Short term live in childcare for teen who doesn't want to come on holiday?

[whereiscaroline]

I am desperate for a holiday. DS is 15 and doesn't want to go on holiday with us. Fair enough. We don't have any family that could come and stay for a week to look after him whilst we go away.

Has anyone used a short term au pair type person for this type of situation? If so, any idea where I could look to find something suitable?

Surely your son’s additional needs are a MAJOR factor that you should have mentioned in the OP? It’s not just a question of somebody accompanying him, you need a professional carer.

Don't be tempted to leave him on his own, exh left ds home alone when he was admitted to hospital while ds was living there & refused to come home to me, I had SS & the police threatening me for being a bad parent. I had done everything I could short of dragging him home, not easy to do with a 6 foot chunky teenager, it took months to get rid of SS.

If he has additional needs you are probably going to need to go to a specialist special needs nanny agency and cost for someone very qualified and experienced will be top end.

I'd contact some specialist nanny agencies like Sennies and ask if they can help recruit a proxy parent for you.

What triggered the SS referral?

Ds1 at 13-14 was a miserable guy on family holidays.
15 he only came if we didn't make him do anything (cruise where he did at least join us in the restaurant for evenings meals- but seemed incredibly expensive for someone to not particularly enjoy themselves)
After that he stayed at his Dad's while I went with much more amenable ds2.
He's adult now but still has no desire to spend holidays anywhere other than home.
Not sure what I'd have done if that option wasn't available. Possibly could have found him a friend to stay with.

Wondering why the OP didn't mention the additional needs in her OP in the first place? As that obviously changes things a LOT.

@TheOrigRights you know if school got wind of this, it would be reported to SS as an issue? You are taking a serious risk here.

You're absolutely right! I have no idea what I was thinking. More that I wasn't thinking at all. I guess I extrapolated from leaving him the odd evening and coming back late to leaving him the whole night. I would have seen sense!

I am going on a work trip in Sept but his older brother (23) will come home and hold the fort.

Are you all aware that the OP left this thread some time ago?

That's not unusual, people still find the discussions useful.

A discussion, yes, but posters have been aiming this posts directly at the OP.

Their posts

Unless you are OP you have no way of knowing whether they are reading or not.

The OP said a while back she was leaving. Are you saying posters are continuing to direct posts to the OP just in case they’re still reading?!

It really is. We managed one by telling DS ( 15) that he had no choice in whether he came but could play on his pc/ phone all day if he wanted to and that we would not make him leave the cottage for anything he didn't want to. We had booked 4 nights but agreed to come back after 3 nights if DS really wanted to ( he did) .

DH and I went out while DS stayed in the property. This worked fine. We did a couple of things he deigned to come with us for but most of the time he stayed in . We spent time together on the evening and spent time playing together or watching TV. It was surprisingly stress free and much better than if we had forced him to do things with us .

He did ask why he had to come and I said that I wanted to spend some quality time as a family, whether he did or not and it was non negotiable that he came but I was happy to talk about expectations while he was there - ie we had none except that he didn't constantly moan, which he didn't, as we didn't make him do anything he didn't want to

I'm not saying anything other than what I actually wrote.

Why else would posters continue to direct posts at the OP if she’s already left.

I said what I said. I said nothing more. I meant nothing more. Why are you so bothered about people posting to the OP anyway? Who cares?

Firstly, I wasn’t asking you a question. Secondly, why are you so bothered by me posting? If you don’t care, don’t post. Easy.

Goodness you are not ok, are you?

Maybe have a wee cuppy or something, help take the edge off.

Nice try. Why not just stop posting to show how much you don’t care.

@whereiscaroline on the off-chance you do come back to the thread, my parents left my 15-yr-old brother at home during term-time when they went on holiday. They paid a friend of mine (I'm five years older) who lived locally to stay overnight in the house so there was an adult available who he vaguely knew. It was an arrangement that worked well for both parties. It might be possible for you to arrange something similar through a local university noticeboard, Koru Kids or by asking on local Facebook groups for recommendations. If it was billed as house-sitting with resident teenager rather than teen-sitting, your DS may find it easier to manage.