There are many bonuses to working from home. No arguing over who is making the next round of teas, being able to pop out to the shop whenever you like and not having to read Dave from Accounts’ passive aggressive Post-It notes are all good examples.

And some would suggest that being able to be at home when the kids are off school is another. And, in theory, it is. But we don’t live in theory. We live in reality. In chaotic, disruptive, noisy reality.

There are a number of perils to working from home in the school holidays. And here they are.

Perils of working from home

1.   Noise

Kids are loud. So loud. In fact, you know that their teachers use the school holidays to sit in a dark, silent room and enjoy the blessed peace for a week. Whether they are arguing, joking around, play fighting, battling zombies on the console or watching some nonsense on Netflix, it is nigh on impossible to concentrate on a spreadsheet or that important Teams call with the CEO if there are children in the home.

2.   Disruptions

You sit down, get settled in and focus your mind on the task at hand. Just as you are about to send an important email to a potentially massive client, your youngest pops their head round the door and complains that they are hungry. Five minutes after their last meal.

Throughout the day, you find yourself fielding requests for food and drink, refereeing fall-outs and diagnosing the reason that the eldest feels like his “brain is itchy.” Good luck finishing that email.

3.   Dad guilt/employee guilt

You’re not really working, you’re not really parenting and it is easy to feel guilty for both of these. Your productivity drops and the children don’t get your full attention and there really is no way to make both work without spending the day with the children and then working all night. Which leads to exhaustion and increased feelings of guilt. It’s a vicious cycle.

4.   All the screen time

Screen time isn’t the root of all evil, but that doesn’t mean that you want your children to spend all of their holidays on devices. Everything in moderation, and all that. But, if you are trying to hit your deadlines, you can find yourself shoving an iPad in your kids’ mitts in order to get a stretch of ten minutes where you don’t hear the words “I’m bored!” bellowing up the stairs.

The solution

Simply hoping you can complete a full week’s work whilst the kids are in the house is unrealistic. They spend the time around the house and isolated from other kids and you turn in substandard work.

Signing your children up to Barracudas holiday camps gets them out of the house and gives you some quality time to crack on with work and allows them to enjoy more than 80 activities and meet new friends too. There are 50 different camps to choose from and they are Ofsted rated, with a mountain of great reviews on Trustpilot from thankful parents! They also do long days, so you could divide up the week, get plenty done whilst they are out of the house and then have a couple of days when you can completely concentrate on them too.

Visit the Barracudas website to find out more about avoiding the perils of working from home in the school holidays. Use code: DADS23 for an extra £20 off your booking.*

*Expires 14th July 2023