Working parents - what do your older primary kids do in summer hols?

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We both work full time, most of it from home so could technically have our only child age 8 at home with us. But we would prefer she was keeping busy at holiday clubs. The trouble is she is beginning to dislike the sports club she has always gone to as she gets older due to not really having any friends there.

She has 2 hobbies which run holiday clubs for 1/2 week periods, one of which she will go to for a week and I’m hoping she will enjoy that more.

I’m beginning to feel guilty about it and wondering about taking unpaid leave in future.. What is everyone else doing? Do other parents just keep kids at home if the option is there? Are there other clubs I should be looking for?

Ask her friends’ parents what their kids are doing for clubs? At 8 onwards it’s all about “will my friends be there” IME.

We limit WFH-childcare days to one day a week during the summer holidays. This day consists of two many screen and two hours in a soft play where one of us can work. We sandwich it between very high activity days so they are pretty tired and need an ‘off’ day.

The other days are a mix of our nanny, clubs, grandparent care and one of us taking annual leave.

My 9YO goes to camp. Ask on the class whatsapp what others are doing if she’d prefer to be with friends. That said mine has to suck up being in the camp that has longer days on our office days because we can’t swing for her to be where her friends are (who mostly have a SAHP or nanny) when those camps have short days. It is what it is! I’d take unpaid leave to have a family holiday but not doing it just so she can sit around the house 🤣

We can't afford the holiday clubs, there are days where they are stuck at home with DH working and they have to entertain themselves. Im lucky enough to finish relatively early though, I'm not sure how well they would last if it was longer. One is very good at playing / reading / drawing by herself and the other has way too much screen time. Tbh I think they prefer being at home anyway even if it can get a bit boring. I'm just thankful they're old enough not to need constant supervision anymore!

My DD is 12 now so she can easily be at home whilst we work and be no bother. At the end of primary, she’d go and spend a week with PIL who she doesn’t see as much, hang out at my parents who live near us, spend time with aunts/uncles/family friends. Last year, I think she was home for about a week because she was busy travelling around and seeing people. She loved it!

We’ve been lucky in that we haven’t needed to use holiday camps other than because our kids want to go. I would choose ones their friends are at though because that helps them enjoy it more.

A variety of holiday camps, so not the same one every day. So a sportscamp on tuesday and Friday, a more stem focussed camp on monday and Thursday, and an art focused one on wednesday (for example, it varies a bit).
I don’t work from home with a primary aged child (i do with my 13 year old).

Not gonna lie, it's tough. We live abroad, it's nine weeks vacation here.

We've done:

1 week scout camp for ds/1 week daycamp for DD

3 weeks in the UK as a 'holiday'

DH has taken them camping for a week

2 weeks at daycamp for both kids

I have 1 week off with them (pool, days out, trampoline centre etc)

It's hard work, I had to insist that they go to daycamp. But this will end next year for DS as he'll be too old. But he can start working at 14 so only next year to figure out 😅

Good point, I think that’s the point I’ve missed that it is more about friends than the activity at this age.

I do need to find out a bit more about what her class mates do. Her closest school friend has two teacher parents so doesn’t go to clubs, but I will find out about the others.

Thanks for sharing. This is what we’ve always done too, just allowed for one day at home with us as a sort of recovery day after being at clubs.

That sounds like a nice mix of things so it isn’t just the same old club every day.

I’m not working at the moment, but typically, we’d do 2-3 days of holiday club and 1-2 days each with Dh or I taking off or vaguely keeping an eye on them. Dh is self employed, so can do an admin day or some work and drag them along, as needed. So I would be something like I’d be off on Monday, holiday club Tuesday/Wednesday and then Dh would have them Thursday/Friday. They do just sit at home watching tv and eating snacks some days, but this is life.

I agree the thought of taking unpaid leave to just laze around the house feels like a waste. Does yours moan about going to the camp or is she ok with it?

Yes that’s true, mine doesn’t need the supervision either so it can work with us wfh and her being there. I just worry about boredom or her getting out of the habit of going anywhere then not wanting to go to school in Sept.

