It's hard to believe that school holidays are almost here!
School holidays are going to be here before we know it. This is the last September/October school holiday, our last two week period before the upcoming six week school holiday period at Christmas time. So now is the time to start thinking about what we’re going to be doing at Christmas, especially if you’re one of those families that do half-half, so you get a good chunk of time off with the children. Are you going to go anywhere; are you going to be taking them on an overseas holiday; are you going camping or even interstate?.
If you are lucky enough to have time off with your children, enjoy it. If you are lucky enough that you have time off and you are going away, let’s make it even more special. What we want to do before we get to that point is cover all the nitty-gritty about going away so things like:
- passports;
- letting the other parent know where you’re going;
- how long you intend to be away for;
- what communication is there available for them to speak to the children if that’s part of your orders:
- will you have mobile phone reception where you’re going?
- can they get on Skype or FaceTime if there’s going to be internet connectivity?
So they’re all the nitty-gritty things to think about and obviously if you’re going camping you’re probably not going to have internet. You might have mobile phone reception depending on where you are, but you might need to go away from the campsite to get that mobile phone reception, so just thinking about those practicalities. In terms of overseas travel, if your orders permit overseas travel, do you have passports organised; obviously travel insurance; have you booked your flights and have you given the other parent a copy of the itinerary so that they know when you’re leaving, when you’re returning, hotels that you’re staying at?
And look, you might think to some extent that that’s going a little bit overboard, but I want you to think about if the shoe was on the other foot and you were staying here and they were taking the children overseas: wouldn’t you like to know what was going on? Especially in this day and age, heaven forbid something actually does happen when they are on an overseas holiday, you’d like to be able to know that yes, you can rule out that that’s not the hotel that your children are staying at or no, they weren’t in that particular state in the United States or what have you. There are so many scenarios that can happen unfortunately with the current climate, but it’s just having that assurity for the other parent that their children are safe and really, at the end of the day, that’s all that they want to know.
So if you are going away, I really, really hope you enjoy it. I’m very jealous. I hope the weather’s warm wherever you’re going and have a great time for both yourself and your kids.
What do you have planned for the school holidays?
Again, if you’d like to see what else we have come on over to www.OurChildren.com.au and check out our other resources available.