Tour rules, or entertaining children on holiday
You might be planning summer holidays, choosing destinations, booking hotels, flights, or trains. And those of you with small children will be thinking, perhaps with a little trepidation, about how to keep them entertained. What you might consider the “Are we nearly there yet?” condition.
May I offer some advice, based on years of holidays with small children? First of all, treasure the holidays you spend with them. By the time they are in their teens, they will prefer to spend holidays with chums rather than parents. If you insist on them accompanying you instead of going with their friends at that age, they will resent it, and your time, and money, will be wasted. So, let us consider those years starting from the time when their age allows them to participate rather than just be wheeled along – let’s say, age four and onwards, up to the point I described, where they will want to do their own thing – at sixteen or seventeen, maybe younger.
We are talking about perhaps just twelve holidays spent with your children when they are old enough to join in, but not so old that they want to be independent. Just twelve holidays. So make them work, so that you will have good memories rather than miserable recollections of traffic jams on motorways in the rain.
May I offer some advice, based on years of holidays with small children? First of all, treasure the holidays you spend with them. By the time they are in their teens, they will prefer to spend holidays with chums rather than parents. If you insist on them accompanying you instead of going with their friends at that age, they will resent it, and your time, and money, will be wasted. So, let us consider those years starting from the time when their age allows them to participate rather than just be wheeled along – let’s say, age four and onwards, up to the point I described, where they will want to do their own thing – at sixteen or seventeen, maybe younger.
We are talking about perhaps just twelve holidays spent with your children when they are old enough to join in, but not so old that they want to be independent. Just twelve holidays. So make them work, so that you will have good memories rather than miserable recollections of traffic jams on motorways in the rain.
To read the rest of the article, go to the May 2015 Bury and West Suffolk Magazine.
