I’m torn on this as yes it’s very annoying for your teens to do this on holiday, but I also think it’s meant to be their holiday too, and it’s a really difficult stage of life. Are they girls/boys/do they have any body or self esteem worries? Imagine being on your period or very self conscious about yourself as a teen and the expectation to be in the pool, plus all sorts of other things you can’t quite articulate to yourself.
I remember being taken to nice bits of France at that age; and I wanted to enjoy it — I also had an image in my head of having nice holiday — but in reality I was hormonal and hot and had my period, so I wanted to swim but I also didn’t want to wear a swimming costume in front of other people. I tried using tampons so I could swim, but couldn’t get on with them and that made me feel wretched too, as I felt there must be something wrong with me. I had an idea that a great holiday ought to involve being Beach Ready and Meeting A Boy and having a romantic time, but in reality I was shy and awkward with glasses and felt fat and frumpy (and hot). My younger siblings were having a great time time in the pool and eating pizza and ice cream, but I felt I shouldn’t be eating ice cream because I needed to lose weight and was furious at myself for having puppy fat, and so every time my parents offered ice creams, etc., I was snarly and rude. I was also tired all the time because I struggled to sleep and the camp beds were uncomfortable, so I really resented having to get up and go to see whatever Roman amphitheatre or chateau was on the sightseeing list that day. All this (and the heat) made me angry and sulky, upset with myself and rude to everyone else, because I was jealous of my siblings being carefree little kids, annoyed about my period spoiling things, and also jealous of the beautiful slightly older tanned French girls in the pool playing ball with the boys while pasty pale plump old me sulked furiously in a tent in my frumpy M&S shorts, reading PG Wodehouse and copies of Mizz.
Anyway, you get what I mean: you might be thinking why are these ungrateful little toerags so rude and lazy, but holidays are a minefield for teen anxieties and self esteem issues, and everyone else might be thinking “this is great, let’s see some sights!”, but your teens may be beset by all sorts of weird teenage preoccupations that we have forgotten but were actually quite awful to live through.
We usually do a “sightseeing” holiday, but when DD gets to that age I am completely planning to just do some kind of AI beach resort, where she can sulk in a hotel room all day on her phone, while I do no sightseeing at all and just eat and have massages and lie by the pool. Then it doesn’t matter whether she gets up at 2pm or not 😆