Parenting in the school holidays

I'm bored! The catch cry of the school holidays.
In the past holidays I have had to send my kids to vacation care. I found that there are pros and cons to doing this. Of course there are days when the kids simply don't want to go. On those days of course I found myself always questioning whether I was being a 'horrible' parent or not. More often than not though they get to do some fun stuff with lots of other kids their age, coming home quite happy after a full day of activity.

So a day of feeling guilty because you are hard at work and they are getting to play the day away. Does this make sense? Doesn't seem to. After speaking with a number of different parents with many differing parenting styles it does however seem to be a part of the joys of parenting. I have often wondered why it is that I feel guilty when leaving my kids in the care of others. It seems that this is something often referred to as 'mother guilt'. There are lots of places on the internet with information on this, including the blog post Managing feelings of mother guilt here on the careforkids.com.au site.

I have wondered if this makes me an 'over protective parent'. Again there are loads of sites with information, however it seems like a thin line to tread. Do you find that you are having too much input into your kids lives? Maybe you feel it is not enough and they feel it is too much. This can be a struggle as well. I have read recently about a 52 year old mother in France who dressed up as her 19 year old daughter and tried to take her place for the Baccalaureate English exam. This is a very difficult exam. However to try and prevent her daughter from failing she was willing to go to these extremes. Would you go to extremes like this to stop your kids from failing? As much as I love my kids I know that they have to have a few fails before they can get their successes.

So now that I work from home there is no need for vacation care. Does this make things easier? You'd think so wouldn't you. But starting this week there has been the dreaded cry of boredom. To be fair because my boys are so far apart, they don't get to spend a lot of time together. At times it feels as if I have 2 'only' children. The biggest thing that I notice is that kids love to spend time with others their own age. So reality is making this happen can take a bit of  social organising. However once that skill is in hand and you are organsing these 'play dates' and 'sleep overs' all in all it helps you to remember that having your kids happy is what counts.

Thank goodness for great websites like www.kidspot.com.au. I found some great activities here like DIY Bubbles and Melted Crayon Art. So on the odd days when we can't organise the catch up with the cousins or friends there are some great suggestions for keeping young minds busy.

 All in all I think that whatever you try to do it will work out, on the condition that you have the safety and happiness of the child in mind.

When does school start again?