How does your family manage the school holidays?

[JustineBMumsnet]

With school Easter holidays rapidly on their way, we’re thinking about the various ways parents manage their children being off school for the holidays, particularly during the summer.

What have you already planned for the school summer holidays? What led to you planning or booking in advance? What kinds of activities or plans will you leave until the last minute? How does your household manage childcare during the holidays? Do you enjoy the holidays or dread them each year? What do you think would make them easier for you?

Thanks!

MNHQ

I live in mid Cornwall and we don't have holiday clubs here unless you attend the local private school.

So although I'm highly skilled - I can only work short term contracts in shops and cafés to ensure our children can be cared for in the school holidays. It's miserable.

Pre Covid we had all sorts of options.

Not that Jezebel Hunt would ever understand of course

A perk of teaching is the holidays. I cover all time off. My partner uses flexi working to cover illness and insets and my mum does the odd day if I need a morning off.

A grandma here! My daughter juggles holiday cover with wfh and AL, holiday clubs and sharing play dates with friends - she technically only works 4 days pw. They are also going to stay with friends over Easter weekend. DGS 8 and DGD 5 are a bit too much for me to have both for whole days but I will ferry them to and from clubs & friends, feed them, do bedtimes plus cooking, laundry etc to keep everything running smoothly. My DD plans holidays with military precision and I do to keep my diary fairly clear during school holidays so I am available; her DH would be slated here as he does very little!

With great difficulty!!! My husband & I both work full-time, even with both our holiday entitlements, we can't cover all of the school holidays & I am in a constant state of guilt at not having enough quality time together as a family. When I do have time off, we often have my son's friends over & parents will invite him back which is great as it means he enjoys a play & I can work while I know he's being looked after. There are very few holiday clubs available where I live & I also feel awful about sending him to them unless he has friends who are also going.
I love being a parent, I also really enjoy my job. I wish I could afford to drop a day to help with the work/home life balance.
I have taken the option to buy an extra weeks holiday through work this year which I'm hoping will help!!

I work term time only. I have some work related admin to complete in the holidays but tend to do that in the evenings or when DH also takes time off.

Took a massive pay cut to work a TTO contract. Also means I’m stuck and can’t progress or move jobs easily.

Easter holiday clubs here are only just open for booking now. We can’t book summer for months yet.
We use out local authority holiday club at a nearby swimming pool / sports centre combined with a family holiday and me reducing my working days for the duration.

Glad I'm not alone with the lack if holiday clubs x

If you're a SAHP contemplating going back to work, finding childcare for 13 weeks of the year seems like a huge barrier. Don't let it put you off. The reality is most people manage to muddle a way through, so trust that you can too.

We have a big spreadsheet and break it up one week at a time. Each of us take a week separately and we have a week off together. Add in a couple of weeks of holiday clubs and a week of childcare swaps, or grandparents, or parental leave, and we're there.

Holiday clubs don't always need to advertise and can be hard to find, but there's a lot out there on the grapevine. I don't worry too much about the cost, I set it against my take home pay across the whole year. Overall we are so much better off with 52 weeks' pay, even if I'm paying to go for work for some of August.

We have so many options here. The school runs a holiday club, there's plenty of childminders who have TTO children, so spaces free up during the holidays for others to go, and there are several other holiday clubs locally that I know of and I've never even bothered to properly look.
As it happens neither of us work for most of the school holidays, we get almost all of the Easter break off without even taking any annual leave. We are really lucky in that respect.

I find organising holidays pretty stressful. We do a mix of DH and i each taking some leave, Grandma having DD for a couple of days, and holiday club (run at school by an external provider). It takes a lot of planning!

Pre covid with a primary school kid, was holiday clubs - we did a mix of 40 hour ones with a couple of weeks of an “activity” club - think drama or swimming and then we used to either split the pick up / drop off or get grandparents to help
we were lucky than even then both of our employers were semi flexible
after covid - it’s been mostly 2-3 hour clubs and taking turns to wfh / office
this year DD is in secondary - so no clue, guessing she’ll spend way too much time on her phone
we will of course encourage her to go out with her friends - but a mix of living on a large city (not that many local friends) and kids going away for family holidays, that may not always be possible

What have you already planned for the school summer holidays?

