Teenagers on holiday

[orangeicecream]

I am a single parent on an abroad sunshine holiday with 3 teenagers or almost teens... Aged 12, 13 and 17. They are so boring..... They don't want to do anything except sit staring at their phones.... Don't want to go to the pool, beach, restaurant, bar, play cards or do any sporting activities.... Anything.... I remember holidays (pre-mobiles) being in the pool all day and trying to meet other teens..... Its all different and antisocial now. ... I'm left doing things on my own and wondering what was the point of spending money on this holiday.

So do I:
Remove the phones and force them to come out? AIBU... Accept the boredom is part of the teenage years? Don't take them on holiday again? Thought welcome :)

Oh and camping. They love camping.

I agree with the posters suggesting a bit of variety / choice and also a shorter total holiday time. So we usually have a week or 10 days (rather than 2 weeks) and we have some sightseeing / activity days and some chill out days. On the chill out days there isn't much expectation of how they spend their time, but we do expect them to join in on the planned time. Mine are nearly 10, nearly 12 and nearly 14 and it's working ok (so far!).

We're giving up on the villa with pool idea - they really don't use it as much as we'd expect for the jump in price and location wise - villas are always in out of the way areas. We all enjoy wandering around the town, eating, drinking, playing cards and not staying in the same location for longer than 4 days. Recently had a lovely trip to Bruges - everyone was happy - safe town for the kids to bugger off and explore themselves.

I only have one teen so she gets really bored with us old fogeys!! Fortunately this year she went to World Scout Jamboree in USA for 3 weeks. My and DH went to Greece. Result! Not sure we'll be doing a beach holiday together again...

We have abandoned holidays abroad with our teen after she played up 2 years in a row (and yes, never even bothered with the hotel pool, though that wasn’t the major issue). Now on hols in the UK, she has consistently refused any restraints on her phone and appears to stay up all night on it (which makes her grumpy and impossible to rouse) and just makes demands - ‘drive me to the gym’ was the last. It’s not like we drag her around stately homes or anything, but she just doesn’t engage on any meaningful level. Next year I am giving up - all holidays will be her with the school or else we stay at home. We both work full time and can’t continue having our breaks wrecked by this.

I am going for a sun holiday next summer. DD can stay in bed until lunchtime while I do yoga, swim and relax under an umbrella.

She loves to swim and read and thinks it is a fab idea.

This might sound like a really stupid question but where else do you look apart from TUI? All my google searches come back with TUI. Surely there must be more than one mainstream sunshine holiday provider?

Honestly, after spending £1400 for a week in the rain, made worse by a truculent teenager I am prepared to pay £2500 for two weeks in a sunshine resort, because, although I have never done naff all for two weeks in my whole 50 years, I would like to give it a go!

We do city breaks already, biggest hits have been Venice, Rome, Florence and Milan. Vienna was a miss (for both of us), but, they were before the recent teenage birthday and whole change in life attitude.

lifeofbox

Other big ones are thomas cook, jet2, easyjet do package deals i believe. Ive used on the beach previously. Errrm first choice but think theyre part of TUI.

You can always book flights/hotel seperately too but you wont get the same protection so if you do that use a credit card.

We also have Hays travel near us who seem competitive but not sure they're nationwide.

All my sympathies op.

I'm really not an old fuddy duddy who thinks the internet is the devil incarnate, but I too remember being a teen on holiday with my family and although I didn't want to spend every minute of every day with them, I was grateful to be somewhere hot and sunny with a pool/beach and lots of ice cream - even if just for the novelty of it!

We have decided not to go on a summer holiday next year at all and ride it out til they are old enough to be left home alone.

Thanks joan, I have only ever booked the Neilsen holiday as a package and have always travelled independently. Thomas cook ... now you say it I have heard of them 😂!

I quite fancy a package, even though I have got a UK driving licence and one from another country who drive on the opposite side of the road I don’t want to drive/faff with transfers.

I’m currently on holiday with my teen. We are having a lovely time learning to sail and windsurf together. I am flabbergasted by the apathy on this thread. Take the flipping phones off them people and do fun stuff as a family. You are the parents, you are in charge, you pay for the phones and the holiday so you get to choose how both are used.

How lovely for you TVT1.

We went walking in the Lakes. There was no reception where we stayed. DC complained a bit and made the most of any Wi-Fi in pubs etc but mostly just got on with being part of the family again. It was wonderful.

Screen time is really not my problem. General teenage attitude and preferring to read books over doing anything else is my biggest problem.

To those who appear to be smug. Teens come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and types and if you appear to have a good one be thankful, not smug, because you never know when it might change.

TVT1 of we took dss phone and dragged him out for the day hed have a face like a slapped arse and whinge all day about how bored he was. It would ruin the holiday for me and dp and ds and obv dss wouldn't enjoy it either.

You cant force people to enjoy things.

My ds12 and ds13 have argued for 3 hours about which phone charger belongs to who. We got here 3 hours ago. Meanwhile ds7 has broken an item worth around £70 whilst flouncing mid tantrum and then had a pillow fight with ds5 at bed time and nearly smashed a lamp. We’ve told them we’re leaving to go home first thing. I was just trying to scare them but dh means it, so there goes £3k and a holiday I was really looking forward to

Take the flipping phones off them people and do fun stuff as a family. You are the parents, you are in charge, you pay for the phones and the holiday so you get to choose how both are used. What age is your teen? - because they sound very compliant - most adults have an opinion on how they spend their time and teens are on their way there we all hope! Although it's annoying, teens not being compliant is pretty normal and healthy...being able to force any independent person to have fun on your terms is often difficult and not always healthy.

