Tips for Successful Summer Holidays

I'm going out on a limb here, with my Tips For Successful Summer Holidays. There's a few reasons.

1. We have one child.
2. That child is a self contained girl who's just as happy to have a PJ day as she is to go out.
3. We are a single income family with a good disposable income.

So I have no idea what it's like to juggle a full time (or part time job), with 8+ weeks of summer school holidays with 2+ kids, on limited income.

However, that being said, after several l-o-n-g, near disastrous attempts of 8+ weeks of holidays, with few friends around to hang out with (while living in Yokohama, or working friends in Winchester) we finally nailed one.

This summer holiday has been pretty darn good. It's also the first summer that we've not had guests staying with us.

Keep in mind, despite this being our second time in Dublin, we still spend a lot of time researching what's going on over school holidays and asking friends as it takes time to learn what's available in a new city.

Most of our friends here work, so kids are off to grandparents for weeks at a time, or to an aunts place to hang out with cousins, or they are away on long summer vacations.  Our expat friends all but disappear 'home' for summer. Some of our Irish friends have holiday homes in Spain, Wexford and other places and decamp.

The weather had been fantastic which has made a huge difference!!!!!!!! It's been a lovely summer in Dublin.

We're 9 weeks into it and still friends which is saying something when it's 24/7 with a 10 year old.

Here are my tips (really it's how we approached this summer vacation with success)

• PLAN AHEAD AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
• Research online and make a list of ALL the free stuff that's going on over summer
• Investigate Summer Day Camps and email friends if their kids would like to join yours (you can share drop off and pick up)
• Some camps offer discounts when 2+ kids are booked in together.
• Check out GroupOn offers, or 2for1 offers, discount offers especially for school holidays.
• Pinterest has great ideas for creative fun/play.
• Be A Tourist in your own city; what do they see/do while in town?
• Check out Hop On Hop Off bus options
• Go to Tourist Office and find out what's on 
• Meet with other mums/dads over coffee and compare notes; work out whose able to take leave from work when and help each other out with child minding, or which camps their kids are going into/when; buddy up on craft supplies/ideas; schedule picnic dates, play dates, sleep overs etc.
• 
  
• GET THE KIDS INVOLVED
• Invite them to create a Wish List of stuff they'd like to do. Let them be as creative and wild as they like .... you can bring them back to earth soon enough.
• You and your partner create a wish list too :)
• Suggestions for your lists:
• Library
• Museum
• Art Galleries
• Science Museums
• Local Parks and Playgrounds (picnics are good fun too)
• Bowling
• Check out Rail travel deals and 'catch a train' 
• Summer release movies (check out any school holiday movie deals)
• Putt Putt
• Special Daddy/Daughter or Mother/Son days
• Special Daddy/son or Mother/daughter days
• Check out National Trust or Heritage organisations
• Fun day trips to explore other parts of town
• Cooking days at home
• Movie marathons with a theme (Netflix is great for this)
• Public swimming pools 
• Reorganise a bedroom
• Plant up the garden
• Craft days - lots of websites showing you how to make your own paints, or play dough, cut up magazines and newspapers, collect empty toilet rolls, or cling wrap rolls, wrapping paper etc for projects.
• Catch the local bus on a round-trip to see where on earth it goes
• PJ days are vital.
• Zoo or farm visits
• Stay at Home Days
• While it's not that much fun, clean out wardrobes and cupboards. It's a perfect time as you're home, and the kids can help; you can make it fun!
• Compare ALL lists at the table with various coloured markers
• Highlight the ideas that are common to everyone - these are obviously keepers and depending on budget required to fulfil them can be negotiated
• Then in descending order, highlight in different colours the rest of the suggestions.
• The least suggested items may not get bumped completely, but can be done with the other sibling is off with a friend.
• Some stuff you can do more than once, others not at all ......... but at least you've all had some input into the decision making process
• Have some things booked into the diary BEFORE the holidays even start so that you have stuff to look forward to
• Sleep overs with friends whose parents might also be juggling work/kids might appreciate a swap of kids for a few nights mid-week.
• Book a Summer Day camp
• If you are fortunate to afford more than one summer day camp, try to have a week's break between them thereby spreading out the fun (and finances)
• Remember you don't have to be busy outside the house every day. 
• A morning out/afternoon at home.
• A day out, next day home.
• A friend over one day - home alone the next.
• As summer holidays in the Northern Hemisphere tend to be rather long, about half way thru the holidays, the kids can start doing 30 minutes of chosen 'something' - reading, write a vacation dairy, work thru some maths, do a few science experiments. The brain's as muscle and it needs to be worked.
• Some Sydney families I knew thru the toyshop would purchase a HUGE puzzle every summer holidays (six weeks December-January) and the entire family and any friends who visited would be encouraged to participate in the puzzle.
• Do stuff out of the ordinary - MissM was so surprised when I suggested she have a really long cool bath at 11am just for fun. 
• Encourage boredom! 
• It gives rise to creative thinking to solve the problem
• It's healthy to be 'bored' aka, chilled, relaxed, free of responsibility
• Remember to get your hair done and have a quiet coffee 
• When the kids are invited to a friends for a play date, make the most of your 'free' time
• Be honest with your friend - I'll have your kid/s if you have mine for a day as there's things I just need to do.
• Do the grocery shopping online to avoid tantrums in the supermarket. Let's face it, it's a horrid way to spend time and the kids shouldn't have to be inflicted with it every week of the holidays.
• You're also entitled to a 'holiday'
• Take home made lunches and drinks with you as it's much more economical than buying lunch out all the time. 
• Pack snacks too as the cost of these mounts up very quickly.
• Avoid fast food options! And not just over summer holidays.
• Pack a picnic blanket in the car so that when you are out'n'about you can stop and have a pleasant lunch.
• Be honest with the kid/s when you feel you need time out from them (and them from you). Take 30 minutes for a quiet hot coffee in the sitting room while they are playing; or read a few pages of your book on the bed.
• A really great idea that worked so very well in Yokohama, but not so well in Winchester was a closed FB group, and people would let others know what they were doing and have an open invitation to join them.
• They could suggest ideas, new discoveries, recommendations etc.
• Make plans to meet 'at Starbucks at 10am to take the train to ........'
• Shout out if the mum needed a break for a few hours

