On your marks, get set, go! The school summer holidays are upon us and professional working parents across the land are limbered up and already clearing the first hurdle in the endurance event of the season: the parenting Olympics. Forget London 2012, this is where agility and stamina are really tested.
For kids, the summer holidays mean long, lazy days of hanging out with friends, the prospect of some time away and hopefully some days spent messing around in the sunshine, maybe even in the garden with the paddling pool if the weather holds. For parents, the prospect of the long summer holidays paints quite a different picture in our minds. How to keep the kids properly cared for and amused for all those weeks?
Professional working parents will have warmed up for the summer holidays with a few weeks or months spent exercising their organisational skills and demonstrating their resourcefulness in an attempt to plan cover for the children while school is out. Alas, there are no six week plus summer holidays for most parents.
The haul many professional working parents will have been aiming for when planning their training schedule for the parenting Olympics might be a gold medal for having cover for their kids every day of the holidays, a silver medal in activity variety and hopefully at least a bronze medal in child stimulation and entertainment. The routes to success will differ enormously from family to family, but methods employed might include all manner of summer camps (the mind boggles at the range on offer, from science camp to 'perform a princess play' camp), time spent with grand-parents and family holidays.
Given the fact that many professional working parents have to ration their annual leave carefully so as to cover all the school holidays throughout the year, some will find themselves having to take holiday at a separate time to their partners so that one of the couple can look after the children while the other one works. This can be helpful, but will mean less time for the family to all spend together on leave. For other people, developing a rota with friends in similar situations can be helpful – I have your child today in return for you looking after my child tomorrow. Where parents work part-time, they can consider swapping round their working days during the holidays so as to mesh with friends who also work part-time so that between them they can provide cover for their children for most days. Another option some parents might be using is that of employing a nanny or au pair over the holidays and this could certainly be an attractive option for those who need to be at work as normal throughout the summer holidays.
Of course, those parents whose profession is that of a teacher or an academic have it easy in the holidays as long as their summer vacation matches that of their children. No need for expensive summer camp if mummy or daddy is also lucky enough to enjoy extended summer holidays and a medal of some description is almost guaranteed in the parenting Olympics. As my husband is a teacher we often end up with daddy day care being run from our house in the holidays while our children's friends' parents need to work. It's a win-win situation: the children have their friends for company all day and the parents get to concentrate on their work without having to worry about whether the kids are being properly looked after. Of course, this is not an option to be over-utilised and must be used in conjunction with other strategies. Daddy will not make it to the home straight and claim his rightful place on the podium if he has had the sole responsibility of looking after all the neighbourhood kids for weeks on end.
The winning formula for most participants in the parenting Olympics this summer will most probably be a combination of any of the above methods, in degrees that vary from family to family. As any elite athlete will confirm, cross-training will improve performance no end. The parenting Olympics will be running all summer long all over the country, with the closing ceremony taking place just as the school gates re-open in September. Enjoy the Games!
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