To think it's normal for post-pubescent children to not want to holiday with their parents?

[JamieCannister]

I understand that everyone is different, and that there is no right or wrong. But, am I being unreasonable to suggest that it is perfectly normal, by the age of circa 13 to 16, dependent on the individual, to NOT want to go on holiday with your parents / siblings ever again?

You ARE being unreasonable - people who hit adolescence and want to avoid holidays with their parents are weirdos or anti-social (or are victims of deeply abusive families).

You ARE NOT being unreasonable - it is perfectly normal to hit adolescence and want to live your own life with your own friends and not be forced to spend a week or two solid with your parents or siblings ever again.

Whilst not an only child, and whilst we never went to France, your post suggests you and I had similar experiences!

I’m not sure normal is the right word tbh.

And no things didn’t feel strained with my two.
I enjoyed their company. Still do. We adjusted together to them getting more and more independent. I never felt they were pushing boundaries the way it’s so often described on MN.
But then I’ve always ensured they had as much independence as they could, right from the word go.

At that age, the dynamic usually completely changes, and teenagers will interact in different ways, but I'd say most kids who still live at home would want to go on holiday with their families

I’d have been disappointed and upset if Dd hadn’t want to come on holidays with us when so young.

As it happens she was always up for a holiday or two each year, as a minimum. She loves travelling to new places and loves spending time with us too. Plus she got to see more of the world and stay in nicer accommodation, eat at nicer places and visit dearer to get to destinations than she could have paid for herself.

She is now early 20s and love to have at least one big trip away with us each year - we’ve just got back from two weeks in south east Asia where she came with us. This is despite having her own holidays throughout the year and living away from home (different country Infact) and holding down her own job.

We want her to come. She wants to come. It’s fab!

I think if there's a good relationship and no other factors it would be normal to still want to go on holiday with parents 13-16.

There isn’t a lot of 14~16yo that don’t live at home tbh….

If at 13-16 your kids have decided they don’t want to go on holiday with you then I’d be having a real think about where things went wrong

I agree with this.

Our eldest two are 17 and 15 and still more than happy to holiday with us...and tbph I think they'd be hurt at any suggestion they didn't come!

We choose holidays we know they'll enjoy though and as they get older we're happy to give them space and let them do their own thing a bit more when we're away. So last year, ds1 tended to join us at the pool but go back to the room a bit earlier than us for some peace and solitude on the balcony. He did many activities with us but he really didn't fancy a touristy train ride thing we did one day so he had a few hours alone and we didn't try and drag him with us.

We have an easy, quite relaxed relationship with the dc, we get on well and neither dh or I are high maintenance or demanding. I hope our elder dc holiday with us for many years to come.

When I was a teen I wasn't a fan of any holidays or day trips with my family but that's because my family were a nightmare. My dad would predictably not lift a finger, my mum would shout and sulk, sometimes cry and then lay the emotional blackmail and victim complex on thick. Plus after one too many wines my mum could pick a fight with an empty paper bag, which is still a common occurrence today.

Anyway, no, I don't think happy well-adjusted teens with a close and relaxed family would choose to stop going on holidays. There's a reason, just maybe one the parents don't like to admit to.

This is very true.

Also attitudes towards teens - we try and accomodate ours and adapt our plans while our parents and their parents expected much more compliance with their plans with a more take it or leave it approach.

I haven't voted because neither option makes sense to me. Perhaps I'm being a bit thick though.

I can understand it more if you said post-16 or 17 i suppose. I'd be disappointed if my 14yo ds didn't want to come on holiday with us though. And 'ever again' is a bit much, too. I've enjoyed a few lovely holidays with my parents as an adult, including after I had my dc. I'm probably not your target audience though, I continued holidaying with my parents until I was about 18 and at uni. My niece is 16 and she still holidays quite happily with dsis.

My DCs have never shown any reluctance to come on family holidays. We've just booked a week for us all - they are 20 and 23.
They've always been able to go on their scout camps etc, but wanted to do family holidays too.
We have however always picked holidays which have had some elements specifically for them and their interests and haven't just had ones purely to meet our adult requirements.

I m just back from a enjoyable holiday with my 16 and 17 year old. Looking forward to the next one.

I think our society has a tendency to normalise strained relationships between teens and their parents as if that is some sort of inevitable developmental stage. That kind of tension isn't inevitable though. Lots of teens have great relationships with their parents and still manage to grow into functioning, independent adults!

I recall being an unreasonable prick of a 15 year old pretending I wasn't even with my (nice, kind, non abusive, lovely but clearly aged over 20 and therefore not cool) parents. Give me a holiday with friends every time at that age.

I think there's a fine line between not wanting to go to somewhere dull as dishwater in the UK (eg Clapton on Sea) and say, Milan! I know which my dd would go for! Also once they're working, and many 16 Yr olds have pt jobs, and expected to pay for it they're not going to waste their money on a crap holiday!

DS has holidayed with friends and with his exGF but as he says why not go on 2 cruises and a trip to America with parents when they pay for lovely holidays that he couldn’t possibly afford at the time.

