#Blessed: Five games for the school holidays your kids will hate
And you will also hate the games too.
The school holidays are in full swing! Who doesn’t love enforced family time and the desperate attempts to keep your job while balancing looking after your kids!
Do you need tips for making sure your school holidays are #Blessed? Here are some great games slash activities you can try these holidays! Your kids will hate them and so will you. But anyway!
There’s nothing my joyous than two weeks of entertaining kids while having no money to do it. So here are five great games that cost nothing but your sanity.
Let’s go!
The ‘One Hour Trying To Decide What To Do’ Game
Instructions: Tell your kids with great cheer that they get to pick what activity you do today. But the fun part is - it has to be free and you have to be able to take the dog.
Rules: You must keep calm when they disagree over and over again about what to do for over an hour. Eventually, you will have to come up with an activity, this will be a bush walk, and they will hate it.
Example:
Kid one: “What about the beach?”
Kid two: “Will I get sandy?”
Parent: “Well, it is the beach and there is sand”.
Kid one: “Well, I don’t want to get wet”.
Parent: “If you don’t get in the water you won’t get wet”.
Kid two: “What if we don’t go on sand”
Parent: “That’s going to be hard at the beach”.
Kid one: “I don’t like the beach”.
[Repeat for 60 whole long minutes].
The Money Doesn’t Grow On Trees Challenge
Instructions: Explain that there’s a budget for the school holidays and the kids get to choose activities that fit within that budget. Once the budget has been spent, that’s it. Watch as the kids act like they’ve never even come across money before, despite the fact that they’re always asking for it.
Rules: First, you’ll need to listen to an impassioned plea that an $8 sorbet is not only necessary, but essential. And that it should not come out of the school holiday budget and if it does, well that is SO UNFAIR. I AM SO SICK OF HOW UNFAIR YOU ARE MUM!
Then, you’ll need to close your eyes and imagine you are in a yurt with Pedro Pascal, chocolate dipped strawberries and a bottle of champagne.
Example:
Parent: “If you want to buy a plushie from the gift shop, use your saved money”.
Child: “No, I only want it if you buy it”.
Two rounds of ‘Well, I’m Not Matt’s Mother’
Instructions: After taking your kids to the bike path and helping them scooter around for an hour, then taking them to Te Papa for 47 minutes, then taking them on a bush walk where they complained for the whole 18 minutes about how their legs hurt - listen to them say that it’s not fair because Matt’s mother is taking him to Queenstown for the school holidays and he gets to go on the gondola and he gets to go snowboarding and he gets to find find gold in Arrowtown real gold and he gets to see bungy jumping and all they get to do is have your undivided attention for the day.
After this, tell them “Well, I’m not Matt’s Mother” then put on noise cancelling headphones so you don’t have to hear another hour of whingeing.
Rules: You must talk about how in your day, you had to go to the free church school holiday programme and that if they keep complaining you’ll make them spend the next hour memorising the books of the bible.
When your child says: “Matt’s mum makes cookies at home and he never has to clean up after”. You are not allowed to say “Well, why don’t you live with Matt’s mum then?”.
Example:
Child: “You have never done anything fun for us in our whole lives! You have never done anything for us ever!”.
Parent: *exasperated sigh*
The Errands Game
Instructions: Do the errands you have to do but take the kids and pretend it’s a school holiday activity. Try to fool them into thinking shopping at the supermarket is fun, even though you want to cry every time you go.
Rules: You must keep calm as 40 minutes of errands becomes a three hour ordeal of constant moaning.
Example:
Parent: “I just have to pick up a script from the chemist then I’ll be finished. If we just go in and out, it will be over quickly”.
Child one: “Can I have this?” *Holds up gift box set of Linden Leaves hand cream*
Child two: “Mum! Mum! I need to wee right now!”
Child one: “PLEASE MUM MUM MUM MUM can I have this?” *Holds up box of Optifast fat burning chocolate milkshake mix*
Pharmacist: “Sorry what was that last name?”
Child two: “MUM! MUM!”
Child one: “MUM! This tooth paste is candy floss MUM I SAID THIS TOOTH PASTE IS CANDY FLOSS”.
The Work From Home Delusion Adventure
Instructions: For this game, you’ll need to absolutely forget everything you know about parenting and working. You’ll have to pretend that you can work while looking after your kids. Convince yourself that they’ll sit down for a movie while you do a bit of work because you have no leave left and the bills need to be paid.
Rules: Step one is to spend two hours listening to your children argue over what movie they will watch before settling on a film they’ve seen 800 times. Step two is to turn on your laptop. The second you do this, your children will be on you. You must multi-task and do two jobs badly. Make sure you yell “Stop yelling” it’s part of the game.
Example:
Your boss: “Is now still a good time?”
*Children screaming*
Parent: “Of course! What do you need?”
*Sounds of smashing, a jackhammer you didn’t know you owned is heard*
Your boss: “Look, it really sounds like you’re busy. Can you work or not?”
Parent: “I sure can! I-PUT THAT DOWN! I NEED FIVE MINUTES! FIVE MINUTES THAT’S ALL! NO FIGHTING!”
Enjoy the “holidays’ and remember to be grateful! If you have your kids at home, don’t complain because lots of parents would love that but they can’t afford to do that. And if you have your kids in a school holiday programme, don’t complain because lots of parents can’t afford to do that. And if you are enjoying the school holidays don’t say that because you’ll make other parents feel bad. And if you feel stressed just don’t feel stressed because in my day we cherished every moment. And don’t you know some people can’t have kids? And why did you have kids if you can’t afford them? And honestly, parents these days complain so much. I love every second of the holidays what is wrong with you? In my day, we just got on with it, why can’t you just get on with it?
What is that burning smell?
Solidarity! You can do it! Arohanui, Emily x
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