Why do people not like using holiday clubs?

[Youdirtylittlehamster]

Speaking to ex-MIL. She's off with me. I don't know why. Later she comes to the point, why have I booked the DC's into holiday clubs when she could have them for free.
I don't want to tell her that it's because she doesn't do anything with them. Sometimes when I've picked them up she's let them be on their tablets all day, they haven't eaten any proper meals (once, just Hariono and crisps) they haven't washed or got changed, they aren't learning anything.
The reason I don't want to tell her is because I don't think she feels that any of this is important.
We fundamentally don't see eye to eye about this topic. She feels school holidays are for doing whatever the children want, with no limits or demands of them. She never worked when her children are school so doesn't get why I have to work them, and why I don't just tell my boss that I'm taking every school holiday off as 'I have children so surely they must understand'.

I like holiday clubs. I like the variety of the things they do. I like that they come home with stories and make new friends. My DD has EBSA at times, and it is much better to keep the routine of getting up in the week, getting dressed, having that separation from me. They do things there that I'm not good at like sports and baking. They meet kids from other schools and walks of life. Yes it is expensive but can be spread over a few months or budgeted for. If you are on UC then you can claim it back.

The amount of mums on single parent FB groups who limit their careers by only looking for term time jobs. Surely if you choose a job which pays 30k rather than 18K pro rata but you have to work some school holidays then you still end up better off?
I wonder if part of it is how they were brought up. I always went to holiday clubs, as my mum worked, so I don't think badly of them. The way some of my friends talk it's like I'm sending them down the pit!

Well yes and no - we did put some effort into choosing an area with good provision. There must be a dozen or more holiday clubs within a mile or two of our house.

(I realise not everyone has the ability or desire to choose to live in a family friendly area of London - but just to say we are fortunate to have had that choice and put some effort into thinking about it)

So what do you do with your annual leave? I’m nhs too and take all my leave in the school holidays, I’m also a single parent and get help from UC financially. Grandparents do childcare for the days I work.
Luckily I only work 3 days but this means I only get 13 days annual leave, plus I’ll buy a week. Meaning I’ll have 16 days. Working 3 days a week this is just over 5 weeks.
I take 2 full weeks in the summer plus another 2 random days. A week At Easter, I try and get at least the full week over Xmas, sometimes 2 weeks depending on how the bank holidays fall. I utilise the bank holidays so I then only have to use 2 days leave to get the full weeK off. I can usually manage to get the May or October half term off too.

Yes I am a single parent and had help from universal credit. Still do, probably will until DC are 18. I wasnt bashing anyone that cant stay home or work term time. Just pointing out why some would because the OP seemed perplexed by it.
@Thepeopleversuswork I genuinely wasn’t having a dig. But the OP literally said why would anyone take a lower paid job to work term time, and that is why. The option is open to pretty much all single parents as the support from universal credit is there. Not saying that it’s the right thing to do, but I wasn’t ‘lucky’ to be able to do it.

Im now having to work my way up career wise to be able to survive in the future as a single person when I no longer receive support.

What do ur kids think? Do they like holiday club? Do they want to go to grams? Mabye let then visit gram for a day but holiday club for the rest? If they like it run w it

It’s so nice to read a post acknowledging that children all have different personalities and preferences without any implication that one type is “better” than the other or that if someone’s children aren’t exactly like yours then they must have gone wrong with them. Thank you!

The option is open to pretty much all single parents as the support from universal credit is there.

I personally don't regard giving up my position in my well paid job, taking a term time job and claiming UC in order to be home for my child during all the school holidays as an valid option.

I think sometimes some people who have never needed to use them just don't understand.
When DC were young enough to have to go to holiday clubs it seemed to me that nearly everybody else either had free childcare from relatives or friends on tap, or worked term time only, or had loads of holiday leave that they would share with their DPs.
My EX DP used all but 1 week of his annual leave to have holidays and time off in term time. I used mine for 1 half term, Christmas and 3 weeks of summer holidays.
One 'friend' constantly used to ask me why I was at work in the other school holidays. I used to ask her why she thought I had 13 weeks a year annual leave when the rest of the company had 5!

I don't know about where you are but in my area they don't seem to charge by day. They want £200-£300 per child for a week and I don't have that. I'd rather they chilled out with family doing what they want.