His new GF parents also fund her holidays. I think that if we were going somewhere shit then obviously why would he want to come but I can't see many teenagers forking out 2k for a holiday.

If you are talking about 18 year olds then I agree. Although my children still sometimes holiday with us and they are grown up!
But for 13 to 16 year olds I think you are being very unreasonable and most young people at that age go on holiday with their family.

I would find it a great shame if they didn't want to go, and would try to find out why and make it more appealing.. My two are 17 and 14 and still love to discuss where to go and what to do on our family holidays. But they are always involved in the decision making now they're older.

Ive never known any 13-16 year olds who don’t want to go on holiday with their parents. They’re too young to go alone, so surely they wouldn’t then get a holiday at all? So I think YABU

Staying home alone for 2 weeks in the summer from the age of 15 was my holiday!

As others have said, depends on the individuals (and the holidays!) but both wanting to go and not wanting to go can be totally normal responses. Take my daughter, who is 13. She actively likes holidaying with me because we have similar interests and are in many ways more like friends (which I know some people on here disapprove of, but that's our relationship and it works for us). She probably, on balance, would not choose to go with her dad - their relationship is decent enough and she loves him but they don't have loads in common in terms of activities they enjoy, apart from eating out - he likes quite hardcore walking holidays and it's not her thing currently

She does go with him tho as she wouldn't want to hurt his feelings!

If the same person can feel both ways I can't see how either response can be described as weird.....

When I was about 16 I stopped wanting to go on family holidays, until I was early 20s - at that point I would have lapped them up, had they been on offer. I get on well with mom and dad, I just had more interest in visiting friends etc at that age.

It depends on the family and the type of holiday obviously. But I agree with you.

My young cousins all continued to go on holiday with their families but that's partly because their parents all let them drink/smoke and they're rich so each have a villa in a sunny country. Makes it a bit more appealing maybe? Also it's not like they're having to pay for a hotel room for each person.

But I stopped going on holiday with my Mum to visit her family when I was about 16. That was the youngest she'd allow me to not come with and stay home alone. I'd probably have opted out at about 13 if I'd been able to.

The first time I ever went on an aeroplane was going to Greece at nearly 20 years old. So my side of the family were not big travellers.

Yeah, it's perfectly fine for teens to opt out of family holidays. If they're just going to mope about on their phones anyway it's a waste of a plane fare etc.

Blimey my DC’s are in their 20s/30s and still want to come with us.
Who wouldn’t want to go on a fabulous, exotic holiday funded by someone else?
Anyone wants to take me I can have my suitcase packed in a couple of hours.

I think you are wildly unreasonable but I’m not going to vote because I really don’t like the language you’ve used in both options.

Ds would prefer to stay home and game. On holiday, he's fine swimming in the sea, but dished really want to talk to any of us. I think the issue is that it's quite a jump from having his own space to being with family for a week.

Dd just wants to be by the pool. Neither kid has anything in common with the other and dd has very limited interests, so conversations can be hard work.

Ds would like a holiday where he doesn't have to interact with people, but can do interesting things. Dd wants to go shopping. She has no interest in scenery or culture. Dh and I want to read books and swim in the sea, for the one week of the year we get to go somewhere warm and sunny.

Given the choice, I think ds would stay home, but dd would come. Unless we could afford a really interesting, exotic holiday. But of course, having to take kids means that we're limited by price.

13 is not going to be post-puberty. Even with kids who shot up and developed early, I'd really struggle to say 15 is fully post-puberty - like it's getting there, and maybe for a few, but there is still a lot of development going on. Many teens will still be very much pubescent at 16.

That said, varying emotions are normal, and people of all ages will have varying wants. I hated going on family trips and did not want to go more when I was 8 than I did at 16. I liked the family trip with my in-laws at 22 far more than what I did with my parents, and miss doing that.

Is it not ENTIRELY NORMAL for relationships between teens and parents to be strained? Parents are trying to parent responsibly, teens are trying to forge their adult identity and push boundaries?

There is a lot of cultural variation in this. In some cultures, yeah, that's 'normal' and expected. In others, not so much and would not be normal. The entire concept of an innate individual identity that needs to be forged and that such forging requires pushing boundaries against authority to be forged are cultural concepts that impact both the responsible parenting and how teens act.

I have three teens and a 20 year old. They've done very little boundary pushing, and what little relationship strain there has been more caused by me and my catching up with new ways to support them as we all changed than any identity or hormone issues on their side.

After puberty kids are racing towards becoming independent adults.

Yeah, no. Puberty is a lengthy process that takes years, it's involves a lot of varying and mixed emotions. While some are at times eager for adulthood, it's also normal for the last thing many pubescent kids want is to be racing to becoming independent adults. I talk to a lot of teens due to my own and my work, and I'm not seeing most really racing off.

Having done childhood on speedrun, living regularly on my own for weeks at a time during much of my teens and left to a new country at 17, I still wouldn't have said I was racing to independent adulthood, I was just surviving and seeking new people to be interdependent with having grown up in an awful environment.