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. This makes you feel as if you want to spend the whole of the summer holidays with your children, as you soak in those summer rays. In this respect, wouldn’t it be great if you could take a six-week vacation as well?

But reality bites! 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. This could take care of four weeks, but it’s not really a palatable position to be in. 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? Talk with your supervisor and see if it might be possible for you to operate from home over the summer holidays, or at least during part of this vacation, so that you can be much more flexible and allocate some of those precious hours to the children. Plan in advance to show your supervisor how effective and efficient you can be, by trying this concept before the summer holidays come along.

If your children are a little older, why not consider enrolling them in holiday clubs, maybe a dance club, drama club or to play football? Plan as far in advance as you can as the best holiday clubs get snapped up relatively early.

The summer holidays call for a great deal of creativity on your part, when you have to fit in all your work duties and demands and make sure that you plan accordingly to make this time as smooth 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 is the Director of Coaching Mums and a widely renowned ICF-accredited coach who delivers professional coaching programmes to working mums across the globe who long for more time, balance and fulfilment in their busy lives. Download our free eBook especially for working mums with 5 easy ways to achieve balance.