Kirstie Allsop's 15 Year Old Son

As I regularly tell my five year old "different families have different rules"

Maybe she is announcing this to bring him further into the public eye with the idea that he will present a TV travel show eventually?

I've already commented about both my son's trips at a similar age.
I think good for Kirstie to allow him to spread his winds.
He may ha e had a ' support team' close by, he may not. However it had given the lad a chance to explore and figure things out.

I have quite a few friends whose adult children are in their late 20s and mum is still rushing home to cook tea for them and treating them as if they were 9!

Well there’s lots Ms Allsopp and I disagree on and this isn’t the biggest issue. Can’t stand the woman Why make it personal? The discussion isn't about whether you like her not.

C’mon, she’s loaded and he’s been on hundreds of foreign holidays since he was a baby so it’s hardly trekking in Afghanistan, is it?

My same age DS on the other hand has never been abroad as we’re skint, so I don’t think he’d be up for inter-railing just yet as he doesn’t have the experience. He’s never even caught a bus on his own as there are no rural public buses around here. 🤔

My parents were very chilled as well about this sort of stuff. Allowed to wander off to cities hundreds of miles away from age 14, travel to London, Italy, Spain from ages 14/15/16. No mobile phone (around 2001)
It wasn’t very safe at all in hindsight BUT it’s made me very confident travelling, good at risk assessing and navigating unknown places, bookings, problem solving, picking up languages fast.
I hope I get let my own DD have some of that freedom, but with much more safety provisions like emergency credit card, mobile phones, trackers on bags etc

I’m cynical about this. She always seem to a conterversial holiday/family story. Remember her and her husband traveling first class and the kids in cattle and breaking the ipads? The stories are always self reported and just as a new TV series is coming out.

Your post didn’t sound nasty at all. I think whoever replied must have mixed you with someone else!

Yes, this kind of trip is manageable aged 15 / 16. I'd assume that's what KA's son was doing

When I was 15 / 16, I went to Europe on my own three times, to stay with families on a language exchange. Quite an adventure, but nothing like my Interrail experiences as a student

I should add, I do agree that kids need more freedom. 14/15 years travelling independently is fine - with phones, internet and being able to take pre paid cards etc it is so much easier than it was even 20/30 years ago!

Never mind monkey boys, most kids left school at 14 and were considered adults in my grandparents generation around WW1 period, around 100 years ago. A lot of young girls were in service in strange houses living there full time in charge of real fires, laundry with some nasty chemicals if you got it wrong. Most of them will have emerged unscathed and perfectly fine. We baby children more and more- as long as we risk assess, and put plans in place to mitigate risk, it will be as safe as them going into their local town for the day/evening.

Well there’s lots Ms Allsopp and I disagree on and this isn’t the biggest issue. Can’t stand the woman.

DD and DS1 at that age wouldn’t have coped with that. However, DS2 (currently 15) would be perfectly fine as he is more sensible and a good problem solver.

What @RhubarbAndCustardSweets said. When I went to school many left to go to work and start their adult life post 'O'levels.

A lot aren't. I know as we phoned a lot of them (the kids booked the flight before the accommodation so I ended up getting involved when we realised they couldn't find anywhere to stay).
hostel accommodation in the uk often out too.

Very good point.

I think it's too young- they've got their whole lives ahead to travel. My dd is young in her year and went at the end of A-levels when she was still 17 but all her friends were 18. Even then I wished she was 18- we had to name one of her friends as the responsible adult looking after her in order to get insurance. There's also the issue of drinking underage and getting into nightclubs - she was the only one of her friends below the legal limit.

She presumably knows her kid, though. Good for him. Bet he had fun.

That’s a great story, how interesting

however

1. british navy still using cat on nine tails at time of trafalgar and disciple on board was “rigid” as an understatement
2. what we now consider as anal rape was not unknown on ships, even Royal Navy. Small boys in the sole charge of a group of older men, who are at sea for often weeks, is not a mix that will end well for everyone. Who the hell knows what these powder moneys, or drum boys went through? It was just not discussed then….

My son did a solo trip like that with his friends when he was 15 and his friends were 16. They did all the planning but parents kept a pretty close eye and were a bit of a support team. I was a bit concerned obviously but my son managed perfectly and it was the first of many adventures and he is now an independent, capable young man. If they can, and are responsible enough, it's a brilliant experience.

Well sure if they are taking your money then you get to control it, but that’s not an automatic assumption at 18. Lots of kids work and pay for themselves and thus decide where they go.

Much as I dislike KA as a TV face and general patronising bossyboots, I suspect she's not the sort of mum who showers her kids with money and credit cards. It's practically intrinsic to her personality that she'd tend towards the opposite, I think. She'd give him a ham sandwich and a kagool and tell him to make his own way to the station.

Not too young to be registered as a young carer - to not have normal teen life, to wipe arse, feed, change bed linen, remember about meds and never have carefree time (my neighbour). But to go travelling? Nooooo, perish the thought.

I think it's brilliant. Not sure I'd be so relaxed with my own 15 year old doing this but so many kids have no idea how to fend for themselves which follows them into adulthood. You only have to look at some of the teams on Race Around The World to see they have no idea how to budget or use public transport or where countries are.

I went abroad on holiday with friends at 17. Looking back we were very young. But we were sensible and always stuck together. Kirsty knows her son best.

On the hostel/hotel thing, it could have all been pre-booked and paid for by her and the hotels had parental permission on their records? More likely she has lots of friends in various places though.

I would prefer mine in hostels with other young people than in posh hotels with older ones.

I am now a slightly anxious adult who overthinks and finds travel a bit of a challenge

Same here. I used to be much more adventurous than I am now, although never the sort of person who would have gone to Equador and slept in a tent with creepie crawlies (which a friend of the same age did and laughed at me when I said yuck). But interrailing around Europe would have been amazing, it wasn't something I could have afforded as a late teen/student.

When I was 17 I went to Germany on my own to stay with a friend. Weird to think that these days it might not have been allowed in case I was being trafficked!