To think children generally enjoy holiday clubs?

[letsgoonabughunt]

Do children enjoy holiday clubs?

I keep seeing them promoted on social media and they sound like they offer amazing activities. But I’m unsure if it’s just the blurb if you like - would most kids prefer to be home with a parent?

Surely most kids have to go to them for at least some of the holidays? We only get a certain amount of annual leave and the school holidays are much more even if we never had time off together. I just assumed my kids would go to them once they are school aged. I hope they don’t hate them 🙈

Mine hate them and would always rather be at home. One does have additional needs and there is no real suitable clubs at all. The ones we gave a go he was very vunerable to being bullied. It was a sport hall type one with older boys there all put together and no one really overseeing them. Thankfully his older brother is really good at looking after him and it was only a a very short 10 till 1 anyway. Not much use for working. It's a pretty poor show of holiday clubs where I am. Not that I can use them anyway.

Mine have never wanted to go but due to work they've had to. One of my DC is off for 18 weeks per year, we only get 5/6 weeks off each. It's a nightmare to juggle it all with no family help tbh.

I am in my 30s and went to a holiday club when I was at primary school and I still have fond memories now. It was far better than days at home being bored.

Mine much preferred being at home. Clubs are more for parental convenience than the enjoyment of children.

Mine kind of enjoys it once she’s there but she’d absolutely rather be at home and is always adamant she doesn’t want to go. Then comes out quite happy and full of stories about what they got up to. There was a dance one she seemed to like better than most but that only ran for a few days over last summer and hasn’t been on since.

We’re doing two days in week 1 and two days in week 2 of these holidays, which isn’t too bad. She’s had a real run of illness lately and I do feel awful because I feel like she needs a proper rest but we don’t have enough leave to cover it all. Obviously there’s the bank holidays this time which helps. My sister is very very kindly going to do a day, she has her grandkids that day too (big age difference so her kids are closer to my age) and there’s still a day I need to figure out yet!

My son went to one, he didn't enjoy it even though there was loads of activities. He preferred to be at home I think most kids prefer to be at home but do tolerate clubs. If they are going with friends it's probably different.

In the olden days when I was at school we were all sent to sport schemes at the local secondary as they were free. We went for the whole 6 weeks. I don't think my mum liked spending time with us, she was a teacher and had the whole 6 weeks off but still sent us! I'd much rather have been at home. It was better than us being on the streets though.

Mine enjoyed parts of the summer clubs like sailing week, football week or youth club week but not as much as the brochure!
They did not much like the nursery ran “holiday club” but they didn’t hate it.

Dd always has a great time while she was there and doesn’t want to finish for the day, but often reluctant to actually go in the morning. I am always really jealous when she goes, it’s an amazing holiday club at the outdoor pursuits centre so she spends the day doing archery, air rifle, climbing, crate stacking/raft building, bell boating, kayak, high wires, bushcraft…. I pick her up and she tells me they’ve kayaked down the river to a big park, had a picnic, picked blackberries along the riverbank then toasted cheese sandwiches over a camp fire and made their own hot berry sauce to have with the apples they picked at camp followed by toasted marshmallows.

I will have spent the day staring at a spreadsheet and having conversations with people whose sole purpose in life seems to be to annoy me 😂

Mine aren’t keen. But I have to use them for childcare reasons. I can’t wfh with both of them because they’d bicker and argue all day. I try and use them only for a couple of days at a time.

DD is nearly 6 and enjoys them. She usually goes with a few kids from school. I’m off for 3 days next week and she’s insisted on going to the local forest-school type club which runs 10-2pm. We have loads running locally of all different types. Very, very few families in DD’s year have a SAHP or term time only jobs so the holiday clubs fill up quickly

But that doesn't really narrow it down 😂
"Most" kids are different.

I hated clubs. My brother loved them.
My eldest would hate them, youngest would love. So 50/50...

Mine love them, but it takes time to find a club that suits them. Mine go to seperate clubs which is a faff but I know they enjoy them so feel confident they will go and stay when I need to work. Youngest goes to one aimed at EYFS and KS1 DC with her old nursery friends and a couple of school friends, eldest goes to a football camp.

Some posters could start an argument in an empty room 😂🙄

My child does like holiday club yes

She might moan about going sometimes but she does like it.

She's 12 so at the upper end now. But I think it's much healthier for her being there than being at home bored out of her mind and lonely and at a loose end so god knows what she'd get up to if I left her for all those hours

I think most children would prefer to not go. My dh had to go as his mother worked and he hated it.

This. I mean, ‘at home with a parent’ is only an option when a parent can take AL, so it’s a matter of what form of childcare you choose.

@letsgoonabughunt I would say more that it 'depends on the club' and the people that run it. I was a very sociable, outgoing, active, enthusiastic child but attended some dreadful clubs, run by dreadful people with no regards to safety etc. and I hated them so much. It wouldn't have taken much to keep me happy and entertained, but the people running it were cold, uncaring, and uninterested.

But what were you wanting people to say?
Some children will enjoy them, some won't.
That's just life 🤷

Depends on the club. My dd did local ones, some of which she loved and some of which she hated. The ones run in the local schools were normally fine, as her friends also went (they were also cheap) And then she did "away" ones as my Belgian employer offered a massive discount. These she generally loved, so much so she did the training course to become an animator at 16 and camp chief at 20.

Well, luckily most people managed, didn’t they?

But to answer in more detail, I suppose I imagined that most people would say a little about their child, their experiences with holiday clubs, what sort of holiday clubs their child enjoys, what they didn’t, whether they preferred being at home or not? I know I sound snappy here; I’m having a rough night, but do you struggle with small talk generally?

Apologies.
I didn't mean to sound rude.
It just not a question that I think you'd get a good answer from though because for every child that enjoys a holiday club there will be one that hates it.
Are you worried about having to send your child to one?

Best advice I have for anyone is to send them with a friend or to get them into an activity, like ballet, football, whatever, and hope that their club runs a holiday club.