Holiday ideas

[singlemumofboy]

Chronically struggling to find a holiday idea with my 14 year old son! Single mum, so just me and him.

Me: loves sun, would go anywhere and travel about, loves boat trips, loves exploring. Also love lazy days beside a pool. Likes camping. Exploring UK, would go anywhere and see anything!

Him: Hates sun. Hates abroad. Won't do theme parks. Hates water parks. Not very sporty. Loves Xbox. Will do things like swimming, exploring only not without a fight! Says 'everything is boring'.

Really want to spend some time with him during summer holidays but really struggling to find ANYTHING to pique his interest.

Have suggested sun holidays with jet skiing, boat trips etc as incentive. Have suggested water parks, Alton towers, trip to London, theatre trip, surfing in Cornwall.

All to a big fat resounding NO each time.

Don't want to just give up...anyone else have any suggestions?! Please. Xx

Please 😂

He sounds very ungrateful. If you’re prepared to spend your money on a lovely holiday and he’s going to say it’s boring you’re not going to enjoy it.
One option could be to let him choose it, tell him the budget, and the conditions - ie needs to be by the beach or have a pool or whatever. Then let him decide from there.
Option two would be to let him choose a friend to take but then your time with him would be different to what you’d planned , however you could get some books read by the pool while he and his friend are busy!
Option three - give up the whole idea of a holiday until he can appreciate the effort and sentiment behind wanting to spend time with him.

Sounds a bit like my DS 13. He loves Center Parcs - but only with a pal, and anywhere with his cousins. We can tempt him with exciting holidays- he quite enjoyed New Zealand at Easter time - but anything else is a struggle. Had to bribe him to come to the Lake District with us for May half term.

Honestly I'd either give up on holidays and save your pennies so you can do something you want to if there's a school trip he can go on - DS is suddenly very enthusiastic about these - or see if you can bring along a pal.

Sadly it's a natural part of separating their identity from their parents. You could get a dog - he's always very enthusiastic about any outing .

I would choose something that suits you and reasonably ok for someone his age, and tell him tough....he is bloody dictating and if you put up with it he will get worse

Go with others so you don’t throttle each other?

Honestly, sad as it is maybe compromise so it's somewhere he can bring the Xbox with an agreed limit of 90 minutes a day while you read a book or sunbathe?

You won't get this time with him back so it might be worth it just to have the good times. Have a really serious grown up chat with him about how he makes you feel when he dismisses everything as boring etc.

Give him options from a list of places you want to go and let him choose one. I'd throw in a pool holiday, an exciting city break and something more adventurous if you're up for it.

Sounds odd but we recently watched a programme where the contestants had to travel across land to Singapore for the same cost as a flight. When mine are teenagers we plan to create a similar challenge for ourselves, not quite as far obviously, but working together to find routes, ways to travel and places to stay etc from A to B we think will be a lot of fun and something different.

A single mum friend had great success with a trip to art biennale in Venice. They travelled by train to the festival, and she let her child plan the route, logistics and research where to stay. She oversaw it, and double checked things, just didn't tell her daughter.

They returned by train too.

The year my friend did it, I think it was an architectural festival.