Tell me about your kid being an ungrateful wretch on holiday

[MorrisZapp]

My son is 8 and we have just taken him on an amazing short break to London. Entire thing planned round him. Harry Potter tour, amazing lego shop, chain restaurants to satisfy his boring palate. We've had a great time but now heading home in hideous mood due to him being rude and ghastly in the last few hours of our trip.

I've just spent the last part of this holiday standing in Hyde Park in beautiful autumn sun having a three way raging row with DS and DP.

I never got given anything like this when I was a kid but I know my mum tore her hair out at our ingratitude and moaning when we did go on trips.

I'm not looking for advice, DS will grow up and become human, as I did.

I just want someone to say they've felt this frustration too, and maybe get some free gin or something... A AAAAAAAARGH

We took our two to disneyworld when they were 3 & almost 2.

It was too hot for them & they basically ate chips & strawberries for 10 days.

We came back & thought we’d all had an ok time (it certainly didn’t put us off going again a year later!), but as soon as the girls saw their childminder they told her about all the things they didn’t like 🤣

The time I put my hand on dds shoulder and frog marched her back to our hotel has gone down in family folk lore.

I can hear the story still being told in 200 years ' t'was day one, tantrum 2563 when shark finally snapped'.

You’re not making me feel good about the holiday we’re going on in four days!

Kids are shits. We love 'em & try to do best for them, but they can be total toerags. I don't often go on hol with mine.

I've just remembered this years delights with my sort of stepdaughters. Week all inclusive. My boys barely came out of their room. Beautiful place beautiful pool (s) I didn't actually mind. I checked on them periodically. Are you happy? 'Yes' great so off I trot to my sun lounger and book. Happy days! My partners now 14 year old did not give him a moment's peace. Until the last night she decided to join in the teen activities and decided that a week wasn't long enough I'd had the most relaxing holiday since my children were born

My children are 7 and 3 and we’ve only had two caravan holidays so far. That’s been stressful enough. What is it about holidays that turns kids into awful, entitled, miserable little shits?

Surely everyone must have seen that fucking meme flying around Facebook this summer? The one going We get 18 delicious summers with our children and this is one of them. If that’s not perspective, I don’t know what is? Aaaargh.

Or any other kind of patronising, guilt-inducing, “they grow up SO FAST” kind of shit?

The people who share that stuff and post endless #makingspecialmemories holiday photos, they go through this too, right? They’re just better at hiding it. Please say yes

I think we could all do with an awesome Jamaican Granny.

I actually refuse to do theme parks, legoland, Disney etc with my dc for these very reasons. They have a Disney Dad though and he is happy to do all that crap with them. Good on him.

Mine have been ok for a while now but they've just destroyed a nice evening in by bickering moaning and fighting about absolutely bloody nothing. At least I didn't pay for it.

Sometime parenting ungrateful little sods is bloody hard work.

Sending sympathies and gin.

Oh Jesus Morris, I'm going to the Harry Potter tour this week and I have a 9 year old (and 2 younger monsters). Am I going to cry in the queues ?

Our three enjoyed Disney Florida when the youngest was 9, but they’d have been as happy spending three weeks in the pool . California when the youngest was 18? They loved it all. Something that will knacker the parents out, is even more knackering for an 8 yea old. Harry
Potter would probably been enough (yep, I can only sat this with hindsight 😊)

My son let us know where he stood on outings on his second birthday.
We took him to the beach, he asked to have lunch straight away, it was a bit early but I said yes.
As soon as we finished the picnic he piped up “ can we go home now?”.
Since then it’s only got worse.

I just try to remember the time my parents took me on an amazing holiday when I was fifteen. I absolutely loved it. But spent the entire time complaining because I was just a bit of a dick at fifteen.

Oh blimey! 8 is a bit young for all this. Wait till he's 14 .

