Your children might be young, @Whattod - but they're not daft, surely? I'm pretty sure that they'll have friends whose fathers might not live with them, but who prioritise them and ensure that their time together is fun and enjoyable. Or they'll know children who don't see their fathers at all - but who are perfectly okay with that fact. Consequently, your children will, albeit from the perspective of adolescents, have worked out how little they actually matter to their father... and they are all but begging to have someone (you) step in and advocate for them. Of course they don't really understand the long-term effects upon them of cutting him out of their lives - but they understand that they don't matter to him as much as material items and his new family do.
Think how much that must be hurting them. Think how damaging that must be to already fragile and burgeoning minds/self-esteem. They know that their father has replaced their mother with his girlfriend, and them with her son and daughter. They're hurt, I daresay, more than they are bored - and the longer this goes on for, the more that you "encourage" them to put up with being treated as though they're immaterial nuisances by their own father, the more resentful, hurt, and damaged they will become.
My youngest (DS:18) has a similar poor excuse for a father, so I can relate to what you're saying about not wanting them to cut their own noses off... but I said, from the moment he was born, that my son was the one with the right to have a relationship with his father, and that if he ever said to me that he didn't want to spend time with him/his extended family - that I would heed what he was saying, and support him. His father left when he was 4, and the once brilliant father to my two children... turned into a virtual stranger to us all. My daughter hasn't spoken to him for 14 years now (her choice), whilst my son - who desperately wanted a relationship with his father, because they'd always been close, always had their "Boy Days" together... tried his best to stick it out. The one-on-one attention stopped the day my ex walked out. He had a girlfriend and a newborn to focus on, our son together would just have to fit in with the baby and stepmother's needs/plans...!
Except for periods of time, he refused to. The hurt and the anger that he felt at the situation coalesced into a desire not to see his father and his new family - and I listened to what he was saying, explained to him in age appropriate ways what that would mean, reminded him that although his Dad loves him, he doesn't have to jump through hoops just to please him, that I would say "not today; maybe next time!". I think the longest period of time my son refused to see his father was 6 months. Yes, I daresay that it hurt my ex - but he's a grown man, who made the choice not to prioritise our son, who didn't ask to be made to feel like shite by one of the two people who ought to be prepared to move heaven and earth to support him in growing into a decent adult, himself. Besides, as the resident parent, I bore the brunt of the anger and the pain my ex caused both of my children to feel - the rage that consumed them when he bleated on about how unfair it was to him, because his young children were whining about where their older brother was... Well, frankly, that wasn't our responsibility or, indeed, our problem (I seem to recall either using or thinking "suck it up, buttercup!" an awful lot round about the time my son was 13-ish...), and I would be damned if he tried to force the responsibility of his hurt feelings onto our children's shoulders quite frankly!
My son turned 18 last year, and a few weeks ago told me that his father "is sad that [they] don't have a close relationship - but I told him that's the consequences he gets to deal with, for all the bad choices he's made over the years about [son and his older sister]!". For the last couple of years, my son's had a tenuous sort of relationship with his father - he'll see him here and there, get pissed off about something or other (a month or two back, he was furious about the fact that his younger sister's "very unhappy at school" and their father/her mother aren't listening to what she's trying to tell them, for example, whilst this week it's the ludicrous decision to be angry that his father had the audacity to pretend to be John Travolta in public!) and not see them for a few weeks. There's never been any one-to-one father/son time, since the day my ex walked out and the younger sister was born (the same day...), which I know hurt my son - and still does/always will, I suspect. He's old enough to advocate for himself, now, though so although I am always around to listen/explain/reassure... I don't get involved past reminding him that despite it all, his Dad does love him (he's just clueless about showing any of his children this fact),
Because I listened to what my then-young child was telling me, because I supported him in finding the ability to start advocating for himself, by doing that for him, because I reminded him that it's okay for him to take some time out for his own sake... although it will, sadly, never be the pally/close father-and-son relationship that my ex foolishly seems to believe is his right - they do have a relationship. And both of my children are confident enough to know that no one has the right to treat them like they're shite, don't matter, aren't shiny and new enough.
Listen to your children, OP. To what they're actually trying to say, without yet having the toolkit to express themselves. A summer off doesn't mean that they'll never see their father again! And if he's any sort of an actual father to them, then he'll understand and put their need for a break above what he wants!