A few of my older DDs friends are always in holiday clubs and they hate it! They hate still having to get up and be somewhere constantly.

I never said it was a good idea, but the option is there.
For me, I didn’t have a well paid job in the first place so it made sense to take a term time job and be around in tbe holidays. This really wasn’t the point, I was just answering the OP’s query.

@Freshstarts249

@ThepeopleversusworkI genuinely wasn’t having a dig. But the OP literally said why would anyone take a lower paid job to work term time, and that is why. The option is open to pretty much all single parents as the support from universal credit is there. Not saying that it’s the right thing to do, but I wasn’t ‘lucky’ to be able to do it.

Sorry but you must understood that it's a) not feasible and b) not desirable for people who have certain fixed costs to simply chuck in a reasonably well paid job for a poorer paid one supplemented by universal credit purely so they can avoid having to put their kids in childcare?

I live in London where costs are sky high as you may imagine UC would not begin to cover my costs. Making that sort of decision would force me to choose between a) having to move out to a much cheaper area and uprooting my DD from her school and friends or b) losing my home. The idea that this would all be worthwhile because I would be able to take more leave during the summer holidays to offer more "unstructured" time and to avoid holiday clubs is pretty crazy.

I don't regard giving up a well paid, secure, interesting and (relatively) flexible job in order to go onto a low wage job topped up by UC in order to take lots of leave during the holidays as a good trade off. I'm pretty sure my DD wouldn't thank me either.

Same @Sass53271 but we both work full time in jobs that can’t WFH more than a day a week. PIL are too unreliable-notorious for agreeing to do two days in half term, forgetting and leaving me scrabbling around to find a holiday club. My parents do help but both work themselves.

I’m lucky that we have some great clubs near us and DS loves going, and they do 8-6/8.30-5.30 so we can just about make it work between us. DS is an only. He’s also at private school so all our annual leave is used for the school holidays where there are no clubs. It was our choice but the reality is our annual leave is dictated by that. So DS will be at holiday club 8-6 five days a week from late July until August bank holiday. He loves it (football focused and is football mad) but if he didn’t I’d reconsider my options.

Out of interest, do these chill days/unstructured days happen whilst parents are WFH? If DS was at home whilst I was working it would be miserable for both of us (7yo). 12yo I can see would be different.

I also live in London zone 1. You’ve really missed my point. The op asked why anyone would do a term time only job, and I answered. That’s all.
I wasn’t suggesting people give up well paid jobs to do so. I was just giving an example of why people would do term time jobs, as I did. If I had a well paying job or a good career in the first place I wouldn’t have given it up, and I would have used paid childcare like everyone else. I have no issue with holiday clubs. I couldn’t use them personally as my child has autism. But I really wasn’t saying what you think I was.

Just as an aside though, I managed just fine in London, working term time with UC top ups.

We're in a similar boat - also private school which means the holidays are even longer!! That's our choice I know - but we take a family holiday before the main school hidays and then they go to the holiday clubs for the remainder! They inevitably see friends there!

As for the wfh - my employment contract prohibits that in any event!! And I do a job where I time record so it's not practical anyway. But I suspect people are "wfh" and doing this a lot - as you say, we'd all go mad!!

My autistic DD who is very shy loved the holiday clubs I used to send her to. She was well looked after and could choose arty activities. Some of them took her on trips. I also used to send her to performing arts weeks which she enjoyed as well. I didn’t have other options in the Summer as I could only take two weeks off out of six. I didn’t know people thought negatively about them.

I envy the people who can believe with certainty that there is "one best way". If you have multiple children, clear you have ones which match, which must be easy.

I have one DC (7) who hates organised activities or being told what to do, and would rather potter round doing his own thing. If you leave him alone for ten minutes, he will decide to make <some crazy thing> out of scrap paper and cellotape, and spend hours doing a really creative job of it completely on his own.

My other DC(10) gets bored very quickly without attention. He will happily focus on any activity if you are with him, but hates being alone. He loves holiday camps with lots of people to talk to, and a clearly structured timetable.

So, it is clear to me, that there is no "right way", as no matter what I do with the kids in the holidays, unless I am not working, someone is complaining that it's awful.

