The Holidays

It’s amazing the amount of stuff you find out when you become a single parent. Today’s thought provoking help is about the holidays. Of course, I mean School holidays and how incredibly complcated they become.

Remember when you were a couple? School holidays were fun, quite long in some cases (Summer) and usually involved day trips and Christmas. Well, if you’re in the infancy of your new situation, right about now you’ll be buying a calendar, checking school terms, checking bank holidays and possibly experiencing your first breakdown.

Why?

Because every school holiday now has to be divided into two.

That’s right. With your new situation comes an ‘agreement’ that you’ll be sharing school holidays, Christmas and any other occasion you can find.

What’s the trick? How do you get through these times and how do you barter with the one person you don’t want to enter into conversations with?

The Answer: Email.

The next Answer: Stick to the facts.

and finally: Keep it simple and don’t get involved in haggling for time.

My best advice is to stay one step ahead. Know when all of the school holidays are, mark Christmas into your calendar…and Easter…and Half Terms. Get in touch a month (or more) before each holiday and suggest the way it’s split.

e.g

Dear XXX

Easter is coming up and I suggest that you have the first week and I take the second. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume that this is suitable.

No haggling. More like a solution presented and you aware waiting for a yes…or worse NO.

Christmas is the difficult one. Both sides will want Christmas morning because that is the good bit – Santa, Reindeer and snow. But you just have to accept that you’ll probably need to alternate each year.

The good part of this all, is that (hopefully) both sides will use the holiday time better. Both will focus on the child and making sure they have a great time and therefore, the child is the winner. If…and only if, there are no silly games (gameplay), you’ll find that after a year you’ll have done all the holiday experiences, had all the arguments about dates and the following year, it will all be much easier. NOT!

I’m joking. But just remember that it’s not longer a conversation, it’s more like a mission where you need to state what is being asked and you want answers. Sorry to say, but in the first few years you’re not likely to be best pals, so it’s a question of using as little energy as possible to finalise plans.

Let me know if you’ve found any problems/solutions etc. I’d love to hear some other stories…ciao!