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.

We can't all be God's favourite.

amen, sister! 🙌

We did a holiday of a lifetime this summer and let’s just say that next year I will be booking 10 days somewhere I like and they can just buzz off if they are bored.

One of them said ‘this might be the 2nd last holiday you have with me’

Given the attitude, I actually replied ‘You promise’ and she was quite surprised. I think she presumed that I would be begging her to come along so I could continue the dream of the family holiday. Eh no

The money has been spent now, so concentrate on enjoying yourself. Tell the kids that this is a holiday, not a punishment and if they want to spend it with phones in their room that’s fine! If you need to take them with you then just accept that you can’t make them enjoy it-if they want to sleep, leave them to it! Do the things you will enjoy, relax , don’t worry about anyone else!

Holidays used to be lovely until DD hit 11 two years ago and puberty. Summer 2024 was particularly bad. At 12 she wasn't quite old enough to leave at a villa on her own all day so did have to come out with us.

I sat her down and said we were no longer prepared to spend thousands of pounds for her to sit on her phone or sulking in another country. She could do that at home. Dp and I would save our annual leave and go on holiday without her in term time (obvs separately)..

This summer was much better as she chose to do a holiday with an activity group she's part of and loved it. Then the family hol was ok as just a week. She was also generally more amenable to doing stuff.

And yes we've tried asking DD what she'd like to do etc but she just says things like 'LA to hang out in Hollywood' with no other plan.

The best for us are hols with lots of planned activities (eg skiing). With friends even better. And no early starts.

And definitely won't be planning big trips with DD until she's a mature considerate adult.

You didn't go abroad because the kids didn't want to? Why do you allow them to be in charge of your life?

What's the point in paying £££ to go abroad with them if they're going to be miserable and spoil it for you? You can't cajole, bribe, threaten or persuade someone into having a good time when they're actually not.

It makes a lot of sense to save your travel funds for a time when the kids are either old enough to enjoy it, or old enough to be left at home safely while you enjoy yourself.

Normal but I think it looks different with different expectations.

I just came back from holiday with kids around the same age. I had expectations but they were low. So, they were expected to be pleasant and friendly at mealtimes, no taking their moods out on others and to join in some but not all activities ( they picked at the time and we paid accordingly). There were also things they could take themselves off to to like a swimming pool and tennis/ basketball courts. It worked for the most part.

If there had been excursions and activities every day, I think it would have been too much for them. They need their own headspace at that age.

Based on the fact that my dd would not have behaved like that, I am voting for "spoilt".

just got back from a week abroad staying in a lovely villa with a pool.

The DS's aged 15 and 19 spent most of the week in their rooms with the aircon on and the curtains closed.

We did our own thing, but this has prompted us to reconsider whether its worth paying £6,000 in this case when they would rather be at home.

We have decided to stay at home next year and use the holiday money to pay down the mortgage!

Agree.

There should be kennels for teenagers while families go on holiday. Unlimited wifi and junk food. Holiday of a lifetime!
Seriously - teenagers just don't like hanging out with parents anymore, regardless where you take them.

Are you suggesting they are lying and that there aren't teenagers who don't behave like this? Or that nobody should reply except to say 'It's normal'?

Totally normal teenage behaviour. They are full of hormones and on different sleep cycles.

They will re-emerge as nice people in a few years time.

No and no

This thread has made me feel so much better. On holiday currently abroad with a 15yr old boy, 14yr old girl, 12 Yr old boy and 7yr old girl
Youngest 3 have been mainly great aside from a few odd moments.
15yr old is vile. Told us he hates us all repeatedly and hasn't even got out of bed today. We are now begging him to come out for dinner and to a bar we went to a few nights ago which he seemed to enjoy.
Not sure why we are bothering as he will 100% ruin the evening just feel too guilty leaving him in all night and I won't enjoy myself knowing he's sat in the room. He does have cash so he can get food and there are drinks etc.
Really disappointed in him. We only go away once a year and I've had a really crap few years with my Dad dying and my mum not well. Was so looking forward to a relaxing break

I think it's very spoilt. My teenager can be a bit like this but not in the middle of this kind of experience. I would tell them how you feel.

I’d been for a long weekend abroad for a friend’s big birthday and they’d been abroad with their Dad & his family for a week earlier on in the year.
I wasn’t desperate to go abroad.
They aren’t in charge of my life but I do allow them to take part in decisions such as where we go on holiday as I want them to enjoy it too. I have always gone with the flow re holidays and mostly allowed friends or partners to choose location.

