Half term

[stresshousemove]

Dreading half term. Lone parent to two teen/tweens who are quite well behaved but my heart just sinks at so much time in close quarters, I need a break. I didn’t have money for a holiday or a lot of clubs. Has anyone got any advice.

Parks, swimming, beach, forest, picnic, hills, museums.
Sports centres, libraries & museums often put something on for kids at half term at low/no cost.
But some cheap ice lollies from Aldi and stock up the freezer/ice box.

If you can stretch to a one day bus pass for your area - see how far you can go on it. Kills loads of time, takes you to places you may not have thought of.

My local authority has this in their website - maybe yours has something similar, or maybe it might give you some ideas May Half Term.

I'm baffled that anyone dreads spending a week with their kids 😳 I always loved half term, no alarm, lazy mornings in pj's making pancakes and generally lazing about a bit, having their friends over, bike rides or walks in the woodland/parks/beaches, picnics, bus rides, swimming - it's pretty easy to fill up a week! And you don't have to do something every day, you can just do lazy stuff at home - crafts, baking, movie afternoon with popcorn, board games...

Can you share where you are in the country?
My local council are holding a local summer fun day type thing next week, nature scavenger hunt for the kids, hot dogs & ice cream trucks with 1 free voucher per person. Local craft stalls “how to build wind chimes, a birdhouse and bug hotel” type of thing.

You also have libraries, sometimes leisure centres have offers on, do your own nature walk / woodland picnic.

I’m guessing you’re not a lone parent or short of money, @Endofyear.

I dread it so much but by the end I'm dreading the school runs again, every time lol. It goes so fast. Just chill. Watch movies. Get them to help with gardening or something

I find mine far easier to entertain as a teen and tween than when they were younger. They’ve both got a friend coming round for the day on Tuesday, I’ll just provide some Aldi pizza and ice cream and they amuse themselves/each other in the house and garden.
Wednesday our local cinema is doing £5 tickets for certain films so we’ll take our own sweets and drinks and do that. We’ve got national trust membership and are meeting friends at our nearest one on Thursday. Friday they can chill at home, they’ve got plenty to amuse them.

Lucky you. My 5 year old is on half term. I don’t need an alarm because he gets me up at 6 at the lastest if i’m lucky.

But the OP doesn't have a 5 yr old.
Her dc are quite a bit older.

Can you not just go out and leave them to do whatever? Or do you have to wfh?

It’s absolutely fine to do nothing - let them entertain themselves.
Being bored is beneficial for children - it will lead to them finding ways to keep themselves occupied.

Teens don't do clubs as in holiday clubs for half term. Out with mates, revision and school work. Few nice family meals

It's ok if you struggle to see the world from someone else's point of view, that's hard for everyone.

But what you should perhaps spend some time thinking about is when you have a lack of insight into someone's else's world whether you're able to make valuable or helpful contributions to that conversation or whether it would be better to keep quiet.

I'd say your comments here are quite unhelpful and, if anything, will just make the OP feel worse! I'm sure that wasn't your intent! What sort of twat would deliberately make someone struggling feel worse about themselves?! But it probably is the impact it's had, worth thinking about from a personal development standpoint I think.

Yes i know. It was in response to the poster who said she has ‘always’ loved half term and it baffles her why anyone dreads ‘spending time their kids’ so this to me reads she is speaking about all ages.

Most of these responses apply to young children, but the op has tweens and teenagers. I’m not sure if you work op, or even can, but if you could, that might solve both your problems as you’ll be out of the house earning money and they can entertain themselves.

Won't they just entertain themselves at that age.

I’m not sure why @Endofyearis getting such a bashing. I guess the comment about being ‘baffled’? However, if you don’t have to work and you’re off with them, then a lot of the (free) activities she mentioned are what I’d recommend. Lazy mornings watching tv/having screens, pack lunch and aim to do 3/4hours of something each day then more lazy afternoons, board games etc. if they’re teens/tweens then moodiness aside, they’re quite self sufficient, right?

Ask them to plan a day each with a budget of XYZ and whoever comes in cheapest gets the prize or whatever.

You wouldn’t leave a tween to entertain themselves all day, every day in the holidays would you? My tweens will happily entertain themselves for a few hours/a day here and there but they still like to go out and do things with me, and I enjoy it too (even free things!).

Why are you stuck in close quarters?

Arrange park dates with friends. Take a picnic, sandwiches, supermarket basic sausage rolls etc doesn't have to be expensive! Find one with a skate park and or a splash park.

And yes been a lone parent.

Why not? Around here it’s normal for 11-12 year olds to be on their own during the holidays - they go to the park, go swimming, ride bikes, get milkshakes, go to McDonald’s or the beach or each others houses.

It was the same when I was growing up 25 years ago.

Yeah mine would be more than capable of it. They like doing stuff with me though, and I like doing stuff with them. You don’t get many years where you get to take your kids out in the holidays! Obviously I have to work some of the school holidays, but I still like to take some time off to spend with them. We all enjoy it.
Do you take all your annual leave when your kids are at school then?

I don’t have kids but my parents took their annual leave for when we went away or abroad - we did family days out at weekends instead.

Ah well we can’t afford to go away for 6 weeks of the year so I have 4 weeks to take when we’re not on holiday. Generally I prefer to take that when my kids are also off so we can spend some time together. Even though they’ve reached the grand age of 11 and 12 we still like doing things together!

It would be a mix for me. I’d take some days off to do stuff together, but they would want (and I wouldn’t have that much annual leave anyway) to do some stuff with just their friends too, and sleep in etc
the implication in the op was that it was 24-7

mind I have just googled ‘tween’ I thought it was 11/12 but seems it’s 8-12