don’t want to help out. I’ve never expected them to.

My children’s school don’t have a holiday club.

There are two childminders in the area but they are full.. and I would be concerned because they are both fairly new childminders and probably haven’t dealt with children with autism before.

If my husbands hours stayed the same every week I would work around that but they don’t. He is on alternating shift but does overtime etc as well. He tries to book all of his holiday in school holiday time but often with half term he doesn’t always get it off because there’s a lot of other people working there who also want it off..

Aibu to think it’s really bloody hard? With the added difficulty of both my children having autism... making finding childcare harder.

What’s the other options? Working from home? working term time only? (what kind of jobs, don’t want to work in the school)

Help?

Holiday clubs. Mine do drama but there are loads available. I’m fortunate because I’m in a busy city though. Mine are doing Monday to Friday this week and the hours are longer than school.

We managed by me working when he wasn’t. We didn’t have any family help except in dire emergencies, as our parents don’t live anywhere near us.

If you’re in a tourist area you may be lucky like I was and find that jobs in that industry are actually quite flexible. I was a manager before I had children and I employed quite a few women whose husbands worked rolling shifts, and it was quite easy to do their rotas because they would bring me a month’s worth of their H’s hours and I could fit theirs in round them. After I had children, my husband worked permanent earlies and I worked lates and weekends in various admin or front of house jobs, but ultimately I spent my entire working life in hospitality because you can’t beat the flexibility.

@partofthepeanutgallery they skim over it. What makes it worse is that they were very actively looking after their 5 other younger NT grandchildren (they now want my kids to help). My siblings got to have lots of evening out, weekends away etc with their partners, child free.

DH and I have had one weekend without the kids in nearly 16 years. My parents say that's an exaggeration and pretty much accuse me of making this up for effect - nope, it's not, and I'm a middle age science bod not given to making things up or exaggerating IRL.

Exactly egg, most holiday clubs won’t take a child who needs extra support. Also after the age of 12 there is no free child care. My dd is 14, severe ASD, it would cost me the same as what I earn (or more) to find child care.

I think if you are a couple (no on your own like I am) you either have to both work part time or one of you has to work full time whilst the other claims carers allowance?

Being on my own I decided to work part time and claim carers as it’s the only way I can juggle things during the holidays. Things are tight but I have no choice.

Luckily my mother is an absolute angel, she was so much help when mine were younger

This is the big deal breaker for working parents. I took an enormous pay cut to be self employed so I can take the holidays off for the most part. I don’t want my kids in endless holiday clubs and I certainly don’t want to take most of my holiday without my partner just to cover childcare. During holidays my kids are shattered and do very little. They need to recharge. Id they were in holiday club every holiday they wouldn’t get that. But most people have no choice and I accept I’m lucky I can do a job self employed although I earn a fraction of what I could employed. I was tapped up recently and chose not to take it exclusively because of school holidays and my desire to be there for the kids.

It’s such a dissatisfying situation. But I also get that most businesses operate through the 14 or so weeks of school holidays and therefore term time only working patterns are almost unworkable anywhere outside of employment in a school.

I have gone self-employed and juggle it with DH'S leave and childcare clubs. If you have SEN kids who will struggle in a standard club setting, I would suggest using an au pair or find a decent babysitter, alongside part-time work.

Holiday clubs. Round here the nurseries run them and they are open 0730 to 1800 for about £30 a day.

Self employment. Choose my own hours. I do not always work from home but do around half from home. But I can take the children with me to work, or change the work days, or work at home when they are there, or work late in the evenings, or any combination.

I know lots of families with children, I don’t know of any who have an employed 9-5 weekday job. They all do some combination of self employment, SAH, WAH, changeable hours, shifts.

I save 3 weeks worth of my annual leave (14 days because of aug bank hol) unfortunately DP's hols are assigned to him and never know half terms which is very annoying. The rest of the time partners gran has him an afternoon a week or so, rest of the time kids club.

