Teenagers- spoilt or normal?

[PowderPants]

We are on the holiday of a life time- Safari and beach.
The kids are 16 and 15 years and were involved in the choice and were excited.
However between them one or other is continually sulky or sullen. It’s really putting a dampener on things. One spent most of the time asleep in the safari vehicle and had to be woken to see lion! We really are in tropical paradise and I can’t decide if this is normal or I have raised two spoiled brats. They broke me at breakfast this morning as they squabbled over a hotel waffle so I have left them to it! I have skuttled off to lie on the beach….. it’s not exactly a tough life but it’s such a shame they are ruining things.

Spoilt. Some grumpiness is to be expected but I absolutely would not take them in a holiday like this again. I would never have acted like that with my parents.

I would be making it very clear that if they don't get on board and have a good holiday then next year you'll be leaving them at home. I would then go and have the best time by myself so they can mull it over.

Phones are ruining everything! I say this as I sit here procrastinating on my phone because I need to do my morning workout .

A bit of bickering between siblings is normal but sleeping through a safari - no that is not. My kids had a fight on a trip to Bruge and my youngest freaked me out by walking off and I had no idea where she went (we were on a tour so had to be back on the bus by X time). She returned but told me after the trip she hated it. After saving and planning what I thought would be a fabulous time this crushed me. But most of the time they at least act as if they are enjoying it.

Honestly i would take their phones off them they sound indulged and stroppy and they don't care that you are unhappy, I've had teenagers strop a bit on holiday but they usually came round. .things come to easy sometimes and I think this is what is happening here a 10 day activity then Africa and she is acting like a total brat, take the devices and tell them to shape up.

The safari snooze may well be a funny store in ten years' time. I slept so much at that age, I just felt exhausted by life, growing, general teenager stuff. Enjoy your holiday and definitely leave them to it.

Had to be woken to see a lion 😆😆

I can relate. It was constant moaning & bickering on the holiday my DC picked and helped plan. They knew it was expensive. They knew it was my main holiday for the year (we tend to also stay with friends for weekends a small number of times a year to have a break in school holidays). We hadn’t gone abroad as they didn’t want to. I’d kept it to under a week as knew spending solid time together can be intense.

Mine did enjoy and get involved in the planned activities so sleeping in the safari vehicle seems a bit much but from memory it can be really early starts & teens are known for not being early risers.

I don’t have any advice but at least you have a DH to let off steam to and for company. It’s hard being the only parent away with bickering teens. Also, hopefully it’s just a phase. That’s what I tell myself!

We took our 3 teens on the trip of a lifetime holiday last month (from Australia to Europe) and we had the exact same issues with constant bickering, it was like they had reverted back to childhood.

After 4 days of this and a heated argument in the middle of Florence we marched them back to the apartment and read them the riot act. I was so disappointed in their behaviour, especially as it cost tens of thousands of dollars and months of planning.

Their behaviour did improve slightly after that but I have vowed never to take them overseas again until they can learn to get along and appreciate their privilege.

May be I’ll laugh one day when I point out they had to be woken up to see this. Not A lion but lion ++++++

Teenagers are a bit like overgrown toddlers, they don't cope well with changes in their environment. Might not be sleeping well or enough. Need feeding all the time. Dislike sharing. Bit self centered. Sometimes they surprise you and remind you what lovely people they are, other times they are just annoying twats who ruin things.

My parents surprised my brother and I with a one day trip to Egypt from Cyprus when I was 14.

However, as I was a sullen teenager who now had to be woken up at 5am to travel, and leave all my friends behind at the hotel, I stropped most of the day.

My parents took a photo of me in different places, but their favourite was me standing in front of the pyramids, with a face like thunder, whilst my mum, dad and brother are all smiling!!

They loved it so much that they had it blown up, and it hangs proudly in their hall. Every time we look it, we all have a real laugh.

Can you please take hilarious grumpy photos of them!! They will look back and laugh once they are older.

This.

Teenagers are tricky. I don't think yours are inordinately bratty or difficult. It is hard parenting them, though!

Yes they sound spoilt (i speak without malice as mine are too) but also normal. I would not have dared behave like that on holiday with my parents as a teen - they were quite harsh in their parenting - but I definitely remember feeling embarrassed/annoyed/suffocated by them on holidays and being told off for being sulky and "miserable" even though I had really wanted to go.

We've just got back from a long haul multistop adventurous holiday with our youngest (11) and eldest (20) who is at uni. Eldest did participate with everything and was interested in the trip itself but was quite snappy, rude and critical with us a lot of the time. (When he was around 12-14 he also did the skulking in the hotel room thing but outgrew that.) We had planned for him to be welcome to join us on the family holiday for another year if he wants to i.e. including next summer as he'll only just have graduated. But I'm now starting to rethink that as it was quite unpleasant to spend my precious annual leave being told his childhood was awful and that I'm crap at planning trips (we missed out on a couple of attractions as they have to be booked in advance which none of us knew). He does have ASD and ADHD and tends to speak bluntly but the criticism is fairly new, although it wasn't constant and he was pleasant and funny a lot of the time.

I think, sadly, he's just grown out of family holidays and that's not surprising as he's an adult. I think he wanted the trip (he's a real travel junkie) but wasn't in a financial position to do it with his GF/friends rather than mum and dad and there seemed to be a simmering resentment about that. I kept thinking oh for gods sake just be grateful you got to come, but young brains dont really think like that. I'm sure mine didn't on the teen holidays I mentioned above.

