AIBU to set a summer schedule for my kids this summer holidays?

[livingthroughchaossince2010]

I have 5 children, the oldest is 16, the youngest is 5. With the summer holidays coming up I realised that I don't have to have summer be as stressful as possible! We are going abroad for 2 weeks but we are home for the other 4 weeks. And every year I lose my mind during the summer holidays. All 5 kids being home for 6 weeks is a recipe for absolute disaster! So I am trying to set a schedule this year, hoping for the best. The schedule is:

Everyday: Everyone is awake by 9am, chores whilst breakfast is being made, clean up after breakfast, 30 minutes of school work to avoid the school slide over the summer, lunch, every evening one of the kids helps cook dinner, dinner, give the house a quick tidy, then for the younger kids it's bath then reading then bed at 9:30pm
Monday: Creative Monday - Build something, do some arts and crafts, be creative
Tuesday: Trip Tuesday - Go on a trip to the zoo, aquarium, a day trip, beach day
Wednesday: Water Wednesday - Go to the swimming pool, a splash park, see if there is any water parks, maybe turn the garden into a mini water park - if its raining then we change the plans of course
Thursday: Thinking Thursday - Library every week then we go to a museum, historical location or we go to an event that is encouraging learning
Friday: Friday fun day - Bowling, Mini golf, cinema, theatre and then we have a family movie night at home that evening
Saturday: Relax - We have no plans!
Sunday: Sunday Reset day - clean the house to have a nice clean house for the week ahead, my DH and I will plan for the week ahead and meal plan, family takeaway night

The teenagers obviously don't have to follow the day to day schedule. They have to be up by 9am, do chores and do their school work but they don't have to come with us to every location we go to during the week. This schedule is more for the younger kids benefit!

I told another mum my plans earlier this morning, she thought I was bloody mental for trying to schedule the summer holidays! Apparently the summer holidays are for relaxing and no plans but every year I go insane and this feels like an efficient way to solve the yearly summer holidays stress! My kids thrive when they have a routine.

Am I unreasonable for setting a summer schedule this summer?

I think it’s a very sensible way to manage five kids and Summer holidays.

This. Let them chill out

So what!

I think you have some good ideas, everyone is different, ai tend to plan the summer holidays out too x

School work? Why?!

They’re on holiday from school though ?

Won’t your 16 year old be looking for a Saturday job ?

You have the bones of a good idea here. However, you you be storing up a whole heap of trouble if you try an impose a schedule especially one which already suits some but not other DC. Thats a recipie for a whole lot of trouble right there.

How about starting with a family meeting, to which everyone brings three ideas of what the want to get and to give to the household this summef.

From there, you could work out a loose schedule to which you have general buy in. Several posters have already described how they do it. Hope it goes well and you identify the key non negotiables so that it works for everyone. Good luck.

At 16 my teens were looking for paid work in the summer holidays and doing shifts for a catering business owned by a friend’s dad and going away camping on their own with friends.

if at 16 your eldest is tied into doing chores every day and going round and about with your family when is he going to start getting more independence?

mine were off to uni at 18 and by 16 were keen to earn their own money.

my son virtually moved into his girlfriends house one summer because they decided they wanted to put a band together and they rehearsed in her garage (I was always grateful it wasn’t our house!)

I voted YANBU.

Because think it’s great to have a plan.

YABU if you think you and the kids will have the energy and inclination to stick to it though 😂

I get the feeling wanted bit as work in education so get the 6 weeks off. When ds was younger I hated feeling like the time had passed is by. But rather than planning to nth degree I made sure we got out the house everyday (park/woods/beach ) and did at least 2 “trips” a week (cinema/ theme park/ farm etc).

it was only trip days we had to be up and out. Other days we’d be up and out before lunch or laze around and go out after.

That worked as a balance for us.

This always surprises me on here when the older teens are treated like they've just started secondary. At 16 I was out at my best friend's Friday night, worked Saturday, boyfriend's Saturday night and home Sunday to do homework. I just did more of the working and seeing friend and boyfriend in the holidays - my mum and dad paid for my weekly bus pass to get around and they were at work themselves.

