Navigating school holidays after a divorce

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5th Aug 2025
News & Insights

Jennifer Peebles

Partner

There is one universal truth about school holidays: they’re a juggle. There is pressure to balance work commitments with ensuring children are cared for, entertained and enjoy quality time with the family. For parents that have separated, there is often an extra layer of complexity because of fractures in the relationships and logistical challenges that come with living apart.

Early planning can make things far easier. By agreeing where your children will stay, when and for how long over the six or more weeks of school holidays, both parents can properly prepare for their time with, and without, their children. You can arrange for time to be spent with grandparents and other wider family members, as well as plan trips and generally ensure that things will work for both parents and, most importantly, for the children.

While we encourage clients to have a plan in place, we also advise them to be prepared to be flexible; even the best laid plans sometimes need tweaking in ways that may work ‘for’ or ‘against’ you. Flexibility and compromise may not come easily to some parents in the throws or aftermath of divorce, and that’s understandable but it’s important that the needs of the children come first, even where that means one parent doesn’t get exactly what they’d planned or hoped for.

As family lawyers, we see the benefits families gain from trying to cooperate with one another to make life work after a separation or divorce. Of course, there are situations in which this just isn’t possible because the relationship is so severely broken but where there is a way of talking things through with a former partner and agreeing a resolution between yourselves, so much the better. (It’s also worth bearing in mind that flexibility tends to be reciprocated, so saying ‘yes’ on one occasion could mean you receive similar cooperation from your ex in the future.)

Sometimes discussions between a former couple need some external help, either from family law solicitors like us or from a mediator. These are two routes worth exploring if you are having difficulty in working through a child arrangement-related, or any other family law, issue. Our team is here to advise you on your options and to help you resolve situations without having to involve the family court.

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