We've hosted a craft morning and lunch with 6 friends from school; been to the movies, visited Chester Beatty Library, gone to the park a few times, she's gone to 2 summer day camps, had lots of pj days at home; cleaned out her wardrobe (she's grown lots!), re organised her room (moved her bed into a new position, which meant book cases had to move), baked cakes'n'cookies, she's watched hours of how to make loom bands on youtube, been on play dates, had friends over .........  read, done a bit of bridging work for school,  taken up knitting (again)

We're just over the half way mark and still friends, so yeah us.

Hope you're coping too and having fun,

With friendship

x

What are your 5 Tips for a Successful Holiday at Home with the Kids?

Share your coping secrets.

M's a Busy Bee

It's tough being a kid these days. Or is it simply tough being MissM?

I have been thinking about this a lot these past few weeks, as MissM struggles more and more with homework, and goes to bed willingly at 7.45pm during the week, and is harder to wake each morning.

Cries of 'I'm tired' are heard a lot more often.

Maybe this is normal as kids grow up. I'm sure it is.

Is it?

Are your kids shattered in the mornings?

ms-havachat's been developing this chat for a while now, trying to work things out in her head before rambling here. In fact, this is my 4th attempt. The previous 3 were very cathartic and had me in tears. They were very quickly deleted. There are times when I think I'm a crap mum, and others when maybe I'm doing OK.

Do you ever question your parenting skills? Or the manner in which you deal with things? Guess it's natural we all do at some point or other. G's working hours haven't improved and I still haven't got single parenting down.

Anyways, amongst all that other crap, is me thinking OMG, MissM's such a BUSY BEE, no wonder she's exhausted. However, weekends are fun, and she's still up for a get together with friends.

Someone had a link to this guy, Matt Walsh on FB a few weeks ago and I really enjoyed his writing so I subscribed. His recent blog,  'Easy? No. Kids today do not have it easy' resonated with me loud'n'clear. It helped me understand a lot, tho still left me wondering.

What do you think of Matt's blog?


So, school days are shorter; 8.40am - 3pm (UK was 8.20am - 4.10pm). It seems our school also has longer holidays than others in Ireland. Daylight hours are shorter and shorter (we are awake at 6.30am and it's pitch black already)

After school activities are all done at school, which is great as it allows M time to get to know other kids apart from the 15 in her class (and I'm not driving all over town).

School offers 32 extra curricular activities a week - that's just the junior school. From hockey, rugby, swimming to chess club, knitting corner, book club, cooking, Lego and more. Some are run by teachers while others are taught by specialists who are brought in.

