The summer holidays when you were a child

[Thatcantberainsurely]

What were they like?

80’s child, 90’s teen here

I can remember watching ‘Why don’t you’ eating cereal, going out on bike rides and walking to friends houses and knocking on for them to come out. There were water fights in my friends street (cul de sac)
Aside from that, I don’t remember ever going anywhere really (with mum) or any planned activities/crafts/outings
So different to my Dds holidays 😂

Childhood through the 90s and we definitely did things in the summer holidays.
1/2 weeks was always on holiday, we went on a big day out a few times during the summer so the zoo, a day trip to some natural sight or something, a day to visit cousins at their holiday home, if it was raining my DM would set up activities for us.
In between was running around the street and the usual. I don’t think childhood was as free range as some people like to look back on, I think you just remember it from a child’s perspective and didn’t acknowledge what your parents facilitated, except in cases of terrible parenting.

I'm a bit older than you but recall school holidays being filled with the things you mention. 'Why Don't You', time with friends, looking out the window at the rain, reading books, etc. No computer games, no mobile phones, lots of actual people time. I'm not sure the world is better for the Internet and technology. Some aspects are, but not all.

I remember the leisure centre having a book of activities that your parents could book... a couple of hours of trampolining or craft sessions or swimming sessions with the big floats etc.

We also always did a summer scheme, my mum was a SAHM or worked around us so didn’t need it for childcare, nor could she pay for it. I’m fairly certain they were council funded.
This was for a week or two, usually in the leisure centre or local community centre. It involved sports, games and trips out.

I was born late 50's so 60's childhood.

Very little TV

Out all day playing in local woods which covered a couple of miles (but not rural)

Closer to home digging tunnels in the side of a high bank and reinforcing the sides and ceiling with cardboard

Salads made with lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes. Hard boiled eggs quartered, ham and salad cream. Tinned peaches eaten with bread and butter as dessert.

Rainy days spent playing board games or reading, but don't remember those as much as sunny days.

Sumner hols seemed endless

Born mid 70’s. I only went on 2 family holidays, age around 6 & 8 but only remember rare days out, maybe a trip to the zoo a handful of times, visits to a tourist loved area once or twice. I went on one school abroad trip and one school residential in the U.K.
We lived in a large village so had freedom to roam from an early age so summers were spent swimming in the river, climbing trees, cycling & all friends just playing.
Once DPs divorced age 10 we definitely didn’t have days out due to finances. Can count on one hand the times we went anywhere.

Our own DC have had lots of days out & trips away, even if it was just camping at times, there has been at least one holiday every year.

I was a child in the 80's, both of my parents worked ft and my mum worked shifts. Summer holidays when I was a kid were mixture of being looked after by my childminder when I was very little, then various Aunties and my older sister. When my sister left home (I was 7)it was pretty much pillar to post between the Aunties, leisure centre and the odd day at grandma's. We had our family holiday in June/July and I don't remember my parents having much holiday to take in the summer.

My mum didn’t work so her being home was the norm and I don’t specifically remember summer holidays.
I remember going to euro camp every year but not sure if that was in the summer holidays. Those were the days you took your kids out of school for holidays.
We visited my granny and had a lot of days out while there and also stayed with my cousins.
Bike rides and picnics. Playing out in the street with friends. Making potions in the back garden.
When we got older we went to Alton towers once a year

Nowadays people tend to facilitate a lot of days out with the kids, whether that's National Trust, Kew, Alton Towers, Legoland, beach etc.

My childhood was filled with grandparent babysitting, playing in front of the house and tv.

It was way less Parenting with a capital P and more passive, low pressure parenting where the kids were kept alive with supervision and meals.

Kids like simple things. How often do we spend big on a holiday or days out and the kids are happiest in the pool or the crap little park?

1980s baby. My dad was FT and my mum worked 3 days a week so I went to grandma's 2 days and grandad's 1 day. This is what we'll be doing as childcare so it's not much different at all. I played out in the fields and woods but also spent a lot of time indoors, reading and gaming, as I got older.

Also an 80's child, 90's teenager. As a child we spent one week camping with Mum and Dad in Devon, had a week with my sister at each grandparent's while our parents went on holiday on their own (loved this as cousins would be there as well). The rest of the tome we would just be playing out with the kids on the estate. I remember us making up plays and performing them to our parents, biking, skating and being in and out of each others houses. As a teenager I would just be with my friends the whole holiday, as an older teen I didn't even go on holiday with my parents as I preferred to stay home with friends. I also worked a part time job and did a paper round as well.

I'm the same age and my overwhelming memory is boredom and being very solitary. I struggled socially and anyway we lived a mile or two away from everyone else from my school. I got used to entertaining myself for long stretches. TV, kicking a ball against the wall, imaginary play, the occasional board game with my sibling. Punctuated by trips to the supermarket, grandparents and the odd trip to the park. I was neither particularly happy nor particularly unhappy but the days were long.

Oh yes the leisure centre activities, I do remember doing that occasionally. My mum was a Sahm too and didn’t have the money for days out. We did have holidays most years though, but I’m not sure if it was in the holidays either. Caravans in Wales/Cornwall or Eurocamp in France
I remember reading lots and going to our local valley with friends (when early teens) there was a rope swing and river etc
Mainly walking around with friends chatting and feeling bored

Grew up in the 80's early 90's, lived in a council estate but were we're at the end of it, so endless land beyond that to play in. Farmers fields, a river, buttercup field.