We have our annual holiday and lots of nice days out weather dependent!
What led to you planning or booking in advance?
Something to look forward to.
What kinds of activities or plans will you leave until the last minute?
Days out are last minute as the Scottish weather is unpredictable!
How does your household manage childcare during the holidays?
I am self employed so work less on the holidays.
Do you enjoy the holidays or dread them each year
I get anxious about them, not getting things done or enough me time but then love every minute!
What do you think would make them easier for you?
Some holiday clubs to dip in and out of where the kids can go to give me a few hours to get things like shopping, cleaning and exercise done.

I work term time in school admin for this very reason!

We always had to pay for holiday club 🤷🏽‍♀️

I've always worked 3.5 days a week. This has meant that the pressure to cover school holidays was not quite so bad. The kids are old enough to sort themselves out now, however when they were in primary I just found whatever childcare was available. Their own school did a sporadic holiday club. The other local school also ran one. I've used the holiday clubs at the local leisure centres (good value), and I've used barracudas (more than I earn in a day with two kids going). I also had an agreed kid swap with another mum one day a week in the holidays - my two for her two. Then obviously I've always used my holiday for childcare. DH does too, to a lesser extent. We don't have local relatives so that's never been an option

There are some great movement, music and art workshops in the summer holidays where I live which are always popular and help to fill up time in the holidays

I live in mid Cornwall and we don't have holiday clubs here unless you attend the local private school.

So although I'm highly skilled - I can only work short term contracts in shops and cafés to ensure our children can be cared for in the school holidays. It's miserable.

Pre Covid we had all sorts of options.

I really feel this, so many childcare providers seem to have closed in Cornwall since covid.

We have an au pair - uni student from Europe to help. It’s cost effective to a point - but requires inviting someone to stay in your home and food, flights etc. however since brexit it’s much harder to get students for short periods of time which is frustrating.

There are no holiday clubs in our village and Ds is autistic so no way would he manage going to one with loads of kids he didn’t know in the town.
I don’t work so I look after the kids myself all the time. We will be having lots of days out to museums and parks plus we go away in the summer as a family.

I work in a university, so follow university term time. This means I have Christmas, Easter and summer off, but need to juggle half terms, as can't take leave outside the set times. I chose this job specifically for the hours, despite being overqualified, as DS has additional needs and wouldn't manage childcare.

During half terms I work sun/mon/tus nights while DH does 4 longer days, and move one to Saturday, so he's off mon/tuse while sleep. Wednesday are a bit rough as I stay up with kids after night shift, so we watch to much TV that day, then I have an early night when DH gets in.

During the longer holidays we tend to do bigger outings with DH during the weekend, or with friends or my mum during the week. Then have 3/4 day when it's just me and kids, so we do soft play/park or just potter about at home. We tend to get annual passes to local place's with Christmas/ birthday money, so usually have 3 or 4 place's we can visit for free so the outings only really cost petrol.

What have you already planned for the school summer holidays? our annual leave is agreed and some of the more popular holiday clubs prebooked

What led to you planning or booking in advance? The good stuff sells out early

What kinds of activities or plans will you leave until the last minute? Weekend type activities that we’d do year round anyway

How does your household manage childcare during the holidays? A carefully balanced juggling act. Separate weeks off for DH and I, holiday clubs/activity clubs for kids

Do you enjoy the holidays or dread them each year? A bit of both

What do you think would make them easier for you? Grandparents/family help. More annual leave from work. We both get 25 days which doesn’t stretch that far, especially if we want some time off all together

I’ve taken a pay cut to work term time only, so we can cover the school holidays. I look forward to the time off with the DC, main issue is going back in September to a huge pile of emails.

No plans for this summer yet, as the price of holidays in 2023 has rocketed!

No idea every year there's only one maybe two weeks of 9 until 4 childcare advertised by the LEA, other than that there are private companies that advertise but they're aimed a children older than mine. I've often worked then resigned for the summer holidays. My husband works away, we can only get by with someone not working.

I have no children but support my siblings with childcare.

I book 2 weeks annual leave during the summer, 1 week at Easter and either February or October half term to support with childcare.

It can be a bit difficult as those with children expect priority. We have to share it out though and luckily my manger understands the make up of different family set ups.