Summer Holiday Survival

Lets chat about surviving the summer holidays. It’s not easy and I know it cannot just be me who struggles with this every year.

I have neurodivergent kids, so any routine changes are hard enough on us, but the summer holidays is one of the worst for us. Its the massive upheaval of no longer having our main routines, no longer having somewhere for the kids to go during the day and having to try and find entertainment for all of the kids. For us the entertainment part is the hardest as they all have quite varied interests. The twins both enjoy different things, and then the littlest is obviously into more baby-ish things.

I’ve gotten pretty lucky with some groups around my local area, such as Home Start and Sure Start offering sessions that suit all three of my kids. Like we did a fun with drums session which went down really well, and we have attended a couple of forest sessions as well which have been really good! I also find these groups very helpful for finding activities I can do at home too. I really recommend both groups if you have children within their age ranges.

I’ve also planned one day out so far for the kids. We were going to do Dublin Zoo, but we have now changed to planning a day at Wild Ireland. Wild Ireland is a wildlife park that features a range of animals (including deer, wolves and bears) in Co. Donegal, so not too far from where we are based. My kids all love animals and I feel like this will be a really good day out for them. Plus its not badly priced either, coming in at around £72 for us to go.

How else are we surviving? Screen time. I still limit this, as I don’t want my kids stuck to a screen all day, but it has increased from what it would normally be during term time. I am not overly against the use of screen time generally, mainly because it can have positive effects, like helping a child learn something new. Like one of my twins taught themselves to count using the number blocks. I’m not even kidding when I say they went from not being able to count to five to counting to twelve with ease! I know there are negative sides to screen time, but so far it’s being used as a positive for my kids.

Because the weather is so unpredictable here, I am also trying to make the most of any nicer days by taking the kids outside. I actually plan to buy my twins bikes in the next week as one of the twins has shown an interest in learning to ride a bike. I say interest, but they somewhat taught themselves to at nursery so now I want to nurture that skill. Plus I have a twin who is obsessed with their balance bike, so I may as well upgrade them to a pedal bike.

Overall, I am mainly trying to keep busy but we do have days where we aren’t leaving the house. Those days are definitely harder, mostly because we truly have no routine those days which leads to meltdowns. But we’re getting through it, and there is only a month to go until routine returns!

What tips do you have for surviving the summer holidays? Let me know!