We used to cut the tops off pop bottles, put grass and leafs in it & collect ladybirds from the field.

Built dens, played hounds & hares with the lads from the street next to us.

Get our bikes out, pack a wee lunch and set off on an adventure, usually to the farm a few miles up the road.

Our parents would be shouting us in for our dinner and we'd be like 'just 10 more minutes!!'

The summers seemed endless..

Nothing like that for our kids now, and that makes me 😢

Born late 60s. We didn't have much money, or a car. Mum was a sahm so we spent the summer holidays cycling to local parks for picnics, setting up dens in the garden, going to the library, occasionally going swimming, trips to the free London museums on the train, but mainly just TV, reading, drawing etc. Our family holiday was normally a week in a caravan on the south coast during May half term. Usually involved wellies and anoraks in the beach 😁

My parents both worked so we always did a couple of weeks of summer scheme at the start of the holidays and we always had a few friends with us. The summer scheme was either at another school or we were bussed to the woods for an outdoors one early every morning (which was great fun). We the went on two weeks of holiday and after that a mixture of going to cousins/friends etc where we'd either go money a day trip or play out the front on bikes.

@Pussinskool Sounds so wonderful, is nowhere like that in the U.K. now? (I live abroad now)

I’m a decade older so it’s harder to think back but there were no ‘holiday clubs’. We always went away first two weeks of the holidays (in England).
The rest of the time (primary and early secondary) saw friends, but I don’t think this was more than twice a week.
sometimes went w my mum to her p/t work if I wasn’t at a friend (when too young to leave at home, but I think some reciprocal childcare went on).
played w the neighbours
played on my own in garden/if nice we got the paddling pool out
go out w my mum - shopping, museum etc.
saw rellies once in the summer (v small family)
I was def bored a lot.
Didn’t live somewhere we’d ‘knock’ for others, my mum would arrange on phone for friends to come round or vice versa I suppose.
def got better into secondary, more friends and made own arrangements - my mum didn’t know my friends parents really.
my dad was highly unsociable so didn’t do anything w him apart from on holiday.

in comparison w my DCs’ childhoods in last two decades - loads more play dates either w their friends or my friends and their kids. If no arrangements then park/soft play/museum (or would meet friends out). Sometimes a holiday club if they wanted and I also worked p/t for some of it so they had to go to proper 9-5 place twice a week for a couple of summers (which they have told me in latter years they hated! Way to go with the guilt, but there was no alternative.) They’d also see their cousin once a week or so which was an easy day for me!
My DCs are close in age and had each other but I am an only, so a big difference.

Obviously there was all the TV on in the mornings for us in the 70s/80s - Why Don’t You, Red Hand Gang etc

80s baby. Both my parents were teachers so they were always around and we went on holiday but lots of time was spent outside playing with the kids in the neighbourhood. We lived next to a huge field so we would spend all day every day there. Wish it was like that these days!!

Same as you OP!

I used to wake up and spend the morning letting my brain decay in front of the TV, watching the likes of Saved By The Bell, California Dreams and Pugwall. Then I'd go and call on my friends and see if they were playing out.

On hot days the whole Street of children would have a water fight or we'd get the paddling pool out.

We didn't go on day trips or holidays when I was little. I went on Brownie camp a couple of times though. My mum didn't know she was born - Brownie camp was Monday to Friday so she was rid of me for almost a week and my Grandma would have me to stay with her for a whole week too "to give my mum a break." WTF? I was the quietest, most well behaved child ever! 😂

If none of my friends were playing out I'd just ride on my bike round the cul-de-sac on my own or play ball against the wall. I read a lot and would draw.

I was a 90s kid, we were highly encouraged to go outside, but not too far. Had a whole estate next to a nature reserve but never allowed to go beyond the green outside the house. I hated it to be honest, I’m not an outdoor person and would have happily spent summers in from of the tv or reading endless amounts of books. I loved Christmas break as these things were far more acceptable 🤣.

My mum worked so holidays were usually spent with grandparents (they lived a few doors down), but any trip she arranged was horrible. She was always stressed and evidently thought (and behaved like) she was doing it ‘for the kids’, had so many incidents of her losing her shit, calling us ungrateful and storming off. Once she promised me a trip just me and her but her mood was already foul. I lost her in a shop on the way there and she drove me back to my grandparents, screaming the whole time that I’d ruined it by ‘humiliating her’ after asking for help. She was shocked when I was a teen that I refused to go on any ‘family days out’ with her 🙄.

@Thatcantberainsurely @Pussinskool the UK is still exactly like it. It's parenting choices that dictate what kids end up doing. I know families who ban phones and ipads and kids accept it and therefore are still kids doing kids things

Born late 60s Played outside, and had games of Rounders and enjoyed myself. If raining (seemed always Sunny,but probably wasnt!) I would read FF books or MT Loved Enid Blyton .Play Monopoly or Cluedo with my friends.Often go to stay with my Nan which I loved .Days out with her and Grandad.Sometimes go on holiday to a guest house on SC .

90s child, 2000’s teen.

Up to the age of 15, it was doing absolutely nothing for 6 weeks.

Got a part-time job at 16, so it got a bit more interesting after then - cinema and Starbucks mainly.

I also used to truant to go and sit in Starbucks and read chick-lit, fantasising about being like the cool London-dwelling characters in the books.

By contrast, my nephew who is 6 is taken out (or on holiday abroad) nearly every day of the summer holidays. Children’s boredom threshold has definitely dropped!