What age can you WFH with kids in the school holidays

Think it very much depends on the type of work you do and how your child behaves

this is so true. Age is bit irrelevant I think it’s more their personality and what they are happy doing. Equally your job - I have very few online calls, and can easily do bits and pieces without much brain power.

My youngest has just become a teenager. It would be possible to WFH this year as they don’t rouse until the afternoon. Before now it would have been massively challenging unless frequent interruptions would be to,erased.

My 13 year old (just finished year 8) still does the odd day at a holiday camp (he will be too old next year, sob).

It is all very well saying “meet friends” and sometimes he does, but sometimes the friends are on holidays and so he is home on ps5/YouTube etc

we absolutely can and do WFH with him here and he won’t interrupt (same as last summer, though he did a few more days at the camp last year and a week or two of a different camp, one week was cooking that he enjoyed)

but that doesn’t mean he independently finds things to do - he needs booting out of the house on his bike etc

I hate it, TBH. I feel bad at parenting and work in the summer hols

@CharlotteBog - no, that’s what I’m saying. I do work with Ds around. It’s fine doing with Ds with me. But it’s more hands on and I’m not stuck infront of a computer with him all day. When he’s at nursery term time I try and get 90% done whilst he’s in nursery, but he’s on 10 week summer holiday atm, so he’s had some days when I have had work that’s had to work with him.

I will do it with the 13yo and the 15yo, but not the 10yo. It's just too much to be honest, and I'm a bad parent and a poor employee.

Utterly child dependent. DS1 (10) would be a real struggle and would just end up watching TV and bored. DS2 (7) is fully self entertaining and often has to be extracted from his complicated ‘board games with his animals’ hours after starting so would, in principle, be fine. We don’t because DH is a teacher…

OK. So you can work with a 3 year old around. I think that's unusual.

With my 11 year old fine though it involves a lot of screens and he gets bored after a day or two. I gave him the choice this summer and he chose to go to holiday club. No idea what to do next holiday when he'll be too old for holiday club.
His 7 year old sister, no chance, but she does have ASD.

Still send my 14 and 12 year old to camp-tennis, Pgl. If they are not at camp, they sit on their phones all day. They can get themselves to and from camp and go to the shops after.

I would rather pay for a camp than spend the holiday on their phones. They still get plenty of downtime outside of these activities.

I have always had them at home since lockdown and wfh started. They were all under 7.
It was a relief to me as covering holidays was very stressful and kids were too scared to do holiday club (tried them and was a disaster).

yes they got bored, but eventually entertained themselves in the garden or with games console. It has been a wholly utter relief WFH, yes I get the occasional “I’m hungry / bored” but on the whole they’re happy to be at home.
probably as they have got older I’ve had more “wanting to go out / friends have been here and there”, nothing is ever easy.

Mine are 11 and 14.
11 year old is fine, gets up, makes breakfast, meets friends, will pop out to get bits of shopping for me and even Briggs me cups of tea.

The 14 year old will lie in bed gaming all day without a lot of badgering, and only leaves the house if I take him.

My youngest is 10 (I have 3 DC) and I can easily work with them at home although my work is a little quieter during the holidays. I did book him in into some clubs to make sure he wasn't sat in front of a screen all day.

I am tempted in a couple of years when mine will be 8 and 6 to try the very local football camp which is 10-2 and then have them at home in the afternoon while we WFH. I think the 4 hours of football should mean they are knackered enough that a movie afternoon/quiet play should be doable.

No idea, it was a poor decision on the part of the manager really. This person is not known for her hard working nature anyway and she relaxed off even more when she was home for the week. She’s run out of annual leave apparently, obviously suddenly realising that she’d need to cover her child’s school holidays was a surprise to her 😒

DD would have been fine from 8 onwards she entertains herself in multiple ways. DS at 12 only just and then he plays a lot of video games but they also keep each other company. Still split the leave between myself and DH for some of the weeks so they get one parent to spend time with then we take a week off all together. Don't think it matters what you do the guilt is strong either way!

DD was fine when I was WFH during covid and only interrupted me to bring me tea and she was 9. But she has ASD and likes to be alone and spent a lot of time skyping her friends.

She's 13 now, I made sure I took one day of annual leave off a week over the summer and work 7-3 most days, by the time she's up and dressed I've already done several hours otherwise she's been old enough to make her own plans, I expect her to go out at least once a day if not we go out for a walk when I've finished. I made sure to top up her art supply's etc. She knows if my door is shut I'm on a call and not to disturb me but otherwise I view disruptions from her the same as disruptions from colleague as if I was in the office.

I can do the very odd part day with my 7, 9 and 11 year old while 4 year old is at nursery. However I wouldn't want to do 2 or 3 days on the trot or anything like that - they'd get bored and demanding. We live in the suburbs of a big city so the 11 year old can go out independently with friends from school, to the Co-op etc. I'm hoping once the youngest is 9 or 10 it'll be a bit easier, but I have a very flexible job and am only required face to face in an online meeting once a week.

DH works from home while I look after all 4 DC and we still have to be mindful - they like to o looking for him to show him scratched knees, bugs and astonishing poos!

Mine are 15 and 13. Fine behaviour wise but I just feel sorry for them if they’re stuck at home all day (we’re very rural). My mum has been a godsend taking them out to NT places for long walks etc and my sisters and I did children swaps all summer- so I had DN to stay, then they went to DSis1, then I had the other 2 DN and then DSis2 took my 2 away for a few days.
Its entirely possible- at that age they’re old enough to understand I’m on a call or have deadlines to meet- I’m just conscious of trying to give them a nice summer.

Mine are 12 and 9 now but I've done it for a while. I've WFH with the odd day with the kids home since youngest was 7 I think (ignoring Covid which was obviously different). I never do it for whole weeks, but odd days when I don't feel guilty if they're on tech all day or don't have lots of interaction, we make sure we do things on the days we're off.

It probably depends on the kid, but mine (despite one with ADHD) are pretty self sufficient, able to entertain themselves, don't pester me, know when the door is shut I'm in a meeting and not to come in, are able to play in the park outside our house with friends (which makes a huge difference).

I find it really embarrassing when colleagues have kids interrupt them in meetings, it's not acceptable (unless it's an adhoc sickness day) and those kids need childcare, however old they are.

It depends on the job but for me I’d say from secondary school age so 11+

Mine have been fine occupying themselves since youngest was 8.

Even when you work full time all summer?
I guess if you have more than one child and they get on well it can work well.

I'm on my own with my son (adult son has left home) so he has no in house company unless it's planned. We live in a village and many of his friends are in the town and some in other villages. It's hard to be spontaneous - not just from our end, but for some of his mates who are also dependent on either parents or crappy public transport.

Mine are 12 and 14 and we have an agreement that they go out for 2 hours activity in the morning (swimming/bike ride/park) then do something quietly in their rooms like read, draw, listen to music on headphones or play a board game together until we have lunch together. They can game/iPad/tv for the afternoon which works well for us and they don't really disturb me as they're used to the routine now (3rd year doing this).

I only have them for 50% of the holidays and I've taken a week off this week to take them away so essentially it's only 2 weeks, but their dad WFH too and has done pretty much the same with them (although I suspect they have a LOT more screen time with him and his work is a lot more flexible in terms of interruptions).