Parents should stop moaning and cherish the summer holidays

Telegraph

5 days ago

Today, at last, my youngest child will be set free for the summer. She has missed the best of it, of course – June is often the sunniest month these days. For weeks and weeks of high summer, the poor girl has hoisted her backpack, slotted her hot feet into a pair of black regulation shoes, and set off every morning down the desiccated London streets for another day of boiling alive in a Victorian classroom.
In Italy, secondary schools closed at the beginning of June. American children have been off since May. Britain has some of the shortest summer holidays in the world. But not, it seems, short enough to suit the grown-ups.
More than half of parents in this country would like to see the traditional six week summer break pared down to just four weeks. The reasons they give are financial, logistical and – at first glance – convincing. Very few parents get enough time off work to look after their children all summer.
Grandparents, who used to step into the breach, are increasingly old, and far away.
For the poorest families, especially, cost is a huge problem: many rely on free school meals in term time, and cannot possibly afford to pay for childcare or summer clubs.
Some homes are so deprived or chaotic that long holidays can be positively dangerous, exposing children to violence or neglect.
But these are deeper social problems that should be addressed directly – not by taking away one of the few perks of being a child.
In case you had forgotten, school is hell, even when it's OK. The sheer grinding repetition of it; the Darwinian social dynamics; the teachers who hate you; the subjects you hate; the noise; the smells; the early starts; the dread of homework not yet done; the punishments and petty injustices; the encompassing smallness of it all.
Tiring though it is to be a working parent, nothing compares to the emotional and sensory overload of a day at school. Let alone a year. Children need time to do nothing. Get up late, watch telly, see friends, moulder about, get bored. Just being at home is a balm for the school-weary soul.
In a 2023 survey by the Children's Commissioner, 89 per cent of children said they enjoyed most or all of their summer holiday. The pastimes they reported were a mix of the wholesome (79 per cent spent time reading, writing or doing art) and the banal (81 per cent played online games), but none required expensive foreign travel or activity clubs. Neither, come to that, do they need parental supervision.
The logistics of small children are harder, because they can't be left alone. But once at secondary school, most children can – and should – be trusted to look after themselves for the duration of a working day.
This is their opportunity (all too rare, especially among the over-scheduled middle classes) to practise independence.
How will they get from A to B? What if they forget their keys? What if they get cold/hot/lost/mugged? The fears that haunt the working parent can all be flipped upside down.
When, if not now, will they learn to pack their keys, dress suitably and cross the road to avoid trouble?
Parental anxiety makes the long(ish) summer holiday more stressful than it needs to be. We need to stop hovering, and let the children get on with doing nothing.