If your DC go to private school, how do you arrange childcare in the long school holidays?

[MandMand]

If both parents work, its hard enough to cover childcare during the ordinary state school holidays, but how on earth do you cope with the longer holidays at private schools?

If both parents need to work full time all year round in order to pay the school fees, what on earth do you do when your children then have three or four weeks off at Christmas and Easter, and two months off in the summer? Do you end up having to find even more money to pay for holiday camps/activity weeks etc?

I'd be interesting in any estimates of how much to budget for longer holiday childcare on top of school fees, but I suspect this may be a bit like asking how long is a piece of string ....

:ets getoff this shall we? I have met a lot of very normal people who had older parents . Thats enough for me.

Are all those MNers here with SN children old ladies then? Didnt use condoms obviously.

jabed - that's my point. Women weren't even told they could have any control over their bodies and pregnancies. They were expected to be chaste before marriage and then submit to their husband's requests after marriage and accept any consequences.

Good grief Jabed, are you suggesting their is a correlation between younger mothers & increased numbers of special needs children?
My autistic son (special needs) goes to a school that specialises in teaching boys with special needs - but it doesn't sound as though you work there - because if you did you'd realise that there are quite alot of "mature" parents of special needs children too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't quite believe I'm typing this.

Jabed - have had a look at some of your other posts on mn -they alays seem to end in a bun fight because you are unable to understand that not everybody makes the same "choices" as you.

Not everybody turns down marriage proposals in their twenties so that they can become financially secure. Not everyone is a teacher who runs away with one of their students. Not everyone congratulates themselves on having kids late enough to enable them to enjoy their inheritance.

Most people are pedalling fast to keep going. Outgoings of £2100 per month are pretty standard. Most people have kids before they turn 40.

Your repeated assertions that you know people int heir 50's who have had "normal" children while you know lots of younger mothers who have not had "normal" children are quite frankly offensive.

Jabed - just don't be so judgmental of others when your own choices have carried risks which you don't want to have to face up to. You took risks, they were just different ones from those that other people take. It really is patronising to look at other people, having got away with your choices, and tell them that they have got their life assessment all wrong. How would you like it if your child did have aspergers and someone suggested it was because you foolishly left it so late to have children?

Life is not risk free. You remove one risk and you expose yourself to another. Nobody ever wants things to go wrong, but things do. Unexpectedly, often, or because the right opportunities don't come up at the right times. You cannot plan your life perfectly from cradle to grave.

OP back again - this has taken off a bit from where it started, but thanks to everyone who has taken the trouble to explain how they manage to make it work. Lots of food for thought.

Mine are at state primary with still a few years to go until we need to make decisions about secondary, so its also interesting to hear about the lack of holiday clubs for older children. At what age do people stop arranging holiday childcare for secondary age children and leave them to their own devices?

PBB - as I understand it a lot more women delay pregnancy these days anyway so I would expect to see far more mature parents in all groups.

No I do not equate SN with age ( but I beleive there is correlation at both ends of the spectrum statistically). Whilst you see lots of mature parents with SN children I see many mature parents with normal ones in my independent school ( no issue there - older parents can afford it I guess) . So we both see the results of an older breeding population. Nothing odd about that.

The strangeness comes from those who seem to think that the population must skew . If that were the case then you should see all the older parents in SN and I should see none at all in my school. But hey, some people cant help but take side shots to suppost their own positions.

If all parents had children in their 50s and not before, the population would be affected. You just can't help taking side shots to support your own position (ie that of a father of advanced years who oh so sensibly delayed marriage until he was financially secure, in the confident belief that he would one day be financially secure and find a woman desperate to marry him).

strange that we seem to think the population must skew? what are you on about? statistically, older mothers have higher risks of having children with chromosonal abnormalities. This doesn't mean they all will - just that they are mor likely to - assume as a maths teacher you can get your head around that?

Most people are pedalling fast to keep going. Outgoings of £2100 per month are pretty standard

well, in the national scheme of things on average wages ( let alone minimum wages which are pretty modal) most people do not earn £2100 a month to have that as outgoings. Even when they have two incomes. Sorry, who is out of touch now?

jabed - does your school actually have provision to teach special needs children? Most private schools don't, unless they have chosen to specialise & be a special needs school. So, unless your school has chosen to teach SN kids, then you won't get to see them at your school, because it is not representative of the community in which it is based.

MandMand - it would be nice to get back to your OP... I also wonder at what age other people start leaving their children to their own devices in the holidays! And the weird thing is, I don't even remember what my own parents did about it.

Your repeated assertions that you know people int heir 50's who have had "normal" children while you know lots of younger mothers who have not had "normal" children are quite frankly offensive

Have you considered your own offensiveness?

who is out of touch? erm - the person with 2 houses, no mortgage who works part time and whose wife "keeps a good table"

We're not really talking about the national average here are we? We're talking about people who have mortgages and who have to pay school fees and/or childcare.

who am I being offensive to exactly? You?

OP - I reckon by the time they hit 11, they can be allowed some free time? Perhaps a mix of holiday clubs/PGL/seeing friends and being trusted to look after themselves? Pretty sure I was allowed to by that age - but then I was a sensible girl - not entirely sure ds will be entirely dependable??!

ie that of a father of advanced years who oh so sensibly delayed marriage until he was financially secure, in the confident belief that he would one day be financially secure and find a woman desperate to marry him

I never thought that and I have not said I did. All I thought about was keeping a job and putting a roof over my head. That was life. I have said here I was a lucky guy to get my DW (and my DS)

No, I didnt have proposals coming through the door. I am a bloke who grew up in blokey times. Even in the 1980's ladies didnt do much proposing generally.

Leaving DS1 on his own or wandering the street even at age 11 would not be a good option

ROFL at the idea of anyone proposing to jabed......

I have DC of 13 and 10. I would leave the 13 year old now, he is v sensible. but I wouldn't leave them together in case the squabbling started.

They do football clubs in the holidays which tend to be 9.30-3pm.

I don't work at the moment but i want to get a job after Christmas so all this will become very important. I could do with term time 10-2 hours.

Well, don't you know, we could all have two houses and no mortgage if we lived with mum and dad for years so as not to have to waste money on rent (which is more expensive than a most mortgages....), saved loads of money up for a deposit and then bought a shell of a house with no plumbing or electricity, did nothing to modernise it because we didn't want to spend any money, and then sold it on when the housing market had hugely increased its value without any work or further outlay required from us .

Mine are at state primary with still a few years to go until we need to make decisions about secondary, so its also interesting to hear about the lack of holiday clubs for older children. At what age do people stop arranging holiday childcare for secondary age children and leave them to their own devices?

Around where I live 13 generally. However, I wouldnt take that as gospel. I think the church holiday clubs I mentioned will take care of kids up to 16 in their youth section. My school takes kids to 16 in the holiday clubs.

DD has 3 weeks extra holiday and my OH and I both work full-time. We manage like this: I take the odd day off during that time, or she can come to work with me if nobody else is there, or she goes to work with OH. Her school does offer a holiday club but it's quite expensive and we don't use it.

And private school days are typically longer than state school so it works out that the time in school is about the same taken over the whole year.