Are you wondering what happens when the kids have separate school holidays? If you read my blog regularly, you’ll probably know that my son, Sam has Autism and attends a special needs school in another district.
My daughter, Syd attends a local mainstream school. For the most part, this works alright. They have the odd day off without the other, but we survive. This Easter though, Syd’s school are off for 2 weeks and then back in school BEFORE Easter! With that in mind, today I am talking about the frustrations involved when the kids have separate school holidays.
When The Kids Have Separate School Holidays
Syd finishes for Easter on 29th March, and goes back to school on 15th April. Sam finishes on 8th April and is off until 23rd April. That means that I have 24 days with at least one child at home. As much as I enjoy spending time with the kids, it’s going to be a logistical nightmare for several reasons.
Mum Guilt
Firstly, the weeks when I have only one child at home will be restricted as “Mum guilt” will kick in and stop me taking one of them somewhere fun while the other is stuck in school. (Funds will prevent me repeating the same activities). So it’ll be a case of half the fun stuff they’d typically be doing in the school holidays.
Work
The main issue is the fact I work from home full time, and can’t afford to pay for childcare. This means the kids will be spending a fair amount of time at home. That, or I’ll be working until 2am every night, and then up for the day by 3am with Sam. I suspect their tablets and CBBC will be well used over the holidays!
Self employment is great for parents – until the school holidays or one of the kids is poorly, at any rate! I’ll no doubt be delirious with exhaustion by day 3 of the first week. Chances are I’ll be so tired by week 2, I’ll forget all plans and just make a den with the kids to hide in all week!
Logistics
When both kids are off together, you can plan a full day out, without worrying too much about traffic or the time. However, when you need to be back in time to collect one from school, it scuppers a lot of plans. Not to mention having to get both kids up and dressed, then taking just one of them to school.
For older kids, I’d imagine this isn’t as much of an issue. But Sam’s Autistic, and doesn’t understand why he can’t go into school with his sister. This is just one of the frustrating things when special needs kids have separate school holidays.
Fines for Term Time School Holidays
For me, the most frustrating thing about this is… The first week Syd is off is technically “off peak”, so for the first time in years, we could potentially afford a holiday. However, we’d need to pull Sam out of school for a week if we did that, and the LEA his school is in do issue fines.
Finally, I can’t help but wonder how parents who have an office based job juggle this logistical nightmare. How do you manage when the kids have separate school holidays? If you enjoyed this post, why not check out more of my random ramblings?
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