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?

We did a few over the years and it depended, one year was really surprising, ds knew nobody, a few of his class pulled out last minute and he didn’t speak to the other kids there much but loved the activities and was constantly asking why his school didn’t do them.

One of the camps was like lord of the flies and two of the kids stopped going day three when one was hit in the face with a ball and we had to collect them all. The other two stayed on for the medal on the last day but it sounded like chaos and every day we wondered were we mad sending them in (only reason we did was half their school was there!)

Another one-best camp ever according to all who went!

My DD worked at one during uni holidays.
It was a multi activity one run by a national (?) company. Kids started from 4.
She gave up after a few holidays because she found the number of children, especially the younger ones, who were thoroughly upset by the experience too difficult to deal with. It wasn't that they disliked the activities, although some just hated the whole experience, but just how exhausted the kids were. It wasn't a break for the children - every second if the day scheduled for something. They didn't have time to recover from the school term. They just needed some downtime.

Uhhhh clubs for children in the school holidays? Did you even read the thread before pointlessly posting?

There is a gorgeous holiday club which we use for the odd day, it’s a farm. Children get to help out with the animals, groom ponies, play with bunnies, do crafts.. they are filthy when they get home but soo happy! The sports one locally they tried once and didn’t like it at all, so it is dependent on the club for us

My child (8) genuinely enjoys them - she goes to a sports focused one. They have lots of choice over the activities, and they swim every day too. she’s nearly always friends with someone there or makes friends. It’s also not frequent enough to feel like a chore. She’ll do 3 days at Easter, maybe 10 days in the summer, spread over three weeks. We’re lucky that we can cover a lot of the holidays.

The downside is that it’s really expensive!

It depends totally on the child and the club. Mine would love being at a holiday club if it was relaxed and any of her friends were there or it was doing something she enjoys eg crafts/dance. If she didn't know anyone and it was all forced 'team sports' it'd be her idea of hell.

My girls go to their school holiday club. DH and I both work full time, but try and take some time off each school holiday so they rarely go for the full break. They really love going and do so much more than we could at home, plus they have friends there so it’s a nice environment for them. I’m not sure whether they’d enjoy going as much if they weren’t together though.

Depends on the DC and on the holiday club, my DC are sporty and not shy so they are happy enough wherever we put them but their favourites have been school holiday club (not as fancy activities but all their friends) and football holiday club (great for them but only 10-3 so not great for childcare.

This easter we are doing one week of holiday club and one week at grandma's house.

Once we attended a party in a venue next door to the holiday club school and my children tried to wedge themselves through the bars to get in! They absolutely loved any holiday club including the really cheap one where I later found out the older ones basically looked after the little ones like some giant version of 19 and counting. Obviously easily pleased!

Both my kids have loved the school based ones run by school staff (usually the pe provision and dead expensive).

We have often had to add more days when they knew a day they weren’t going was a day friends were or they had a good activity like water fights.

The cheap ones they both hated and the multisport one that was taken over by older football mad lads. Ran by teenagers who didn’t supervise well.

Both kids are sporty, one very sociable and one a homebody but the standard of care overtakes interest and hobby in our experience with adults facilitating and including kids, arranging games etc.