We did this last year (DS is in year 1) and the summer holidays still cost us about £350 in kids club fees. Luckily he loves going.

Watch out with holiday clubs, as they're often scheduled for hours that are no use to working parents - 10.00 - 14.00, 9.00 - 15.00 etc. I use loads of my leave arriving late to work in the school holidays having had to wait until the "early" drop off time of 8.30 for a holiday club, before I can then go on to work. Repeat at the end of the day. Nowhere does full 7.30 - 5pm type days round here, and loads of the clubs are very team sports based. We can usually get DS to go one year but not the next as he's very active but won't do football etc. so hates a number of the activities on offer.

School holidays are one of the reasons I’m staying part time. I work three full days which means DP doesn’t have to take a full week off to cover his share of holidays and it also gives me some flexibility to negotiate working more days but shorter hours to cover holiday club timings.

That along with other methods mentioned seems to mean we can just about wing it at the moment.

DH and I both took a week off separately we also took two weeks off for a family holiday. The other two weeks were kids clubs, did pay for a sport club with professionals teaching a couple of times, that was expensive.

The people suggesting au pairs, do you really expect an au pair - who should be a young person on a cultural exchange, doing some babysitting while also pursuing their own things, to look after children with additional needs? It baffles me that people think this is really a viable option. Especially in rural areas. "Come to the middle of nowhere, look after my child who needs specialist support, for pocket money." Yeah ok.

I work as a nanny and my daughter comes with me

When I was married, I worked nights and my (then) husband worked days

There are ways around it

Our DD only just started reception but so far we've juggled leave between us and been able to use grandparents for the odd day

Each work 4 long days compressed so only need to cover 3 days pw. Both work from home sometimes so able to pop up to school for drop/pick up then bring home to watch TV for an hour etc.

Plan to use holiday clubs in Easter and summer holidays - I was pleasantly surprised DD school holiday club is only £22 a day for 8.30-5pm which I thought was quite cheap

Unpaid parental leave is a last resort if we need over summer

The people suggesting au pairs, do you really expect an au pair - who should be a young person on a cultural exchange, doing some babysitting while also pursuing their own things, to look after children with additional needs?

absolutely not

I could leave one of my autistic children with an au pair, but I could also leave her in a holiday club. My other child needs 1:1 support by someone who knows what they are doing and is highly experienced. Even if I could find an au pair who was willing and able to do it, for the cost of an au pair it would be massively taking advantage.

Massively difficult - I completely rejigged my career to a mix of employed and self employed, in the holidays I'm up early and in bed late to get my work done when kids aren't around so I can be there for them. Some employers will let you take some unpaid leave and when you factor in tax and pensions that's often cheaper than holiday clubs and means kids don't have to be out all day all through the holidays.

6 weeks summer holidays =

1 week, my parents
2 weeks, holiday club (not consecutive)
1 week, family holiday
1 week, me
1 week, husband

And we have to pay the holiday club extra to get the 8am to 6pm hours we need

I work in a school so don't have to worry about school holidays, but I did want to comment and say could you consider childminding yourself?

I did five years and finished in 2018, it was very rewarding and I earns over £1500 a month plus looking after my own two younger sons (one ASD).

It's definitely worth looking into!

*earnt!

I work part time so only had to find and pay for part time childcare in holidays. I used a combination of annual leave, flexi time and paid for childcare.

I work school hours but all year round. I use annual leave to take some time off in school holidays but otherwise my DD goes to a holiday club/camp. There is one nearby that hires the hall at a different school and they do sports stuff. She is Year 2 and has been going in the holidays since she started reception. It’s £15 a day for 8.30-3.30 or £20 until 5.30. If you book a full week you get 5 for the price of 4 days. They also take childcare vouchers.

We have no family help so either we take time off work or she goes to the holiday club. I’ve never asked anyone/friends to look after her for the day for free but I’ve that others do on a reciprocal basis. I don’t really want the responsibility of other people’s kids all day on my day off though