Search icon

Lifestyle

22nd Jul 2017

The JOE guide to… surviving the summer holidays with kids

Aaron Gillies

The children have been set free.

Like zombies with fidget spinners they are everywhere, ready to strike, making everything sticky and covering everything in pokemon or pogs or whatever these kids are down with nowadays. The next 6 to 8 weeks can be trying for some people, so here is a guide to get you through the summer, be it if you have children, or if you are simply a functioning alcoholic looking to get away from any sort of realism.

A semi permanent idea

This may seem radical, but hear me out. As we have learnt from many sci-fi films, people can be put into a state of suspended animation, a technique usually used by colonists in films where an extra terrestrial force starts gobbling up the crew one by one, but this concept could be the way to help those who need a bit of piece and quiet during the summer holidays.

Step 1, empty out a drawer in your freezer, make sure all excess ice is scraped away. Step 2, whilst your child is asleep place them into the freezer to put them into a state of suspended animation (if you are nervous about this perhaps try it with a cat or corgeuette first). Step 3, thaw the child a few days before school starts again. Simple. (Disclaimer, none of this plan has been researched and any frozen children are your responsibility and not the responsibility of the website or the author).

Image result for passengers movie

A more realistic idea

You know how dog kennels work? Well. This is nothing like that. What I am proposing is some sort of purgatory style soft play, a universe that exists directly next to ours, that can be accessed via a system of portals, where time goes significantly faster and children can be left for an hour in purgatory time, but 6 weeks pass on earth. I will create a kickstarter for this as soon as I get the time.

Related image

An actual realistic idea

I mean we should try the freezing thing if we can.

Image result for but why not gif

Ok fine an actual realistic idea

In 2015 Donald Trump arrived at an idea called ‘The Border Wall’, to take some inspiration from this, I propose a similar wall, but around Wales. Parents place their children in a trebuchet that fires them into Wales, and then 6 weeks later a man returns them, once again via trebuchet. No one knows what happens inside the wall, if the children make it out unharmed, they are given a years supply of panda pops.

Image result for trebuchet gif

What people should do

Children are like adults, they eat human food, they enjoy going outside, and their main emotion is anger. The best way to entertain your children during the summer break is to do things with them.

Children’s ideas of fun change on a regular basis, one week it’s stamp collecting the next week they want to learn the tin whistle, it’s difficult to keep track, but one method is proven to work, throw them in the sea. Children love being thrown in the sea. If you are an adult human who likes to avoid children, avoid the sea, it will be full of children for the next few weeks.

Image result for throw kid john wayne gif

The real way

We treat summer as a break, as an escape from reality, we teach children that every year they get a large section of free time to enjoy themselves. We need to prepare our children for the real world, for adult life, where there is no free time, no enjoyment, just the unrelenting march of apathy, accidental naps and debt. Use your summer breaks to teach your children real life lessons they don’t learn at school.

Teach them how to drink 16 coffees in a day but still feel sleepy. Teach them how to do taxes without any receipts whilst slightly hungover. Teach them how to get angry in internet comments sections. Teach them how to drive a car. Teach them how to keep their emotions bottled up but sometimes cry in the shower. Teach them how to adult.

Life is not a summer holiday on the beach, life is being stuck in an office and hearing about other people have fun and slightly falling deeper into madness.