Morning:
13°c
What two words do parents of small children dread more than any other? Chicken pox? Indoor playcentre? Club Penguin? All of these pale into comparison next to "Easter holidays".
With four young children to contend with, no school break is ever welcome in our household but the next three weeks promise to be particularly gruelling. At Christmas, we have the excitement of 25 December to look forward to and over the summer we usually manage a week away somewhere. But the Easter break stretches before me like a prison sentence. How on earth am I going to entertain the little rascals?
My usual solution is to organise a series of day trips - Kew Gardens one day, the London Eye the next - but the credit crunch has put paid to that. To give you just one example, the cost of spending a day at Legoland with my wife and four children would be £162 - and that's just the entrance tickets. Throw in petrol costs and a meal for six at Burger King and I wouldn't have much change left from £200.
So that just leaves the free attractions. Admittedly, Londoners are very well-blessed in that department but if I have to drag my kids around the Natural History Museum one more time I might end up bludgeoning myself to death with a dinosaur bone. The last time we went my four-year-old son was so terrified of the animatronic T-Rex he ran straight into a wall.
The fact that my other three children collapsed with laughter didn't help much. After that, he insisted on being carried for the remainder of the afternoon.
For better or worse, we'll be spending virtually the entire holiday period at home in Acton. I was keeping my fingers crossed for a cold snap but the gods have let me down, as they always do. The balmy weather means my children will insist I take them "camping", ie put a tent up in the garden and fill it with sleeping bags.
The chances of actually getting any sleep in it are vanishing-to-zero. Small children flip around at night like fish on a dry dock and anyone lying within 10 feet of them is at risk of being kicked in the head. Given the size of our tent, it's like trying to sleep in a bucket full of eels.
The one thing I will leave the house for is Wallace & Gromit's World of Cracking Ideas at the Science Museum. It's not cheap but the prospect of having my children's two favourite television characters introduce them to a succession of wacky inventions is too good to pass up.
It's probably a good idea to book tickets in advance. You don't have to be Nostradamus to know that this particularly attraction will be very popular.
Reader views (6)
Other countries in Europe do not give children such long holidays at every possible excuse! A few days at Christmas, just Good Friday and Easter Monday at Easter,
and no 'half terms' every few weeks! Why do we do it!
Mind you, I can imagine the reaction of the horrendous teaching unions if any decrease was suggested!!!!
Aagree with previous poster though, If we mark Easter with official and public holidays, children should understand the true meaning of the occasion. In the days when most children regularly attended Sunday School they were much better behaved generally, and parents were happy to send them, if only to have a few hours to themselves! Church schools do, thankfully, still explain the meaning of Christmas and Easter to our children, which is a huge reason for retaining them.
- Carver, newark,
Liz I quite agree. Some have forgotten and some just don't know what Easter is all about.
Introducing your child to Jesus and explaining what the cross represents is the best gift you can give to your family.
Rose, New York
- Rosanna, New York, USA
If it all goes as you plan you will be teaching them the core values of misanthropy. Good Lord, man: they are your children. Use some imagination- act like a parent who loves his kids. Sheesh...get a grip.
- Dick, Norfolk, Virginia, USA
Toby
You could try taking them to Church - that is what the season is all about after all. You could leave them in the hands of the sunday school teacher for one and a half hours - they learn about Jesus, get involved in activities and perhaps get a chance to become better people or less rascally and you get some peace and quiet and its FREE. Try the church that's not too far from the Natural History Museum - Holy Trinity Brompton behind the Brompton Oratory- they are quite modern!
Let me know what you think.
L
- Liz, London
True. Easter is an out-dated hindrance when it comes to such a long holiday. Wallace & Gromit is essential. Another cracking idea is the good easter egg I heard about that teaches kids to look after their teeth while they are wolfing down their chocolate
- Dave, london
We must learn to simply say NO occasionally - this lesson will hold the children in good stead in the future.
Greed and giving in to excess has led us to where we are now, spending like spoilt children, over- fed by banks who should have known better, but couldn`t say "ENOUGH"!
If parents can`t make their children understand the need for occasional restraint, then the future looks bleak.
And don`t forget, just like X-essMAS, Easter has just become yet another sales and marketing oppertunity.
- Darius Midwinter, London UK