Begrudgingly accepts 🤣 Minimal moaning initially but quickly realises it isn’t going to change anything and does always enjoy it once there. She does go with a younger sibling less perhaps less daunting if she doesn’t know anyone but there’s a 3.5 year age gap so they tend to be split for activities. And they still gets 2 days a week to laze around whilst we WFH so actually quite a nice balance IMO.

I was wondering about what older kids do once they’re in high school, I assume by then holiday clubs are over?
Thats so good that she has so many people to visit who are nearby! We don’t really have any family in the area which doesn’t help. Although I realise we’re lucky being able to work from home which means the holiday clubs are optional.

I hadn’t realised there were any non-sport holiday clubs. Having said that she is going to a piano one for a week but I hadn’t thought about art or stem clubs..what kind of setting hosts those clubs?

Lots of schools rent out their facilities over the holiday to activity clubs, just google school holiday clubs + your area and you’ll be able to see what’s available locally.

STEM and art clubs around ours tend to be at local private schools (not run by the school - external providers using the facilities, and attended by kids from all kinds of schools). Theatre/dance schools tend to have camps as well, have a look at their websites, so do gymnastic clubs.

We are very lucky. I found trying to find holiday entertainment really challenging last year. DD2 was a month away from being 5 so she wasn’t old enough yet for virtually all summer camps even though she was more than capable. As they get older, it gets easier because the options open up, people are more willing to babysit because they’re easier to manage and they don’t need endless supervision. My DD1 could probably be at home alone for a day or two if absolutely necessary if DH and I both needed to go into work and no one else was able to have her.

My dd is a bit younger age 6, but she goes to a mix of school holiday clubs on days her friends are going, and her activity holiday clubs which are shorter days but she can go on our WFH days. She doesn’t like the multi sport ones either so I don’t put her in those. We’re also going on holiday for a week and I’ve got some other days off so she can have play dates.

A combination of clubs, grandparents and on the 2 days a week that I wfh, just being lazy around the house. I think some laziness and boredom is quite necessary at this age.

My 11 year old (yr6 leaver) still goes to camp. Mix of arts and crafts/games/sport and gymnastics/Street dance etc.
I do have a very flexible employer so will work from home, then drop her off, then go to the office, then leave early to pick her up and wfh but it kinda works.
We do seem to have a lot around our area. The local theatre does a camp which always looks amazing but which I have failed to get either of mine to go to in tje past 10 years

we really leaned into holiday clubs at this age because dd has ASD. Finding the right ones meant a high likelihood of a large cohort of ND instead of the low ratio at school. Some weeks I even worked from a hotel just so she could attend a holiday club that wasn’t local.

Curating her summer was expensive, but we considered it an expense that was amortized over the year.

My eldest is 9 and goes to camps when we work, mainly chosen for the skill set rather than which friends are going there. I don't consider it to be optional even when we are wfh, I consider the school holidays to be a good opportunity to build on extracurricular skills and not just a time to laze around on screens.

Our school is quite cliquey and parents are deliberately coy about which camps their dcs go to (asking to be messaged about it outside the group, and discussing them in carefully hushed tones in the playground). So I've never been able to coordinate camps with her friends. But she has more interest in specific skills anyway, and she is doing 3 camps related to her hobbies this year, plus 2 more that are related to skills she wants to learn although she didn't/doesn't have any experience. And one academic camp as we are heading for 11+. Then we have 2 weeks family holiday.

Our school is quite cliquey and parents are deliberately coy about which camps their dcs go to (asking to be messaged about it outside the group, and discussing them in carefully hushed tones in the playground). So I've never been able to coordinate camps with her friends

Why can’t you message her friends’ parents directly about clubs rather than via the class whatsapp? They would be much more likely to give details for a friend of their child I imagine.

My dh generally has 1 day off a week as he works a wkend day and i don't work Wednesdays. Ds went to holiday club and my mums. He went to holidays clubs until he started year 7. Me or dh can't work from home with our jobs.