Kids’ clubs – how to tell your toddler
I do love travelling with my daughter. I also love having the occasional break on our trips, especially if it’s just the two of us. And that means checking out the kids’ club.
We’ve had great experiences (at least twice I’ve struggled to persuade her to leave this magical room full of toys on my return) and not so great experiences, including a rather bare room and a mild language barrier.
Because she goes to nursery part-time at home, it’s not quite such a weird experience for her. Which is fortunate because on almost every occasion my departure is greeted with wails. Temporary wails, thankfully, but heart-wrenching, guilt-inducing ones all the same.
Which got me thinking about the best way to handle leaving your child at a kids’ club, especially when they’re aged two or three.
Option 1: Tell them your plans in advance – that at whatever point of the trip, they’ll be going to the kids’ club. That’s instinctively my preferred option, especially now Minnie is old enough to anticipate events and get a sense of time.
As I’ve learned, this comes with its own drawbacks. Because her grasp of time is still slightly shaky, she can end up worrying and thinking about it for hours or days until the moment comes – at which point events play out exactly the same as…
Option 2: Make casual reference to it on the day (do you want to play with the hotel’s toys later?) then a fairly matter-of-fact departure.
In practice, this seems the most successful despite brief tears. Not a complete surprise but no long drawn-out build-up or farewell.
Option 3: Let her get engrossed in playing and sneak off when she’s not looking.
I simply can’t bring myself to do this. I’ve had it suggested to me, and perhaps there’s no tears on departure but I hate the idea she’ll look around, I’ve vanished and she has no idea when I’m coming back. Or worse, if I’m coming back.
With options 1 and 2, there are almost inevitably sobs as I go but they’re short-lived, I’ve had chance to settle her in and a decent kids’ club will be able to calm her down and distract her pretty quickly as I loiter out of sight in the corridor reminding myself that fun will ensue very shortly.
Because option 4 (no kids’ club at all) isn’t always practical – or necessarily desirable for her. During her last session, she managed to learn a word of German (sternly saying ‘nein’ as she ticked off a German boy double her age), improved her balancing skills in soft play and helped build a train track.
What do you think? Would you or do you take your children to kids’ club on holidays? And any failsafe ways to leave without tears? Let me know…
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I’ve never used anything like this. I would do as the children get older and want to go to clubs but at the moment, we enjoy spending time together as a family on our holidays.x
I agree, I wouldn’t want her to be in a kids’ club for the whole time (unless she wanted to!) as it slightly defeats the point of holidaying together 🙂 We’ve done a short session (eg one 2h block) on a few trips as I’m usually working in some capacity while we’re travelling though.
We had this trouble on our recent ski holiday. My two year old hasn’t been to nursery so after his initial excitement of being placed in the toddler club, he steadfastly refused to return. With a summer holiday coming up, I’m not quite sure how to ready him for another stint.
Oh that must have been really difficult – I always get myself through the departure tears by reminding myself she always has a great time. If she refused to go, that would be hard. Perhaps the extra months will help a little? Fingers crossed for you.
Master ATWWAH loves kids clubs if we stay with him 🙂 we left him once when he was about 18 months old and got a phone call after 15 minutes to ask us to collect him as they couldn’t stop him crying.
He goes or nursery three days a week but I don’t think it makes any difference as it is a new environment.
I sometimes moan to Mr ATWWAH that we never get time to ourselves on holiday but I figure when he and his little brother are older they will be desperate to spend time away from us on holiday so we should enjoy it now.
Ah… at least you both get the new toys I suppose! It’s true, it’s such a difference, a new environment and new people than their familiar nursery at home – what a shame he was so upset though.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with your options… I agree, I can’t being myself to sneak off, either. In Thailand, it was the first time we did it, only for 2 hours at the most – but we were surprised how much he loved it. I think it may be the fact he was bored of us – and there were plenty of new toys to keep him entertained!
I think that’s it – a lot of the time, once you’re over the initial departure, they often have such a wonderful time with new toys, new people to play with (otherwise obviously I wouldn’t keep doing it!). But I do wish we could bypass the wails as well…
I think I hover between 1 and 2, if that’s possible. 3 I just can’t do. My toddler is used to being dropped off at nursery but he doesn’t handle surprises well (why would he?). In June we have a wedding with a babysitting service, and he’ll be required to go to sleep there… I am expecting all sorts of hysterics and I’m prepared to have to cut my losses and forgo my dinner, but we’ll give it a shot. I think we’ll tell him the day before what the plans are, so it gives him a bit of time to think about it but not too much to fret! Wish me luck…
Fingers crossed. I think that’s a nice compromise to give a bit of time to talk it over and let them know but hopefully not so long that there’s a day of tears and worry – after all, who would like to be told, OK we’re just leaving you here now, I’ll be back later. Hope you have a wonderful time.