Holiday abroad....hell!! Is this normal?!

[Shleepymummy]

Just finishing up a week abroad with 5 and 3 year old. All inclusive, Menorca, standard stuff. My DC have behaved so poorly, like off the charts bad! Fighting with each other, no please or thank yous, messing about at meal times, back chat, hitting. We get this sometimes at home but it's not the norm- on this holiday it feels like every hour one of them is misbehaving.
It's got to the point where it's actually hard to set a boundary, stick to it etc. DH and I are exhausted and have lost control of the pair of the them at this point!
Worried how we are going to get things back on track once home.
is this normal for a holiday? We went away last year and it wasn't this bad at all, but the youngest had only just turned 2 last year and couldn't really speak, act up. Their ages now seem worse.
whats done is done this week, but I'd like to regain control at home rather than saying no to my 5 year old and being told I'm the worst mummy in the world....🫠

It works out for some by this age, not others.

writing this from a disastrous trip with 8yo and 5yo. All we’ve done is take turns to split them up and try to hold boundaries but we’ve both lost the plot multiple times. Unusually this time it’s actually brought us together as we equally feel depressed and like we’ve lost control and we’re not really blaming the other.

but it’s miseebale

i see A lot of parents of teenagers on here complaining about being ignored on holiday. I long for the day I can be ignored all day so I can sit and read a book by a pool without having to constantly manage everyone and everything and protect them both from being hurt by each other.

one is ND, the other isn’t.

before children I travelled widely and lived such a varied life. This is fucking depressing 🤷‍♀️

anyway OP, you’re not alone

It depends on so many things. Number of children; sibling relationships; parental relationship and own situation at the time of going; financial implications etc et

Family holidays with my parents are one our core shared memories. I’ve never been able to recreate that experience with my own family and DH and I have tried almost everything to get it right. Ultimately, my children are very different to me as a child.

Back in the late 80’s I was a Kid’s Rep for a holiday company in Greece. Every day I organised activities for 2 hours in the morning (10-12) and then 2 hours in the afternoon (3-5pm) and then I did ‘Early Supper and Story Time’ from 6.30-8pm. Some kids came to everything, some to the odd thing and quite a few always came to Supper and Story time. My overriding memory was how much the parents felt it made their holidays easier.

We went to Disneyland ( we had just moved to California at the time ) and my kids were 3 and 5 years old .It was awful .Kids very badly behaved and bawling crying by the end of the day . It was so bad that they still remember it and are young adults now and we laugh about it .Disneyland remains in our minds as one of the worst trips we ever did .

Yeah villas are great .. as long as you are prepared to survey your child 24/7 around the pool.

Not worth it imho

Ooh holidays are hard work with small children - there's not much relaxing until they're in bed! We never did hotels when ours were little, we usually did caravans in the UK or villas abroad. Having your own villa is a lot less hectic than a hotel pool, too many other people and mealtimes in all inclusive can be stressful and busy too. Villas worked for us, kids were happy playing in the pool and mostly barbecueing or eating out in the evening.

Surely you’re doing that at a hotel too?

We have 8 and 13 year olds and currently on holiday. They are bickering like cats and dogs, luckily the 13 year old Can go to the pool now and go for a walk around the hotel to stop being bored and annoying their sibling.
holidays are getting easier but only just.

We have clubs available at our current holiday, annoyingly neither of our kids will go to them and never have.

I think you probably have to divide and conquer - each of you take one child to a separate place. If it's the bickering that's driving you mad, stop it by separating them.

I only went on one hotel type holiday with mine when they were young - otherwise we always had apartments or villas or caravans where we had more space.