Avoid Parent Stress While Travelling With Older Kids Or Teenagers Article

	1888 Articles Home \| Family Articles \| Parenting Articles \| Child Care Articles	Parenting RSS
Avoid Parent Stress while Travelling with Older Kids or Teenagers

Travelling with older kids or teenagers is a particularly stressful experience. Older kids (above 7 years) or teenagers (if they do decide to come with you on a holiday) have a much more sense of individuality and hence they also want to have a say in the way the holidays should be spent.

Author: Kinjal Shah

Article Tools:

This creates a lot of parent stress as there could be differing needs of parents and children and also some other slightly smaller kids (if there is significant age difference between siblings). Following are some of the tips you can use when travelling with older kids.

Involve them in planning: It would be a good idea to involve your older kids in planning. You can create a broad plan and allow your older kids to find out about all the attractions in the place you are visiting. You can also ask them to do a bit of research on internet or simply ask them if there are specific activities they would like to do when travelling. By making them part of the travel, they will feel more excited and look forward to the holidays. Also when travelling with older kids and teenagers it could be a good idea for 2-3 families with similar age kids to get together, so that the kids can enjoy together and relieve you of your parent stress.

Allow them to plan some part of the trip: For teenagers you can go a step further and allow them to plan a day of the trip. If there are specific activities that you would be doing like water sports, you can allow your teenager to decide the activities they want to do and how they want to do the same. You can ask them to take the responsibilities of booking the activities and preparing for them. This will not only free you to take care of other activities thus reducing your stress, but will make them feel more involved and excited about the trip. You can help them to plan the trip by helping them make checklist of all the things they would need, helping them to think about all the possible scenarios and ensuring that they are properly prepared to make their part of the trip a success.

Let them do their own packing: Depending on the age of your child you should allow them to do part or all of their packing. You can support them by helping them build a checklist of the things they need for the trip and may be monitor the packing process – but allow them to decide the clothes they want to take, the books they want and the accessories they want to carry with them. This will help them to become more independent and would also allow them to think in advance and plan accordingly.

Give them responsibilities: Older kids can be given "jobs" like Timekeeper (so you don't have to keep answering questions like, "How much longer?"), Navigator (give them a small map and allow them to roughly keep track of ground covered on the trip), and Stuff Grabber (a position that requires checking to make sure that nothing is left behind in the terminal, on the plane, etc.). They can also be made responsible for counting and taking care of the baggage, keeping an eye on the younger siblings and finding food or rest rooms at airports or train platforms. This will make them feel more important and would make them more excited about the trip.

Allow them space: With older kids, consider accommodation options - it may be better to rent a bigger unit rather than a large bunkhouse, so that everyone can have some time to themselves when they want. Allow them time for themselves so that they can explore the place on their own or sit in their room and read a book. They do not need to come out with you all the time. This will make them less resistant to travelling with you as they feel that they have some freedom and are not constantly dictated by you. However, before you allow too much space agree on the rules with your teenager or older kid – like time to return to the room, breakfast and dinner times, contact time so that you can keep in touch with them when they are on their own etc.

Enrol them for activities they can do on their own: When going on activity based holidays ensure that you enrol your older kids to their own activities – like learning skiing or some water sport or short hikes etc. This will allow them to explore the place you are visiting on their own and not be constantly dependant on you. Think about giving them their own (disposable) camera and 'holiday diary' so they can record their own impressions.

Split the activities between parents: In case where you have older and younger children, not every event has to be experienced as a family unit. Consider splitting the family into two 'teams' with dad and mom leading each team and exploring attractions. This way you will be able to meet the requirements of each age group and would not frustrate one child, while pleasing the other.

Balance activities: The key to planning what to do is to ensure that you have a balanced trip. Ensure that proper balance is maintained between adult and children activities so your children do not get bored. Nothing is more frustrating for children than to spend the whole day moving from one art museum to next or spending half a day at spa resort with nothing for them to do. You will need to plan special activities for the kids or arrange for child care (for younger kids) if you want to involve is specific adult activities like going for a concert or visiting art museums. Also negotiate with your older kids in advance – if you need them to come to one of the adult events and ensure that you keep these activities balanced and supplement them with enough activities for your kids so that they do not feel bored.

Break some rules: Change the parenting style to more relaxed and less strict during holidays so that the kids can get a bit of space and they don’t feel that they have to stick to a schedule all the time. It is ok to break a few rules during holidays. So allow your older kids to have their favourite fast food on some days or get up late on days when you have decided to relax or sleep later than normal time.

Special care needs to be taken when travelling with step kids: First of all avoid long trips with older step kids and slowly increase the frequency and length of travel. It takes several years for parents to get comfortable with step kids and do not rush the process. When travelling be aware that there would be reminiscences from past and kids would often blurt out details of holiday experiences with their parents. It is necessary to allow them to express themselves and make them feel confident. Also allow the natural spouse to spend more time with his/her kids so that they can use the vacation to strengthen their relationships and provide security to the kids. When travelling with kids from past relationships of both the parents, it is very important to give space to the kids and allow them to get together on their own rather than imposing your ideas of togetherness on them.

It is not always easy when travelling with older kids and teenagers – but by following the above tips you can expect more co-operation from them and thus make your travel a successful and happy one.

About Author

For more tips on parenting refer to my free e-book "New Parenting Style" on
http://www.newparentingstyle.com/index.html,
The author is a successful marketing executive in a large consumer good company and a mother of two boys. She has had a rough ride in the past two years and has successfully saved her family from the brink of disaster by working on her parenting style. She has recently built a website www.newparentingstyle.com, which touches upon some effective parenting tips that have helped her in her success.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-kinjal-shah-26802.html

Avoid Parent Stress while Travelling with Older Kids or Teenagers