@Heronwatcher
unstructured downtime for a my child might look something like this-
lie in (until 6)
lazy breakfast (until 7.30, but only that long if given screens)
walk to shops or play- either in garden or indoors if weather bad
help make lunch (play until 10 sure, 2.5 hours, but with mum or dad; what does a 6yo do at the shops apart from buy yet more lego? We only food shop once per week)
hour or so TV (no, wants to play, already had TV at breakfast remember?)
Help do a few jobs, or play indoors (Lego, craft, den making etc) or garden (2 hours, again wants mum or dad to play with, then makes and eats leisurely lunch, 1pm)
Maybe choose something for dinner and help make it (ok 15 min making dinner, but we would do that any day and we still have 4 hours to fill before dinner, so we need to have an outing now to the park / woods / playground / anywhere, or more games)
eat dinner (5.15 - 6 if add screens)
watch movie (will want to watch during dinner, then play for an hour)
bed (7-7.30)

Rescheduled, this sounds like our typical quiet Saturday / Sunday at the end of term (one of us will have a lie-in on each while the other is up), except that we added an afternoon walk / outing. Then he's refreshed for the holiday. In summer that's 6 more weeks. Sure, a couple more days can be like this but 48?????? No, we would all go crazy with boredom. People who have multiple kids entertaining each other, or who don't mind ignoring their kid might manage, but you can't leave most children playing alone for 8.5 hours every day and expect them to be ok!!! 1 hour is the most we expect DS to occupy himself alone at a time, maybe 2 hours per day.

@Sass53271 same here- early July for a weeks family holiday. In fairness I started a new job so less annual leave and legally not entitled to parental leave but I still can’t afford to take 4 weeks unpaid a year.

@GRex

Great post thank you

Have you never had a duvet day?

I absolutely detested being in holiday club as a child. Maybe they're different now, but back then they were God-awful boring. I also grew up in a weird very affluent area where working mothers were considered strange so the only holiday clubs were miles away with kids I didn't know. My mum put me in them every single day of the holidays from 7am to 6pm, it was miserable. And no she didn't send me there because we couldn't afford to take annual leave - my mum willing forfeited her annual leave every year for no extra pay because she'd rather work than parent me. I don't use holiday clubs for my DC, but if they asked to go (there's one near us that's really good apparently) then I might send them as I don't want my shitty childhood to influence theirs.

I feel like I'm a rarity in my circle in using holiday clubs for DC aged 7 and 9. I wfh so the reality is if they were here they'd be on devices all day as I can't entertain them and work at the same time. I'd hazard a guess that in my friendship group who mostly also work from home, that they either don't mind the kids being on devices all day or aren't actually working.

She didn’t use her annual leave? That’s just madness!

Yes even child me thought it was bizarre! She used to boast about how her boss was always on her back about using up her annual leave and if she left it too long, her leave would expire for that financial year and she wouldn't be paid extra for it. Like that was something to aspire to?! It was really odd, although my mum is an... interesting person 🙄 I was also put into childcare from 7am to 6pm during term time too for similar reasons. I really think she just liked the idea of having children but not actually the day to day aspects of it!

I'm trying not to let my opinions of her parenting influence my DC 🤣 I do put them in childcare but not 11 hours a day 5 days a week! We do a mix of flexible working between me and DH, a bit of time with PIL and formal childcare - it's a good balance in my opinion

I didn’t like sending my kids because we had two choices:

1. Sports camp in a school hall all day, which my kids HATED, and I felt so guilty leaving them there—I quickly stopped using this one.

2. Private school with loads of activities and amenities all day—swimming, cooking, IT, etc etc. It had wraparound care if you needed beyond the 9:00-3:30 session. Putting 2 kids in with the am wraparound and pm wraparound I needed, to do my hours at work, cost me MORE than my takehome pay. This is where I sent my kids, as I couldn’t bear leaving them at the other place. This is why it makes sense for some people to cut hours instead—care costs can be more than salary.

It does seem to vary massively what’s available by area. It’s also the case some clubs run super rubbish hours like 10-3 which are close to useless.
We are lucky and have sports ones (rugby, gymnastics/trampolining, multi sports, football, water based activities at the coast), arts ones (dance, drama, musical theatre, painting), multi activity with arts & crafts/some sports activities and themed things like Easter egg hunts) and some decent residential options nearby too.
They are anything from £20/day up to £50/day per child for the 7-8 hour long
ones. Residential trip eldest went on last year was about £350 for 9am Monday - 6pm Friday. She loved it and is desperate to go again.