I really don't think mandating that kids have to be in education or training til 18 has done them any favours.

OP, I get 6 weeks off every summer as I am a teacher and the thought of someone setting me a schedule to prevent 'summer slide' makes me want to cry. I also think if I was one of your teenagers I would be finding a job to avoid 'Creative Monday' alone. The whole point of a holiday is to escape the get ups, following a schedule and general control imposed by another entity.

I don't have as many children as you and the volume might have driven you to this strategy but I will be super sad when the youngest is no longer on an academic timetable and I slide through summer without her company, when she hasn't had a better offer.

We jointly delight in lounging in pyjamas until whenever we like in the holidays and just properly relax. I have stopped making lunch though- everyone self forages as nobody wants it at the same time due to erratic waking up. Occasionally I suggest we should really try to be dressed when DH returns from work at lunch time but we don't always succeed.

Lean into the summer slide, I say. Do what you want, when you want, accept the car, shower and most places in between will be lightly dusted in sand and that you'll be exiting the sea as the sun sets on a fairly regular basis and eating random meals at unusual times plus generally throwing caution to the wind before September comes and it all starts once more. Sorry OP.

I saw this exact weekly schedule on a YouTube shorts. I thought it wasn’t a bad idea. I used to HATE the summer holidays as a kid because it was exactly too much unstructured time. Good luck!

I can see why some people are arguing against making the teens get up, but you know them best. Some teens need a bit of purpose and encouragement to stick to a schedule.

I worked as a nanny for years and the structure I used over summer was 4 days would be a local morning trip to park, pool, library, shopping centre the home for lunch followed by quiet time and then either a bike ride or swim at the house pool before dinner.
One day we would do a whole day trip to zoo, water park, museum, adventure playground, soft play etc. lunch at the destination. Get home around 4pm make dinner. The odd day the children would be caught up in something at home and we’d stay as long as that continued happily, sometimes the whole day.

That's seriously intense. What about some significant downtime at home during which the children can enjoy just being children? It's the only time in their lives they will have such freedom and lack of responsibility - let them enjoy it.

As for school work each day, it does them good to have a break. Their peers won't be doing schoolwork each day, so they won't be behind.

I know a mum who runs a ‘no demands on holidays’ lifestyle but has very high expectations of being on it during term time, and her kids are thriving tbh. One is ND so is exhausted come holidays, like most secondary age ND children are, so she lays absolutely no demands at his door at all. He doesn’t even have to come to dinner table if he doesn’t want to. Irony is, he often does, with more enthusiasm than many of the teenagers who are forced to.

Not being unreasonable but I do think that 9am wake up everyday in the holidays is no fun

How do you afford all of that and have time for all those days out? Do you work?

I used to have to get up at 6.30 for school every day, and I did it without complaining in term time because I didn't want to miss the bus and be late. But I was KNACKERED by the holidays and would easily lie in till 11-12 or later each day if I didn't have to be somewhere.

I am now a Cambridge graduate and earn (just) the magical MN 6 figures, so I don't think some lazy summers as a teen have damaged my prospects too much. My preferred wake up time is still late-ish, but jobs and kids are less forgiving of that!

This is far to regimented, and you say everyone has chores so it’s unfair if there’s aren’t done, it’s also unfair to force them up to appease everyone else.
try been a bit more relaxed and maybe everyone can enjoy the holidays rather than feeling like they are at boot camp

School work each day sounds crap to me.

I mean i thi k it's mad but at least change Monday to Making Monday to maintain rhe alliteration

Absolutely bonkers. There's the bones of a good idea here but 30 minutes of schoolwork a day? Doing what exactly? Let kids be kids. The school year is long. Let them decompress and relax. For the younger ones get them a pile of books from the library and they will work through them themselves or you can read with them.

This comment is why I love mn - this is a key point that's been overlooked!

What’s wrong with that? I can’t bloomin wait until my current 6am kid wakes up later lol! 😂 Would they really sleep until 3pm? Does anyone even do that unless they’ve been up all night writing an essay or partying? Apart from that the teens having to get up at 9am the schedule sounds great!

That's the nicest thing that has ever been said to me