This, they have different body clocks to adults. Depends how bad it is but surely it’s teenagers behaving like teenagers basically. I’ve a different angle, like others I’d never have done this but that’s because I was petrified to set a foot wrong , I had to be more adult and behave better than the adults.

im not saying it’s not irritating, I’ve occasionally flicked the v’s behind my child’s back but the surprise of some posters that they can’t regulate/don’t behave like adults is surprising to me.

Mumsnet peak 😂

Teens and holidays? My experience was forget it, until they can appreciate it.

Summer 2023, DP booked a week in The Isle of Man. To this day, I don’t know why, but he thought the teens would enjoy it. Cut a long story short, they booked themselves ferries home by day 4. Call them spoilt/ ungrateful, whatever. It was a bloody relief once they had gone. We laugh about it now and DS swears he has PTSD from the experience!

Both normal and spoilt, I think.

We've just had that with DCs on a long-haul holiday, admittedly not as "exciting" as it's "only" to my home country which we visit regularly, but we always stay in nice hotels and do several locations to provide interest and variety. And all the locations/hotels/activities are always chosen with full family input, so nothing is pressed upon anyone.

Yet DC did lots of sullen flopping on chairs tapping away on phones, often minimal conversation with us and my elderly parents/relatives who so rarely get to see us. And pulling them up on it just seemed to cause more resentment and sullen behaviour.

We spent some of the holiday in a gorgeous beach/nature resort. One morning DC asked to be woken up early to come for a dawn walk on the beach - then when we did as they asked, got shouted at and they took so long dragging themselves out of bed that we entirely missed the dawn. The resort offered free morning/evening nature walks, DC refused to participate, preferring to sit in the hotel room with their phones. Dragged their feet about going in the pool or sea, because "who's going to guard the phones if we're all swimming?" DH and I just shrugged our shoulders and went on all the nature walks, had dawn beach strolls, night-time stargazing as a couple etc.

I said to DH that I'm a bit torn, my parents are too frail to travel so if we don't travel there, they'll never get to see their grandkids. But equally, I'm not best pleased about spending £££££ to have a pair of sulky screen-addicted grumps who could be sitting at a bus stop at the end of our road, for all the difference it makes. And I very much enjoyed the grown-up couple time, TBH. We're quite seriously thinking about making our next trip a two-person one.

I've just come back from 10 days in Devon with my parents and brother and my dc (18 and 13) and nieces (17 and 15). I ensured that they got some regular down time, some lie-ins, clear expectations of what time they needed to be up and what time they needed to be ready to leave, exactly what we would be doing and what weather/expectations there were. Within all of this, they also had some choices over activities and the ability to opt out if really necessary. They also really wanted to be there, which is key I think. Huge amounts of neuro diversity in the family so very clear communication and expectations really helped.

It predominantly made for a very happy holiday with almost no issues. One teen had a few days where they were sulky and v difficult but some careful questioning revealed that they were using their night time to speak to friends on their phone and therefore not sleeping. They came to their own solution for this blip and we built in time during the evenings for them to have space, privacy and time for speaking to their friends and they self-imposed a curfew on phone use. They were much happier as a result. We acknowledged their need to feel close to friends and they acknowledged the need for balance against their need to be part of a family holiday.

I genuinely think they sometimes don't realise the effect of their behaviours, or the reasons and the change, compromise and busy nature of holidays can be really tough on the adolescent brain.

A pp is right about it being similar to parenting a toddler. They need boundaries, choices, sleep and food but you have to balance it against their need for independence.

Sulky or grumpy teens are normal. And the relative cost of the holiday probably makes it so much worse but I don't think that our holiday of a lifetime is necessarily equal to their holiday of a lifetime. It's bloody tricky.

Agree, infuriating but pretty normal at that age I'm afraid, from what I've seen. They will get nicer again!

I think the secret is to try to remind yourself that your own enjoyment of the holiday does not have to depend on theirs. Enjoy the lions, enjoy the beach, and try not to stress over whether they are enjoying it as much as they should.

Im really shocked everyone is saying this is normal behaviour. We have an 18 and 16 year old and neither of them have ever behaved like this on holidays.

They have been involved in planning holidays/destinations for a good few years now and we always have a fantastic time, no sulking or spoilt behaviour.

We are a very relaxed family though and generally get on very well at home too. We do spend quite a lot of time together in general (as in, if they aren't with friends we generally sit as a family in an evening watching tv/eating/cooking/playing games, rather than in individual rooms) so I don't think we have that added pressure of suddenly being on top of each other for 2 weeks on holiday, which I think often happens.

We also prioritise travel, so holiday as often as we can and like to experience different styles of holiday too. I just don't think there is pressure of making sure everyone enjoys the 'big' holiday that you've worked so hard to save up for.

So I'm sorry OP, but I do think they are behaving spoilt, especially if they actually chose the type of holiday you're on. I wouldn't book a holiday without input from the whole family, its a joint decision, so as a result, I'd be a bit annoyed if they acted like toddlers during it.

Going forward, I'd probably chat and decide to have a 'down' day where everyone can chill (if that's possible, I appreciate it might not be on a safari).

I remember doing a trip of a lifetime round the USA with my mum and dad when I was 15. I'm now 39 and it's still an ongoing joke of how much I sulked about being on that holiday....

I couldn't understand why I was made to go instead of being allowed to stay at home on my own and just go to the yard to be with my horse every day 🙄

Safe to say now I completely regret not enjoying it and would love to have the chance to do it again

In fairness to my DC, we did have plenty of great family time too, so I am being a bit harsh. I think it's just that the sulky teen behaviour seems to loom larger in my mind when we're on holiday?

Spoilt, yes. Also, normal sadly. Mine are like this too.