Schooltermpreneur: is it possible to be true to the name?

The school term is over, once again. For my kid it's another set of achievements, peppered with the odd hat parade, awards ceremony, parent-teacher meeting, and first experience on the SRC. It's also a time of navigating conflict in the playground, noise levels in class, the joy of a healthier lunch-box, and sticking to the where-we-can-run and where-we-can't-run at school rule. For me it's yet another two weeks of stopping my business to be mum. Full-time mum.

I first wrote about the idea of stopping work in school holidays in a blog on my Triple Win website a year ago. I called this kind of business owner or entrepreneur a Schooltermpreneur. At the time I realised that the idea of working through the holidays was not a win for me, not a win for my child, and not a win for all those around us.

I was missing out on holiday fun and that rare chance of being with my child for more than just late afternoons and weekends in a normal week.

He was missing out on the wonderful things that parents and kids can do together in the school holidays (like have adult playdates when the kids come along - something I love doing with my friend Kristy and her kids, for instance).

The people around us were being affected by the fact that we were both less satisfied when the holidays ended than if we had changed mode and really been on holiday together with just a few days doing other things (like vacation care for him and social and small work commitments for me).

Rather than a triple win, this was a triple lose. However, changing things a bit could create a triple win - for him, for me and for those around us. In the article I addressed how working only during school terms is possible. I posed the idea that it can be successful, particularly if you change your expectations and your income strategy. I have had four terms to practice this since. Certainly, I have never stopped working altogether through a holiday, but I have set the default to not working rather than to working for the 12 weeks of school holidays a year. Now a funny thing happened when my family and I visited the land of my birth over the December holidays - while the not working default was in place, there was some joyous work that just emerged by itself - an international relaunch of my book, The Mentor Within, and a workshop for staff at SAQA (the South Africa Qualifications Authority) and a few other lovely bits and bobs. But because I was not meant to be working, these were just a bonus.

Recently I have heard of many parents, especially mums, who have given up work altogether because they can't juggle the time pressures. I have heard of others who have retrained as teachers to get the school holidays.

My method is another option: to plan intense and powerful work during school terms and time to slow down in the holidays and really BE with my child. While I will be spending about an hour a day keeping things on track, that is all I will allow myself until the school term starts again.

I'd love to hear how you do it if you are a parent.