To be dreading the summer holidays

[EmptyBoxesss]

I have a son I adore, more than anything, but I never know what to do with him. I really struggle with entertaining him! He’s 6. I take him swimming and to the park and on his bike and we do the library and crafting, but there are 12 hours in a day for 7 weeks! It’s so long I run out of ideas and I find it so hard. We will visit my family for a week but that’s 6 other weeks of the two of us and it’s so overwhelming. I’ll try and book in a couple of okay dates but I haven’t got links with many of the other mums to be honest, I’m trying to change this.

Is it just me? How do people keep their kids busy every day?

Some free/ cheap things my kids liked:
Large pavement chalks (used on patio)
Painting the garden fence (with water and old house paint brushes/ rollers)
Writing letters to grandparents. When tiny these were drawings. And walking to post office to post them
Pressing flowers between heavy books from walks and then making cards.
Library and library challenge
Helping with all the chores, cleaning, shopping, laundry etc
Parks, esp with scooters and a picnic
Our local very small town museum had free or cheap activity mornings
Some TV
Swimming
Any craft stuff
Our church did the odd morning of kids stuff

We also did the odd expensive day
Train to London
Cinema
Soft play/ trampoline park
Farm type places
The zoo

A lot of cities are doing trails of things to find. Bristol has Wallace and Gromit this year. Depends where you live.
But if you can afford a tenner there are downloadable quiz type trails from Treasure Trails for a huge number of towns and cities i did one of my local town with mine at that age and learnt stuff I didn't know about where I lived! But we have also done loads of others and taken bus or train rides.

Not sure how you feel about this but sometimes churches run play schemes for a reasonable cost during school holidays on our area; is there anything like that where you live? Even a morning or two would help.

I don't try to entertain them every minute of every day, that helps! At 6 he should be able to play independently for a bit? I find creativity often comes out of "boredom".

Oh God I have 4 and I'm dreading it
They don't play together, they fight and whinge that they are being followed 🤣
Taking them out is a military operation (I don't drive)
And they hate walking for xyz reasons
So trying to catch a bus to go anywhere is usually started by 40 minutes of pure whinging (times this by four children and my head is fried before we've even left the house)
They have loads of toys but everything ends up broken and wrecked so easily

This. Take a picnic and it's a cheap day out (if you have membership).

We would have a trip into town at the start of the holidays and choose a big scrap book. Then we saved everything from whatever we got up to (tickets, leaflets, leaves, bits of grass, shells etc) and at the end of each day would glue them in and I would assist in the writing of a short paragraph (sometimes dictated, sometimes child would write it) saying what we had done. I still have the scrapbooks now - it's lovely to look back on them.

Totally agree with this. I was a very creative kid and me and my brother and friend used to think up some brilliant games and crafts on days that we were home and not ‘being entertained’.

They are actually some of my fondest memories! Plus it made the ‘days out’ even more special because they were treats scattered throughout the holidays rather than an every day thing.

Day out with the kids is a good website for ideas

Invite his friends over and hope they invite him back. Gives you a bit of a break.
can his dad take any time off to have him?
And don't be afraid to utilise screen time!

It can feel very overwhelming OP! Last summer I was on maternity leave with DD2 and had DD1 (age 5) to entertain, I was quite anxious about balancing both their needs and making sure DD1 was suitably entertained. In reality it passed really quickly, we did a lot of walks to the local park where invariably she would meet someone she knew from school and would play for a good while. We had trips to the library where they would have scavenger hunts or other activities which filled in some time. Give yourself a bit of a break, you're doing your best and you might find that your son is quite happy to have some chilled days at home playing, reading and snacking! We also played quite a lot of scatch and swingball!

This year I'm back at work, DD1 is doing holiday camps, DD2 will be at nursery and I'm feeling quite nostalgic for the slow days of last year.

Do you have a garden, OP? Asda have loads of cheap outdoor toys, last summer I bought giant outdoor snakes and ladders, a game where you throw beanbags at a target and a bubble machine. We tend to go out somewhere in the morning (park, library, cinema, swimming) then in the afternoon if the weather is nice I just get all the plastic tat out in the garden for them to play with, or fill up the paddling pool, and leave them to it. If it rains then they can watch a film, do some crafts or play with toys. If they complain that they're bored I get them to do jobs for me! I don't entertain them constantly, they need to spend some time playing independently.