Want to go home, day 3 of 2 week holiday.

[Stressedonholiday]

i am on holiday with my two kids 8 and 6 and my husband. My 8 year old is driving me insane. He is grumpy and rude. He is hurting his brother. He can’t stand still in queues, he won’t stay with us anywhere we go (shops, streets, museums, parks). He is 8!!! And we were waiting in a queue for 20 mins and I looked down and he is LYING on the road. Luckily it was pedestrianised. I look around and all around me there are children patiently waiting at cash tills for their parents, or sitting at tables for lunches or managing ti walk past a tree without trying to free run up it… but mine? Pinching his brother, badgering me to buy something I’ve said no too a million times, screeching, storming off, lying down, jumping off walls into people because he doesn’t look…

He is enjoying most of the holiday he says (and I can see that he is) but the instant he isn’t being directly entertained he turns into a really difficult child. We don’t usually do screens but on the way here (an 8 hour drive over 2 days split into 2h am and 2h pm) they had tablets with a few episodes of a series they like and an audiobook. Nothing crazy. They have had a few late nights admittedly but this behaviour is just so out of character….
i asked him to read 2 pages of Diary of a Wimpy Kid today. It took him 45 mins with all the arguing and refusals. Yesterday he read 2 pages in about 5 mins. He has to catch up on his reading for school and anyone would think I had asked him to do alevel practice papers.

i am so exhausted with being ‘on’ him all the time. And he is bored (understandably) of being in trouble all the time.

I can’t bear the idea of having to go through this for another 10 days…. Any ideas of how to nip this in the bud or should I give up and go home and try again next year?

@Zonder

exactly. And he is struggling with French because we are a fully anglophone family.

@astrios its beautiful and we love it but a day of rain really ruined everything yesterday which is why I was so upset. They were disappointed we couldn’t go to the beach and today we did and everything was much better. But the day in the castle was a bit much to be honest. Such a beautiful place and could have been amazing but was ruined but grumpy so and so…. Ironically he asked if we could go back on the way home and do the battlements again. It’s so brilliant.

Most of you are saying we have packed too much in. I’m hearing you but really we felt that 8h of driving in one day was too much. So we spilt it up and we thought it would be fun to see some towns in between. Obviously it’s not something all of you would do. We stopped for lunch the first day and had a walk around a historic town…. Nothing too taxing. Then drove to another town and walked the battlements at night and then the next day did a few things in the town. Perhaps we packed too much in. Staying in our Airbnb all day wasn’t viable the day we arrived in the next place… it’s about 45msq in total. It was torrential rain and we would have killed eachother. They are not used to rainy days or small spaces like that. So science museum seemed like a better idea.

today we walked around a seaside town (morning was cloudy) and then had an afternoon beach day. We had a gorgeous dinner on the hill overlooking the bay and there were playground and grass and space to run and jump and they were fab. DS8 was happy as Larry catching crabs… We will see how he is for tomorrow which is more of the same. Beach and chill. 1h surf lesson late afternoon. So something to concentrate on after a day of crabbing or bat and ball.

i feel like we have pitched this all wrong. Form what you all are saying. But we did Airbnb not hotels so we haven’t the luxury of just going to the pool like some people said. To explain, we live in a holiday resort type place so they have had 6 weeks of an 9 week holiday on beaches lakes rivers and in our pool. They have had no end of ‘chilling’ or ‘relaxing’. They have sailed, swam paddle boarded built sand castles, had bbqs, eaten ice creams and generally lived pretty charmed lives. I just thought a few days of culture before another week rockpooling and learning to surf would be fun.

i have taken a few notes of people suggesting parenting techniques. Thank you for taking the time.

xx

How did the chill out day at beach go, op? Is he calmer?

nvm, cross posted. Glad you had a better day

When you say the DCs are not used to being cooped up indoors in a small space, does that mean that they never have to stay indoors together? They always have some gross motor activities available outdoors? They can't get along and play a card game or a board game with you and DH? The rainy day would have been a good day to get some sustained reading in.

What peaceful activities do the DCs normally do together indoors?

@mathanxiety Yes we play board games and Lego and all sorts all the time but 7am til 9pm inside a small apartment with 4 of us 😵
at home we have a big garden and live in a place of 300 days of sunshine a year and I’m a big believer in being outside and doing pretty much anything we do inside, outside. It’s v healthy. So we do homework and meals and reading etc outside when we can…. Obviously in winter it’s less but last Christmas we had lunch on our terrace so yes…. They are outside most of the time.

@Pixiedust1234 yes he is a bit calmer….. but I wonder if that is because he is more occupied, physically. His behaviour is still kind of rude and really taunting towards his brother but….. well that’s older brothers isn’t it. If it’s manageable (which it was today and yesterday) then I can cope with it…

Don't shrug at rude and taunting language toward the younger child.

It is not normal or acceptable at all.

I am astonished that your family can't spend a single day together in a small space, or drive for a full day.

I think you need to retool your idea of what's healthy for them. Yes the outdoors is nice, and its lovely to have the weather to enjoy that. There are different kinds of health though. It's not healthy or normal for an older child to verbally taunt or bully a younger sibling or to be unable to spend one day indoors. Children all over the world manage to stay indoors in small homes with their families during periods of inherent weather.

It's a sign that something is amiss when two adults and two children can't spend a peaceful day together in a small space. I would start enforcing some indoor time and togetherness for your family, and start cracking down on the behaviour your older son seems to be allowed to inflict on everyone. He clearly has no respect for his parents and no desire to stay on their good side.

*inclement weather

Christ almighty. I wouldn't put up with this crap. Seriously lay down the law. If he doesn't like it then he can lump it. This is your holiday too. Why are we all placating these badly behaved kids? He's 8, he shouldn't be allowed to do this to you!

I’m pretty sure the 2 week holiday is over seeing as it happened in August 🤣

Have had to do this once — and only once. Every day after good as gold.

Oh, you know those family holidays where every day feels like a week 😂

My parents used to say to us on holidays that if we continued to muck about we would go back to the hotel room and that would be that (I’m 37 btw 😂) we tested this theory out once in Spain - I was about 9, sister about 6ish and my god were we surprised when Dad turned the car around and drove back to the apartment. Books all day it was…

I just text my mum to see if she remembered and she does 🤣 she said it was great as we were so shocked we finally shut up whinging and she got to put her feet up on the balcony and read her book 😂

Throw in some sickness and it sounds like every holiday to me.

I think he is just tired and you probably are too. Holidays are easy for some people and not for others. Just make the best of it and try to do nothing on some of the days.

Definitely get some time away from them all by yourself.

Good luck.

I’m with you on the reading. I’ve got an 8 year old. I’ve done years of letting hem read what interests them, not pushing reading too much etc but now I insist on 10 minutes a day reading to me (it’s not a lot!) because they need to read to get better at it.

For waiting in queues or sImilar I try to engage them in conversation, play a game, even better get out a snack or something to look at (not a tablet/phone).
I also try giving my child a cuddle, saying I know it’s boring let’s do this whilst we’re waiting. I do sympathise, my 7 year old drives me round the twist!

This happened 8 months ago, I think they're home by now!