Summer holidays - delight or dislike?

School summer holidays are long. And no matter how much your child struggles at school, you may find that they appear to equally dislike the holidays.

For some children that struggle at school, holidays are downtime in which they delight. The ability to stay home, choose their own activities, the lack of pressure, noise, people is just what they need to recharge and rejuvenate.

I know when my son was struggling the most at school, we lived for the school holidays. Life was quite simply, so much calmer.

It isn’t always the case though. Sometimes, children who struggle, dislike the holidays almost as much as a school. The lack of certainty of their day, the absence of structure and routine, the apprehension over the unknown associated with next year – can all contribute to making school holidays, and particularly the summer ones very stressful.

I think the trick here is to use the opportunity to get to understand what are the triggers for your child. I can think of two summers in particular that we found very tricky until we unravelled things.

A few years ago, we had an awesome summer holiday – at least I think it was awesome. We bought a motorhome and spent 45 days travelling around Europe. If you want to hear more you can read the blog that I kept during our journey here http://fourofusandabus.wordpress.com

However, to start with this was very unsettling for our sensitive son. The anxiety of not being in the same place (we usually stay at a premier inn because they are all the same), the lack of a predictable schedule and the overall uncertainty of what for the rest of us was an epic adventure, was simply too much.

In our case the solution was simple. We had a map of Europe fixed to the wall in the motorhome with the route mapped out. Each day we talked about where we were, and what the plan for the following day would be. If we were driving we would show on the map from where we were starting and where we would end up. We looked at pictures of the places we were going to visit. That was all it took to turn what was clearly a source of dislike for my son, into the delight of a holiday. He even got into the habit of asking ‘what’s the plan for tomorrow’ before going to bed each night. And then again in the morning, he’d check for changes – "what’s the plan for today?"

Last summer was another challenging holiday. At the transition from primary to secondary school, rather than the delight and excitement of going to his preferred school, we were struggling with dislike about everything. It was only after a particularly challenging day, when I thought to broach the subject of his new school, that it all came tumbling out. So many anxieties churning around in his head – we had no idea.

I think school holidays are a bit like marmite. Some children love them and others hate them. The trick is for parents to work out what they can mix in with the marmite to make it palatable - have you seen the new marmite and peanut butter?

Enjoy your holidays and if you have any top tips for surviving intact, why not head over to the Facebook page and share them.