Over the last six weeks, I have embarked on several summer holiday Family Days Out.
My idea was that these would be cheaper than a Big Family Holiday, particularly abroad.
Our Summer Family Days Out have ranged from beach trips to forest rambles, play parks to farms, arcades to museums – and one disastrous and traumatising trip to a high ropes course at an outdoor pursuits centre – which I may never be ready to talk about without therapeutic support.
We have, against all odds, survived all of them.
Mostly (give or take a bruise on my hip approximately the size and shape of Buckinghamshire, a wrist injury, a wasp sting, a black eye, and several screaming emotional meltdowns – not all of them from children).
I have been doing Family Days Out now for 11 years. Here are my 9 top tips, fresh from recent experience:
1. Changes of clothes
You will need at least 3 of these, for each person, including shoes. What? You’re going to an indoor venue on the driest day of the year in the middle of a hosepipe ban??? Don’t be silly! Someone will get wet or muddy, or both, probably your Smallest Small.
Mine, at least, has not had a good day unless she’s dunked herself in the nearest fountain/pond/ocean/stream/puddle/sink, and created at least two loads of washing.
You will have to carry all of these changes of clothes around with you, plus towels, all stuffed into the world’s most gigantic bag – which will be approximately 5x the weight the SAS are required to carry around with them on endurance training exercises.
(Note that no matter how much your darling children promise they’ll carry their own coats/floats/bucketsandspades/phones/stickycatchers THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN).
2. Cagools
The best way to guarantee that the sunny Summer Family Day Out you’ve planned REMAINS sunny, is to lug around full waterproof-wear for your entire party, too. (Plus, obvs, all the sunny stuff, like hats, sunglasses and suncream).
NEVER decide to leave these in the car. This will guarantee torrential showers.
TOP TIP: You may wish to embark on weight training or a heavy-lifting safety course before Summer in preparation.
3. More snacks
Yes, I know you’ve packed a full picnic, plus extra sandwiches, biscuits, crisps and some sort of condensed-fruit-juice-gummy-stuff-that’s-supposed-to-be-healthy-but-isn’t, for everyone, and yes, I know you will be passing shops and cafes, but TRUST me, someone is going to manage to have a wild hangry meltdown when you are fresh out of sustenance.
You will be grateful to be able to reach into the giant bag and instantly fill the noise-hole. It may even be worth the back-breaking misery of carrying all this stuff around with you.
4. Use every toilet
NEVER believe a child of any age when it says it doesn’t need the loo.
I understand that forcing a child to force out a wee is not necessarily promoting pelvic floor health, but the first rule of an even partially successful Family Day Out is that NO ONE WALKS PAST A TOILET WITHOUT USING IT.
If you do not unilaterally enforce this you will spend your entire day interrupting the planned activities and running miles out of your way desperately seeking sanitation.
5. Copious entertainment
Your Smalls will start screaming “I’m bored” after about 10 minutes of doing any given activity on any given Family Day Out, unless kept actively entertained at all times with your blood, sweat, energy, ingenuity, and whatever you can fit into THE BAG.
(Yes, I know this is not how kids were in your day. Yes, I understand you were left to be bored and it never did you any harm. Yes you made your own entertainment. But get over it, that’s not how overstimulated kids of today WORK).
You must therefore be sure to pack balls, bats, card games, colouring equipment, and miniature chess set. At a minimum.
(Note that on a Family Day Out, no one is allowed on devices, on the grounds this is cheating, and might actually make people happy).
6. Plasters
Back in the olden days (when I was a child) your arm had to literally be falling off and blood spouting out of the artery to earn a plaster from your mum.
Today, I hand them out like candy. Or snacks. Or advice for surviving Family Days Out.
This is on the grounds that they make any small invisible injury your Small is over-dramatising INSTANTLY better, which makes them INFINITELY worth it.
Carry a supply at all times.
(Remember, your Small Small will want character ones. Your Big Small won’t be seen dead in these, and requires plain flesh-coloured ones. At this point you might as well just stick in an entire medical kit and be done with it).
7. Practise strict equality
You must at all times ensure to distribute the exact same amount of attention to each child, the same number of goes, plasters, pushes, snacks, etc – or face tantrums beginning “But SHE got one” or “It’s not fair”.
8. Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe
Yes, I know none of us are made of money right now, but even the most disastrous Family Day Out can often be saved by a trip to Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe before going home.
(I have trained my children to call all gift shops we find on Family Days Out ‘Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe’, regardless of whether or not they are attached to any kind of historical attraction).
There are some days when I will willingly pay a £10 on plastic junk or yet more stuffed animals JUST FOR IT ALL TO BE OVER AND FOR EVERYONE TO BE QUIET IN THE CAR ON THE WAY HOME.
9. LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS
The true key to enjoying a Summer Family Day Out is to lower your expectations.
I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you will NOT be the happy smiling family you’ve seen on the brochure, website, or other people’s Facebook pages. (All of those pictures are a crock of brown stuff).
LOWER.
YOUR.
EXPECTATIONS.
Nope, further than that.
REALLY REALLY low.
Really scrape the bottom of that barrel.
BOOM.
You’re ready to go.
Just in time for going back to school…
xxx
Mumonthenetheredge 