MissM's extra curricular stuff allows her to continue her singing lessons and drama club. She's still home by 4.20pm at the very latest, which isn't that late, is it? She not only loves these two activities, she's really good at them! G suggested she should stop them and focus on academic stuff, but my argument is she enjoys them and she's good at them - and academic isn't everything at 9 years of age.

We send our kids to school to learn new things, to socialise (and there's a whole lotta learning going on there!), to try stuff, to discover their talents, to be exposed to things they may not be otherwise exposed to and so on. It's not all about the books tho here, as in the UK (and I'm sure elsewhere in the world) school seems to be focused on test results ...... rather than kids being the best they can be; it's what you scored and where you rank.

In addition to coping as an expat kid amongst locals, tho there are lots of expats at school which is great, MissM's LEARNING a whole lotta stuff all at once and she's such a BUSY BEE, that it might be too much for her.

Am I being too soft? Surely your kids are doing similar? Are they coping? How tired are they? Do they snap and have attitude (oh yeah, puberty is next to deal with).

MissM and her school mates choose to learn either French (her choice) or Spanish, plus they have to do Irish - imagine, learning two languages at once plus of course, they are all still mastering English. If English isn't your mother tongue, you are exempt from Irish, which makes sense.

All school age kids in Ireland have to learn Irish. The reason given is that it is the national language and hardly anyone can speak it, so to help revive it, all public signage (street names, road signs etc) are produced in English and Irish. There's two Irish TV stations, and a couple of radio stations, newspapers and magazines, but really not much at all unless you go searching for it.

She's joined the drama club which she says is great fun, and enjoys meeting older kids (it's only offered to years 3-6). Not sure she'll even step foot on a stage, but that doesn't matter.

Oh how she loves her singing lessons! And her teachers again tell us how good she is. As a result, she along with 3 friends have been invited to join the school choir (rehearsals mid week during the school day)

With a choice of violin or cello, clever MissM chose violin and according to her music teacher 'is a natural'.

Desperate to continue ballet, I lazily put her name down for it as an after school activity thinking it'll do til we find a friend who is very happy at their dance school and change. However, her teacher is a RAD examiner and owns a very well respected and popular dance school. There are only 6 kids in the class, so it's as close to private lessons as you could get!

Her teachers has a 40 minute rule for homework. If the child's given it 'their very best attention for 40 minutes' let them be. It's very subjective, isn't it? If MissM's giving it her 'very best attention' she can be at it for upwards of an hour, or more! If we stuck to the 40 minute rule, she'd fiddle and diddle and then go, time's up, oh well.

Moving countries means moving education systems and it's tough.

Apparently MrsA in UK taught math very differently to MrP here.

One school teaches spelling phonetically .... one doesn't.

MadamP in UK sang a lot of French whereas the teacher here talks a lot which makes a huge difference to understanding. MissM's offered to teach them the few songs she knows to 'help them'

We stay positive for her, and say that no one can ever take away what's inside your brain, your experiences, emotions, knowledge is all YOU. Sometimes things are done differently, but you use your references to make the 'new' stuff work. Maybe she's just a bit too young to know this yet. I have to rely on friends who have raised several kids across several countries and who attended/graduated colleges and uni's all over the world as well adjusted happy healthy motivated young adults.

Add to the arts side of her academic subjects and she's a very BUSY BEE indeed - too busy? I'm starting to wonder.

MrsP and I have talked for years about how busy some kids are, and how there's a time and place for chilling out and PLAYING! Kids need to PLAY and be themselves with out the pressures. Just google 'are kids too busy' and see what comes up! Here's one of several articles that make sense, tho what are we, as parents doing about it?

There are lots of people who make sense to me .... Sir Ken Robinson in particular is a very interesting, clever, motivating and resourcful speaker. Listen to him on TedTalks. He often helps me put things back into perspective. In fact, I'm going to make a coffee and listen to him now.

MissM's busy after school a few days a week because the alternative is to come home and hang out on her own, which is fine after a busy day at school with lots going on, but she's like G and unwinds infront of the TV which is so annoying (and probably none of my business). I imagine if there were sibling's they'd be off playing or in the yard, or squabbling.

I'm wondering aloud here, is MissM too busy? If she is, what do we drop? If we drop it, what does she do, or indeed, is sitting at home chilling out how ever she sees fit OK?

I'm confident she'll be fine - they all are in the end, aren't they?

With friendship
x