Lifeofbox-I've gone with jet2 packages the last two years and they have been very good (even though the dd's have not). Last year we went to Croatia, this year to Crete-liked Croatia better and it seemed better value for money-but they seem to have a wide range of sunshine type places to go and the flights and transfers have been seamless both times. Would use them again (when I go on my solo holiday next year 😁)

And yes if I took the phone from dd1 at least (I might have more luck with dd2) before the agreed time she has to give it in at home she would throw a fit of special proportions which I would then have to deal with, thereby ruining my own holiday to an even greater degree.
Dd1 has admitted today that half of her issue is FOMO. It's ridiculous to me but I can see it from a 13 year old point of view. She can see what her friends are doing back home and fears she is missing out-but she says she loves going on holiday 🤷🏽‍♀️. Can't win. And Won't try next year, unless I can recruit some of her friends mums (that I'm also friends with) and we all get a villa or something.

I have a 12 and 13 year old - I do plan holidays and discuss with them.

Only a few days in so far but going well - first place had loads of alpacas, llamas, hens and a dog and you could feed them and they had just had baby alpacas and this was a big hit with both kids though now being nagged for an alpaca for home. Beaver safari in canoe which didn't go so well as guy clearly didn't like kids. Just been on moose safari which both of them loved and also seen der and reindeer today. Going whitewater rafting tomorrow. Only issue we are having is food.

My DD is on her phone a lot - DS is ASD and a phone refuser - but DD is sending pics of holidays to her friends and two of them messaged to ask where the alpacas and llamas where so maybe the answer is to holiday with alpacas. Mine can't stand heat and will do half a day at beach but that's it. They do seem to need a lot of high energy activities. Sorry for those of you struggling, hope you find solutions. I remember having a lot more energy than my parents at this point and getting bored on holiday.

I find this really hard. DD17 has had some amazing holidays which I couldn't have imagined would be possible when I was her age, but basically still makes them miserable and hard work for a large proportion of the time away. This year we went away whilst she went on a college trip - us to Thailand and her somewhere in Europe and I got calls about how sad she was and how she wanted to go home and/or join us. Hard to field with the time difference before you even get to the content! This is the third time we've gone away when she is already on a trip and encountered cross continent distress each time. I don't want to leave her at home on her own as some suggest as I would just worry constantly. It makes me so sad that we can't go away and have a nice time together which is what I actually want far more than to go without her.

If mine didn't want to go I would leave them in the apartment and go by ourselves - usually find they get bored then ask to come next time.

Howmanysleepsnow I hope your dc and dh calmed down and agreed a truce so you can stay on holiday if you want to

I remember being that sullen teenager on holiday! I think the biggest problem was the enforced spending of time together: if you think about it, in term time, families don't spend a lot of time together, brothers and sisters might be at different schools, so it's hard being in each other's company all the time. My brother used to deliberately wind me up, especially on holiday, and I'd retaliate. A holiday is always a disruption to one's routine, however "nice" it may be, and in some cases, enforced togetherness doesn't help.

We found that doing activities separately helped sometimes: one parent would take one of us somewhere, while the other would do something else. Also having "down" days helped, or busy mornings followed by quiet afternoons. There was a time when we went abroad with another family - the eldest daughter took a friend with her, which helped (they kept a sullen distance from the younger children most of the time). Although this was long before smart phones, we all spent hours reading, playing games individually, and if mum had her way, diary writing (she was big on this, though I resisted fiercely). Everyone was entitled to "quiet time" every day on holiday.

By the time I was 15, we rarely all went on holiday together. Indeed, I stayed home (with relatives) to collect my GCSE results, while everyone else was abroad. We were all happy with this, although lots of people think it was sad we did this.

We try to plan together and include options that they would like to do and what we would like to do and agree on compromise by all. There is also a bit of financial motivation - e.g. we pay for fast track tickets to the theme park, but expect no moaning in the museum we want to visit. So far we never had major issues. We have to make it interesting for both teenagers (15yo) and a 6 year old, but we have just spent two weeks on road trip in the States without major disagreements. Beach holidays are the most difficult, we need to get out of hotel and go and see something every other day to keep busy. Skiing is the easiest- everyone is exhausted by the end of the day so screen time is not an issue.

I am a LP and ds will have just turned 15 when we go away next week. He has asd.

He very much relys on screens to unwind on general life. That's fine. He doesn't seem to be the same with phone and I find I get annoyed because he can't remember where it is and if it's charged when I tell him to bring it 🙄

I also do say in and day out.
When we are by the pool he does like to watch his iPad or play a game but I don't mind. Last year he nicked my logic puzzles book! He also loves card games and I've bought him dobble for his birthday which we'll take.

He knows we will be having breakfast in hotel. I pay for it and I am not re paying elsewhere if he doesn't get up. We also do each of us choosing an activity we will do before we go away.

I do feel for parents of teens who don't try and enjoy themselves and moan. It cannot be fun and I can imagine how you feel like you've paid a fortune for that shit!

Our holidays are hard for ds due to his asd but so far I've been lucky I think reading this thread. I hope next week is the same 🤞