16 year old getting fried to a crisp on holiday

[Frugalgal]

My 16 year old son is on a post GCSE holiday in Greece with his girlfriend and her family. He's fair skinned and we have always made an effort with sun protection,as you do. Her family , on the other hand, are the type to sit out all day on sunbeds and fry themselves to a crisp. His girlfriend loves the sun and has turned dark brown in the couple of days they've been there.

He on the other hand, we can see from the odd photo we've been sent, is burned bright red already..He's spending all day in the pool and of course the factor 50 will just wash off. We pleaded with him to wear a t shirt and/or reapply sunscreen..but he's clearly not and not a bit bothered.

I despair. Is there anything I can say to him besides threatening him with skin cancer while he's enjoying his well earned break?

So what do you suggest they should do? They can hardly hold him down and put sun cream on him.

But the “lesson” won’t be apparent until there’s skin cancer detected in many years time…..
hopefully that won’t be the case.
It’s not an immediate consequence so most 16 year olds aren’t going to take that very seriously.

I’m sure he would be compliant if they told him, after all he knows they’re acting as his guardians during this holiday.
he’s 16, not 20.

just editing to delete sorry!

He’ll learn. One good dose of sunburn is enough for anyone.

I would message the parents: they are in loco parentis and have a duty of care to keep him safe.
Say you're so worried about his burn and please can they do their best to encourage they stay in the shade and have suncream on.

Omg, how devastating 😢

Jesus Christ - really?
factor 50 'like a child'? Or like someone trying to avoid skin cancer?!?

Most young people are well enough behaved to do what do what their friend’s parents tell them to do. And if a teen was so disrespectful that they would refuse their hosts parents then I doubt they would have taken him with them.

If he's old enough to go on holiday with his girlfriend, he's old enough to manage his own sun cream application. If this were my son, his text (and presumably photo, although I don't see that in the post) would have been nothing more than an "oh well, he'll learn". I wouldn't have given it any more thought.

My 19 year old never listens to me about sunscreen. I always applied to him as a child & insisted on it on a younger teen. He naturally has a warm complexion and always has colour on his arms & his face. He tans well but always manages to burn his chest which is white as it’s not normally exposed. I tell him repeatedly about the dangers but he shrugs it off. What can you do? Overall he’s far more boring & sensible than I was a teen in terms of general risky behaviour.

Quick text to the girlfriend’s mum, I think.

Something like:

Hello, hope you’re all having a great time.

DS has sent me pictures and a couple of messages around the fact that he’s quite burnt.

I absolutely appreciate that it’s his responsibility to put suncream on, But he clearly isn’t doing it often enough or well enough. Would you mind giving him the odd nag for me? He doesn’t have the same lovely skin as you lot and I don’t want him to end up in A&E - Which would be a pain for everybody!

Thanks so much.

Is he back yet @Frugalgal?

Sorry I forgot about this. He came back with peeling shoulders and blamed the sun lotion his dad had bought. Said he bought better stuff over there but it was too late.