I don’t have to worry about school holidays anymore. There was a sense of relief when my daughter no longer needed holiday programmes. I didn’t need to juggle working with her plans with friends and most of all the guilt I felt when I relied on other Mum’s to help and that I couldn’t be a full-time holiday Mum.
But, all these years later, I can still relate to how school holidays have a way of arriving with both excitement and a little bit of chaos. The kids are home, the routines shift, and suddenly there are ideas, requests, and plans being thrown around from morning to night. One minute it’s a simple day at home, and the next it’s “Can we go here?” or “Can we do this tomorrow?” or “Can we just get this one thing?”
It’s all very normal, of course, but it can also leave parents quietly trying to balance fun, energy, and budgets all at the same time, which is no small task.
You have got through the first week, and are now into the second week, and there still seems to be the expectation that everything should be “fun”, while the reality for parents is by this stage they are starting to feel a bit frazzled.
I don’t know how or when it happened, but somewhere along the way, school holidays started to feel like they need to be packed with activities and outings in order to be successful. There’s this subtle idea floating around that good holidays mean full calendars, special trips, and constant entertainment.
And then real life gently taps you on the shoulder and reminds you that energy, time, and money are not unlimited, even when the kids are on break.
The truth is that most families are doing far less than what it might look like from the outside. And even better, kids don’t need constant outings to have a really good holiday. Often, they just need time, attention, and a bit of freedom to be bored enough to get creative.
But as we also know, saying no is never the fun part of parenting, especially when you can see the excitement in your child’s face and you know they were really hoping for a yes.
But no doesn’t have to feel harsh or final. It can be one of the simplest ways to gently teach children how life works in a very real and practical way.
Instead of shutting things down completely and giving a snappy No! It can help to soften it with explanation and direction, like saying something is not in the budget right now, but maybe another time, or that the family has already chosen a couple of special things for the holidays, so everyone knows what to look forward to.
It keeps the mood calm, while still setting a boundary, and children tend to accept things more easily when they understand there is a plan rather than just a stop sign.
The easy option of just saying yes, for the sake of peace, comes with a consequence later; paying for all the activities.
Even when we don’t actively talk about money, children are still picking up messages about it every day. They notice what gets a yes, what gets a no, and how those decisions are made. They also notice whether money conversations feel calm or a bit stressful.
School holidays are actually a great time to make money feel a bit more normal and less mysterious, just by including it in everyday conversations in a very simple way.
It can be as easy as saying things like the family has a holiday budget, or that choosing one activity means not choosing another, or even just involving them in deciding what matters most for the week ahead.
It doesn’t need to be complicated at all. In fact, the simpler the better.
One thing that can make school holidays feel much easier is doing a bit of planning upfront. My parents used to call it a family conference, we would sit round the table, I would ask for my very long list of things that I wanted to do, some would get a yes, and some a no. Mum and Dad would then come up with their ideas and somehow it all came together. When children know in advance what the main plans are, there tends to be less pressure on parents to make constant decisions on the spot.
It can be helpful to pick a couple of “yes” activities together, maybe a special outing or two, and then let everything else flow more casually around that. Once that’s set, it removes a lot of the daily back-and-forth and gives everyone a bit more peace.
It also helps children feel included, which often makes them more content with the plan, even if it doesn’t include everything they initially hoped for.
Money doesn’t need to be a big serious topic during the school holidays. It works best when it’s just part of normal conversation, like talking about what’s for dinner or what time you’re heading out.
Simple phrases like “we choose what we spend on” or “we can’t do everything, so we pick what matters most” go a long way over time. Children slowly start to understand that money is something we manage, not something that magically stretches whenever we want it to.
When you look back, the holidays are rarely remembered for how many paid activities were squeezed in. They’re usually remembered for the small things that didn’t cost much at all.
The slow mornings, the messy baking, the walks where everyone was just chatting about nothing in particular, the movie nights where no one really agreed on what to watch but enjoyed it anyway.
Those are the moments that stick. One of the favourite outings that my daughter and I did when she was about eight was pack a picnic and go and watch the planes land and take off, we tried to guess where they were going or returning from, as I recall we got pretty creative.
Saying no during the school holidays doesn’t take away from the fun. If anything, it helps create balance, rhythm, and a bit of understanding that life involves choices.
And when children grow up seeing that clearly, without pressure or stress around it, they tend to carry a much healthier relationship with money and expectations into their own lives.
In the end, the holidays don’t need to be full to be meaningful. They just need to feel like home, with a bit of space for laughter, a bit of boredom, and a lot of simple moments in between.
*Lynda Moore is a Money Mentalist coach and New Zealand’s only certified New Money Story® mentor. Lynda helps you understand why you do the things you do with your money, when we all know we should spend less than we earn. You can contact her here.