For working parents and working mums, who tend to be the primary organisers, school holidays can represent a planning nightmare! You will have six weeks or more of time to fill for your children, well aware that this is quality family time, irreplaceable for family bonding purposes. You can’t help but think how the months and years are flying by and how, before you know it, the children will be all grown up and on their way. In an ideal world, you would want to spend the entire summer holiday with the children as well, taking time to soak in the summer. In this respect, wouldn’t it be great if you could take a six-week vacation as well?

Then reality strikes home. If you are self-employed, you realise that holidays are few and far between anyway as you work to develop your business.

If you are employed, you understand that your boss cannot afford to be without you for the entire period of time either, but hopefully he or she is understanding and at least a little bit flexible, as this will make all the difference.

You have important decisions ahead and professional coaching can help you to unravel the answers.

You may need to juggle your parenting time between mum and dad and this is the time to see just how flexible your respective employers are. In certain circumstances, dad will take his two week holiday first and then when he gets back, mum will take her two week period. While this might “cover” for four weeks, it is hardly an ideal situation. For the younger children, this could be simply confusing and if you learn anything from online coaching advice, you know that you need to try and bring together that all important family fabric as much as possible.

Maybe this is time to investigate the concept of telecommuting, which is becoming much more popular and might be a solution for you? If the boss will allow it, try and operate from home during the summer, at least part of the time, allowing you to be more flexible with your hours and more attentive to the kids. If you are thinking along these lines, you should try and introduce this concept slowly before the holidays arrive, to show just how well it could work.

As the kids get a little older, you will find that there are many holiday clubs on offer – a whole range from football to dance and drama. You need to make sure that they are in the better clubs, though, which means that you have to plan early to account for the demand.

Summer holidays might mean that you have to get really creative about how you fit in your work responsibilities, so you will have to plan carefully if you are going to make them as easy as possible. Seek professional coaching to help you with this planning, as there’s no reason for you to be floundering around in the dark these days, with so many online coaching resources to help!

Amanda Alexander, Director of Coaching Mums, helps pressure-cooked, stressed working mums who long for more hours in the day. Through her coaching programmes and online life coaching courses, Amanda shows mums how to create fulfilling and successful lives. For your simple 5 step guide to balance as a working mum, download our free eBook today!