Holidaying with Children

School holidays offer excellent opportunities for family travel. Whether you are travelling to visit extended family, explore new places, or visit a family-favourite destination, travelling with children has its challenges, as well as its perks. 

Creating new memories, sharing experiences, getting lost together, making memories, and enjoying downtime as a family are some of the rich experiences that holidaying as a family provides. This blog explores reasons to travel with children during the school holidays.

Quality Time on Family Holidays

During the hustle and bustle of term time, when parents are busy with work and childcare duties, quality time can be skipped over or pushed down the list of family priorities. Although we recognise the importance of quality time as a family unit, it can be hard to fit it in. Between sports games, tutoring lessons, time with friends, and individual hobbies, getting the family together to engage in quality time can be difficult. 

When the school holidays roll around, we welcome the extra time to spend together. To make the most of the opportunity, it’s useful to structure the holidays to include quality time. Planning a family holiday is a great way to optimise shared time off from work and school. Take the opportunity to switch off from work commitments, school and homework duties, and household chores, to embrace the freedom of escaping your day-to-day responsibilities. 

With more time together, you and the kids will have the opportunity to get to know each other better, discuss things that slip through the cracks during the busyness of life, play together and have fun experiences that bond your family together as a unit.

Life Skills for Young Kids

Family holidays offer unique learning opportunities for children. Travel pushes children outside of their comfort zones, and allows them to extend themselves, learn new skills, and engage in new experiences. Travel encourages personal growth, builds life experience, and enables children to benefit from larger life lessons that they don’t encounter in their daily lives. 

Life skills and confidence are strengthened during travel, from the planning stages of the road trip to being on the road. Make the most of the abundant learning opportunities that are available when holidaying with your kids involved in a child-friendly family! Get your children involved in the planning process by creating a travel itinerary, researching the destination, creating pack lists, planning meals, packing their bags, reading maps, and budgeting for the trip.

Learning about the costs and logistics involved in international travel will help them stay on track with their learning during the break in schooling, and help prevent the summer slide from impacting their academic performance when they return to school.

New Experiences

New experiences and life skills go hand in hand, and travel offers plenty of opportunities for both. Travel provides the chance to share your interests with your children, and teach them new skills. Family holidays are the perfect opportunity to share new experiences with your child. 

If you're travelling to another part of your country, encourage your child to make an effort to learn about the destination, history, landmarks, attractions, and wildlife in the area. If you are visiting a child-friendly favourite beach or holiday location where they have been before, spur them on to explore beyond what they have done before, whether that’s surfing, fishing, hiking, or something more adventurous.

Memories

One of the biggest benefits of holidaying with your children is creating family memories. Children grow up fast, so it’s important to prioritise family holidays to look back on and recall the different phases of life as a family unit, and the adventures you shared. We all remember our special family holidays that left a lasting impression on us as children. 

Whether it’s the trip where your flight was cancelled, you got lost on the road, got upgraded to a posh hotel, camped in the rain, or excelled in an activity like sailing or skiing; these memories will be cherished forever, and shape your child as they move through life.

Regardless of whether your holidays are exotic overseas trips or wholesome weekends at the beach or pool, these moments of quality time and adventure have an impact on children and their parents alike. Make the most of the school holidays by scheduling time to travel with your child and family, and create special memories together.

Adventure and Bonding

Family holidays provide the perfect opportunity for adventure and bonding. Whether it's exploring a new city, hiking in nature, or enjoying water activities at the beach, these adventures create lasting memories and strengthen family bonds. Shared challenges, such as navigating unfamiliar places or trying new activities, bring families closer together.

The excitement of discovery and the thrill of trying something new contribute to a sense of unity and shared accomplishment. These shared experiences become the fabric of family stories, fostering a sense of connection that extends beyond the duration of the holiday.

Cultural Enrichment

Travel exposes children to diverse cultures, traditions, and perspectives, enriching their understanding of the world. Exploring new places provides an immersive education that goes beyond textbooks, allowing children to see, touch, and experience history and culture firsthand.

Whether it's tasting local cuisine, participating in cultural events, using holiday parks, or visiting historical sites, family holidays offer a unique opportunity for children to discover and broaden their horizons. Exposure to different cultures fosters open-mindedness, tolerance, and a global perspective, qualities that are increasingly important in our interconnected world.

Building Resilience

Navigating the challenges of travel, such as flight delays, language barriers, and adapting to new environments, helps children develop resilience and problem-solving skills. They learn to adapt to unexpected situations, manage their emotions, and find solutions to unforeseen problems.

These valuable life skills gained during family holidays contribute to a child's overall development and preparedness for future challenges. As parents guide their children through the complexities of travel, they play a crucial role in nurturing resilience and fostering a positive attitude towards facing the uncertainties that life may present.

Holidaying with children is one of the most rewarding ways to spend the school holidays. Not only do children have the opportunity to learn in new ways and have novel experiences, but family holidays also create memories that you will look back on fondly in the years to come.

Adults need to keep children learning over the break and the holidays, and travel is a great way to do that. If your child needs a learning boost before returning to school, enrol them in a NumberWorks’nWords holiday programme, to get them up to speed. 

Our holiday programmes include intensive sessions led by specialised maths and English tutors, providing individualised learning plans tailored to each student's goals. NumberWorks’nWords seamlessly integrates fun with learning, creating a supportive environment that fosters confidence and delivers tangible results. To discover more about holiday programmes for your child, reach out to your local centre or book a free assessment to learn more about the enriching opportunities we offer.