School holidays are approaching: have you got six weeks meticulously planned?

Words Holly Kirkwood

Almost 2 million parents admit to a Fear Of the School Holidays (FOSH) which is expected to reach its peak at 8pm on Wednesday 19^th July, 2017.

New research by family activities app Hoop reveals this is the time when it dawns on parents across Britain that they haven’t planned enough family activities to fill the long six week summer holiday.

More than half of parents say they are guilty of leaving planning activities until the last minute, with a quarter waiting until just a few days before.

Faced with six straight weeks to entertain their children, the exclusive poll of 2,000 British parents shows that nearly two thirds (58%) of British mums and dads say they dread the school holidays and feel isolated without the security blanket of their children’s school playdate network.

A lack of time, money and inspiration are the most common reasons parents give for failing to find something different to do – which makes nearly half feel guilty and a quarter feel like a bad parent, the survey says.

The average parent of children up to the age of eleven, hears ‘I’m bored’ and ‘can I watch TV?’ more than 400 times during the summer holidays… and then there’s also ‘Can I have my iPad?’.

Commenting on the research, Max Jennings, dad and co-founder of Hoop says. ‘Like all parents, I fear the school holidays as our usual family schedule gets turned upside down! I try to look at the six long weeks as an opportunity to find new things for my kids to do, but no matter how organised we try to be, I know there’ll be days where we’ll start to run out of ideas to keep the kids entertained.

Launched last year, Hoop is a free app which helps parents discover the best of what’s on for kids in their local area, listing thousands of family-friendly events and activities each month.

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