I've never been to any of the exotic and far flung places described on here but we do try to arrange trips and events for our dc that are closer to home, like Enchanted Christmasy events at a local EH place or Easter trails at a local NT place or trips to museums that display things they're specifically interested in or just trips out on their scooters or pushbikes. Without fail, one or both will whinge, whine and complain about it being boring or too long or not exciting enough or they're hungry etc etc. You can often hear me lecturing them about it being my weekend, holiday or time off work too, that they'd been pestering me to go somewhere and do something, that I'd put a lot of thought and effort into planning and arranging the trip and that sometimes we have to do things that we don't enjoy. I also rant at them about me not having that experience as a child, that we rarely went anywhere and that when we did I was bloody grateful except I wasn't; I do remember my mum losing her temper with my pouting, complaining and sulking when we were in Cornwall when I was 16 that she slapped my face. I've never actually gone that far with my dc when they've annoyed me.

my colleague had a camping trip planned with his 5 kids. This was in the 1970s so all planned but nothing booked, they were going to just turn up at their favourite campsite by a beach a couple of hours' drive away and stay for 2 weeks. He put up with the bickering and whingeing for the first half hour of the drive, thought "sod this" then turned around without saying a word and drove home.

Apparently it provided a very effective threat for the next 10 years!

My DH refused to go away on holiday when the DC were young "same hardwork but with added safety risks"

Think he spared us many a trauma!!!

My dd is generally fairly good on holiday, but I do remember her being utterly horrified at the Disneyland Paris it’s a small world ride where the kangaroo got its head chopped off by a boomerang. She was six at the time and went on and on about it until we promised to write a letter of complaint. She is now a vegetarian.
These days, as a teen, she suffers from pre holiday fear of boredom, but is usually fairly lovely when we get there.

My DH refused to go away on holiday when the DC were young "same hardwork but with added safety risks"

They should prominently display that on every travel website and in every travel agents'. Jeepers, it is so true.

I have only seen one French/Spanish/Italian child have a tantrum. They all sit so nicely and eat fecking octopus. And there are mine- 'mummy I'm too hot,' 'mummy the ice cream is too cold', 'he's annoying me,' can I have the ipad?'

Yep, my DS. Unless he's in the pool, next to the pool eating or spending money on shit holiday souvenirs from the shop next to the pool, he's vile.

My youngest ds can be like this . Moaned that he missed haloween last year as we were on holiday ( we're he went to a Haloween kids club party ) while simultaneously complaining that he wants to go back on holiday for haloween this year . Seriously.

He was mainly well behaved the last holiday except for one afternoon when he was tired I think and honestly I just about held my shit together in a restaurant when he was been an absolute brat, nothing was good enough , moan moan moan !! He's only like that on occasion thank god

Would you like to spend your birthday on a sandbar in the Bahamas? Boat trip, snorkelling, swimming, as much coke as you can drink etc. Yes? I thought my 15 year old would too. Nope. "I don't want to be on holiday on my birthday again Mum" he muttered on the boat trip back to the cruise ship when I asked if he'd had a good time 🤨

Oh no! Don't be put off Harry Potter studio tour, it's truly fab!

Took my ds to Canada last year. 24 hours of flights. He complained the entire time that he didn't like Canada, it was boring. Took him to Niagara Falls and he barely looked at it. Had a bored look on his face the entire time, which resulted in me ranting about bringing him to see one of the wonders of the world and I'd have loved to see it when I was a kid.

Now he says he wishes he was in Canada.

Mine can both be similar too - I have definitely come to the conclusion that the more you spend, the more whiny and crabby the kids are. I don’t know whether it’s because my expectations are higher or not but after being whinged at at various theme parks and in Paris (too much walking, and then too much sitting down on the tour bus, not enough ice cream in total - in the end their favourite part was walking along by the river and playing on some random exercise thing with a load of French children)

However, I also remember being so appalling on holiday in France at 14 (missed my friends and was bored of my parents) that they never took me on holiday again and used to leave my gran at our house while they flew off to the Caribbean!

Currently on holiday. I left a pizza n pasta restaurant last night with my 3 year old screaming "don't want to go home" repeatedly after he spent the 45 minutes in the restaurant shouting and generally being rude and obnoxious. My 7 year old rubbed my back as I cried, carrying the 3 yr old under my arm.

The 7 year old is sulking any time I tell her no e.g. to get another fizzy drink or chocolate or sweets.

I am at the end of my tether. My h is away with us but is tied up with other things (the reason we have come away) so I'm literally wrestling ungrateful children on my own.

Fuckers.

Next holiday I am going away on my own and drinking heavily. H owes me (he knows this) and I need time on my own.

Plus if I hear Baby Shark one .ore time I will lose it. I swear to god.

I actually have been that mum driving home from Disneyland at 11am, because my kids were just so badly behaved. We live in Los Angeles so it’s about an hour’s drive, and there was stunned silence the entire way home. We went back a year later and everyone was on their best behavior.