The holidays can be a stressful time for single parents, Natalie is a volunteer in our Wellbeing Digital Group and recently held an online workshop where she shared her ‘go to’ tools for managing the school holidays. How do you do it?

1. Plan ahead – if you know your little person/people are live wires (like my little dude) then get those play dates booked in.
2. Free stuff! It’s doesn’t have to cost the earth!
3. Build ‘your village!’
4. Ask for help! I’m working on this one!
5. Don’t make the whole school holidays about the child/children! There’s a moral lesson there too! What would you like to do?
6. Be open! It’s ok to say “mummy/daddy is finding today challenging.” “I can’t afford to take you there this week but next week we can go!”
7. Let go of the parent guilt!
8. Get up before your child/children (you’ll be much better prepared for the chaos!)
9. Get an early night!
10. Screen time! It’s ok! Down time when you can read a chapter of your book!
11. Sometimes you need physical space, “mummy/daddy is just going to walk around the garden for 5 mins.”
12. Know your triggers!
13. A little bit of boredom helps stimulate creativity and imagination, it doesn’t have to be all singing all dancing! My little boy asked me “mummy can you not plan so much for us to do?” Needless to say we swerved our plans and had a free flow day at home.
14. When they do go back to school give yourself some grace! Take that bath at 2pm in the afternoon before school pick up!

The Wellbeing Group is in the Gingerbread Digital Community. To join, sign up or log into Gingerbread, then create a Mighty Networks account to access the community.