I would have felt like feeding them to the lions.
I am on holiday in Spain with my teenagers.
I am lost my temper with them today as they acted like hostages when they should be happy with a pool, WiFi and yummy food.
They aren’t quite old enough to be left at home as ,despite their miserable faces and their grotty little iPhone holding hands, I wouldn’t want any harm to come to them if I wasn’t there.
Tomorrow is another day and I think they will behave better.

You have raised two spoilt brats.

They have been raised to know the price of everything and the value of absolutely nothing.

Not one shred of gratitude or interest for the amazing experience they re having. Four interested in their petty squabbles with each other and they really are too old for that.

Possibly I have a different outlook on this because I was raised in relative poverty. I'm talking electricity, key me to running out and having to sit with candles.

I was lucky to get a day trip anywhere let alone a holiday.

It just gives you a different outlook on life. For me, being taken on a holiday anywhere as a child or teen would have been inconceivable, and I would have been so grateful.

As it was, I didn't manage to go on safari paid for by myself until I was in my thirties. I got there in the end though

Seriously, I would read them the riot act tell them they are on grateful spoilt, little brats, and that when they get home, they will never be going anywhere ever again.

And stick to it. They are also spoiling your holiday as well as their own.And they are old enough to know better.One of them is less than two years away from being an adult

Holidays with teens are definitely are definitely challenging and there is a lot to juggle and balance - agree that it is like having toddlers in some ways, boundaries and resting being pretty important.

For my DC's whole lives we've had short breaks to what was our favourite UK spot but this year, at 17 and 14, they hated it - tbh I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner, but I'm also gutted that it's happened at all, I keep remembering bits of previous visits and feeling really sad that it's over. But, maybe in a few years they'll enjoy it again in a different way.

I could totally imagine one of mine needing to be woken up to see a lion, anyway. And probably being pissed off about it

I’ve just taken my 3 on the absolute holiday of a lifetime. They’re 23,20 and 16. Overall they were great and absolutely loved the trip but the 20 year took great pleasure in winding up the 15 year old. The 20 year old is also ND and had one meltdown from being overwhelmed so I left them on their own for a morning and then they were fine. The 16 year old thought they were 20 and didn’t like that I put limits on where they could go alone. Overall I would say that they were 95% brilliant with a few “moments”. They absolutely appreciated how lucky they were to be there and were very grateful.

Thank you OP, you’ve made me feel a whole lot better about our current holiday. I clocked last year that holidays needed to be spent with the teens either in teens clubs or with friends. Had an Easter break with teens club which was pretty successful due to the fact that we only saw the teens at 2 meals/day. This trip has been a disaster as the family we were travelling with had to pull out at the last minute, so we have 2 bickering teens to ourselves.

Not normal in my personal experience, but that doesn't necessarily mean yours are spoilt. It's a personality thing really isn't it. I was gifted two of the most laidback teenagers to grace the planet but some of my friends have horror stories!

When I was 16 I too went on a very expensive holiday of a lifetime. There are a variety of unflattering photographs of me and my siblings fast asleep on the luxury coach, as we passed through such diverse and devastatingly beautiful landscapes as the Painted Desert, the Black Hills etc. We were very much not spoiled (we were under no illusions we were very fortunate indeed) but we were bloody knackered. It was a luxury fucking death march. We went white water rafting, and I ended up with hypothermia. By this point my dad had got so angry about people not leaping around with joy at every aspect of the ££££ holiday, he shouted at me for being ‘sulky’ at dinner; I was just trying very hard to not slide under the table. I am not saying you’d be so unfair, but obviously the thought of all the money spent was creating a certain degree of (possibly understandable) expectation and frustration at what seemed a lack of enjoyment. It was cool, we enjoyed the holiday, but ya know, it’s hard to be ‘on’ all the time when you’re tired and away from home.

As to the huffing, my teens took turns behaving like a pair of chumps on holiday this year. They’re not usually like that, or not quite so much. So I assumed it was something situational - to be fair to them, I found fifteen days together in a group, in 35 degree heat, with very little time to think our little thoughts, quite mentally taxing. There was a whole lot of peopling going on. However, we have the adult perspective to know we’d better enjoy it while we can. Kids don’t.

I actually started to find the bickering quite funny by the end. Possibly Stockholm syndrome 😂

You must make sure you and DH do get to do what YOU want, without any carry-on from the teens, as you are the people paying, but don’t conflate it too much into them being spoiled or whatever. I get you want to enjoy it together, I did too, but sometimes it’s just people are tired and don’t have adult brains.

Thirty years later, thinking back to that holiday of a lifetime, I mainly enjoyed stuff like going to the pool without my parents so I could stare at boys and pretend to be in a film. Oh, and drugstores and watching cable TV.