For many parents, the school holidays are something to look forward to. Six weeks of slower mornings, family days out and a break from the usual routine. For single parents, however, the end of term often signals the beginning of a logistical challenge that has been months in the making.

With no school, limited annual leave and childcare costs that can quickly spiral into thousands of pounds over the summer, making the holidays work is rarely about finding one solution. Instead, as the responses from the Frolo community show, it's about piecing together a complicated jigsaw of holiday clubs, grandparents, flexible working, favours and careful planning, all while hoping nothing unexpected throws the whole thing off balance.

When we asked single parents how they manage childcare during the summer holidays, very few described having a system that felt straightforward. Instead, almost everyone talked about compromise.

For some, that compromise starts with accepting that annual leave is no longer something reserved for holidays. One mum explained that she uses every day she has simply to make work fit around childcare, writing: "Solo mummy here. I have to use all my annual leave to work reduced hours to be able to do the holiday club hours – so no break in the six-week holidays for us." Another echoed the same frustration, saying she has "only got 10 days off in the whole six weeks" because she has to make five weeks' leave stretch across the entire school year. One parent has even purchased additional annual leave from work, explaining that she is now working three-day weeks throughout the summer while relying on grandparents and working from home whenever she can.

Even where employers offer flexibility, working from home doesn't necessarily solve the problem. Instead, it often creates a new balancing act, with parents trying to be fully present for both their children and their employers at the same time. One dad described the experience as "treading water", explaining that he uses flexitime to make things work, setting his children up with activities before spending time with them "at random points of the day". Others admitted that home working comes with its own emotional cost. "Thankfully I can work from home some days," one parent wrote, "but then you feel guilty not being able to work at full capacity... can't win."

Again and again, parents returned to the idea that there is no single answer. Instead, they build what one respondent described as a "mixture" of different childcare options, adapting week by week depending on work commitments and who is available to help. One parent summed it up simply: "Mine are too old to need childcare now but it was a mixture of annual leave, holiday clubs and grandparents." Another described managing the holidays with what amounted to a carefully planned spreadsheet combining grandparents, annual leave, family holidays, childcare swaps with friends and, in later years, working from home. Others talked about relying on "clubs, annual leave and working from home in between", while another listed "annual leave, some sort of club, swaps with friends" as her yearly routine.

Grandparents feature heavily in many responses, offering practical support that often makes the difference between parents being able to work or not. Yet just as many comments serve as a reminder that not everyone has that safety net. "Solo with no support," one Frolo member wrote. "Mix of holiday clubs and random days off. Going to be a struggle." Another explained simply: "No father involved, no support. Five weeks of paid childcare unfortunately." Reading through the responses, it's impossible to ignore how differently families experience the school holidays depending on the support network around them.

Alongside the practical challenges sits the financial reality. Holiday clubs may enable parents to keep working, but they come at a significant cost, particularly over six consecutive weeks. Some respondents described paying for as much childcare as they could afford before filling the remaining gaps with annual leave and home working. Others were more blunt. Asked how they manage childcare during the holidays, one parent replied simply: "Expensively, in ways I cannot truly afford." Another described the summer as "big childcare costs, some annual leave and some days with them working from home with me. It's an expensive juggle."

Perhaps the most striking thing about the responses wasn't the practical advice but the emotional honesty running through them. Parents spoke repeatedly about feeling stressed, exhausted and guilty. Guilty for relying on grandparents. Guilty for using holiday clubs. Guilty for trying to work while their children were at home. Even those who had found arrangements that worked admitted that those solutions often came at a personal cost.

The responses also challenge the assumption that the school holidays are a time of rest for parents. For many single parents, they represent six weeks of meticulous planning, difficult financial decisions and constant compromise. There is no perfect formula and, despite the variety of answers, very few people suggested they had found one.

Instead, what emerges from the Frolo community is a picture of remarkable resilience. Parents are buying extra annual leave, swapping childcare with friends, calling on grandparents where they can, working flexibly when employers allow it and somehow stitching together six weeks that often seem impossible on paper. It isn't easy, and it certainly isn't cheap, but year after year they make it work.

If there is one comforting message to take from the discussion, it's that nobody is struggling alone. Almost every parent who responded described some version of the same experience: constantly adapting, constantly juggling and constantly trying to give their children the best summer they can. The solutions may all look slightly different, but the feeling behind them is strikingly familiar.

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