School Holidays

The school holidays are almost upon us, those members with school age children what do you do to keep the kids entertained during the long holiday? Also, with the British weather being so unreliable, do you have any tips to share on how to entertain the kids indoors?

My grandchildren break up this week and their parent's are already trying to make plans to keep them entertained, its such a long time off school.

Gone are the days when you used to be able to let your children out to play and they would make dens, play hopscotch, tig etc and interact with other kids, these days its all about television, computers and PS3's. Its a wonder children learn any socialising skills.

My 7 grandchildren all vary in ages, but when we all get together its lovely to be able to experience that lovely family atmosphere and I am lucky that my adult children all live within a 10 radius. We will be having barbeque's at each other's houses(weather permitting), or often we have had to resort to simply grilling an indoor barbeque on the cooker with the kids running around giving me a headache .

Any tips I can pass on?

Ruby

Hey..
On really miserable days my kids love to make and play with arty crafty stuff,we have a whole box and keeps them entertained for hours They also love baking and helping me cook, which is a nightmare sometimes lol... If it's only a little wet outside they love going into the garden and building mud castles eek... The older 2 r much easier to entertain than Emre, he gets bored so easily. I love the holidays though no rushing around in the mornings Roll on tomorrow when they break up.. x

Ours broke up yesterday. My son is 11 now and off to secondary school in September so he's becoming much more independent. We're lucky where we live in that it's safe for them to go out and play with friends. He has a good group of friends who live nearby, and his cousins too, and they go out a lot. They are all sport mad so are usually playing football or are at the tennis courts or in the cricket nets. They also go to the cinema etc and hang out at each others houses. He's got a bike and a mobile 'phone so he's able to get about and I can always keep in contact with him too. Both my mum and sister live really close to us and we all cover childcare. Both my husband and I also stagger our holidays so that we can be around as much as possible over the summer holidays. We get to do things with him separately and we also make sure we spend at least 2 weeks together as a family. We usually go away abroad on a holiday for a week with my sister and her children or friends and then have days out and about here doing stuff we all like to do.

When my son was younger he used to go to a lot of sports/activity camps when we were working and he used to love those but they can get costly!

It's always a pain if children are bored because they tend to start squabbling. It's not always easy trying to keep them amused in the long summer holidays, particularly if the weather is rubbish - and it can get very expensive too. My sister has a massive swimming pool (one you have to fill, not a permanent one) with a slide attached. She puts chemicals in it to keep the water clean and last summer she filled it at the start of the summer holidays and it kept them amused for days on end. You can do so much more in good weather. We also have a couple of lovely proper outdoor pools very nearby to us, one private and one public, so if the weather is good it's great!

This summer my son and his two cousins are all off to a summer camp for a week so we will have a child free week - unfortunately we have to work so that we can have time off when he's back!

Never mind, September will soon be here!