As parents and teens, we’ve mastered the power struggle. Travel amplifies what you do and don’t like about your teen and what they do and don’t like about you. Add to that the additional factor that you’ve invested your vacation days and a small fortune to give your family a certain set of shared experiences, and the stakes are raised to unreasonable levels.
In the 15 years we’ve traveled with our teens, this is what has worked for us to keep the drama down to a minimum. Power struggles take two active sides. At least during your travels, consider a new approach. Opt out on your side, in areas you can. Resist the urge to micromanage them and let them have choices. In many situations, we’re happy to give our teens options, eliminating power struggles when we can.
There are 5 things we offer our teens to make them happy travelers, and five things we expect from them to make us as parents, happy travelers (and willing to travel with them at all).
What they can expect from us:
- When technologically possible, wifi and global roaming are provided.
- No unplugged moratoriums or screen restrictions. This is silly. Let them decide.
- Waking them up in the mornings. Leave the mornings to the adults, we love some silence with our coffee.
- They choose. It’s their choice to come with the family to do anything, activity, restaurant, museum, be in photos, watch a movie, try new foods. Say good-bye to cajoling, hauling pouty teens around, say hello to pleasant, drama-free outings.
- Initiative. We are all over that when they take it, and they often do. They research museums, restaurants, which countries to go to next, which cities are interesting, places to see, activities they want to do. We try to make those things happen as much as we can.
What we expect from them:
- Being responsible for all their own stuff. They can, and do handle it because micromanaging all that stuff (times 3) would be exhausting. They organize their ongoing entertainment needs, having snacks on long journeys, not losing charging chords, having camera batteries charged, taking bandaids in their pocket if they’re tootsies are prone to blisters, if they’re a barfer–making sure they take their dramamine an hour before we leave so it has kicked in when we leave, checking under pillows for their eye mask before we leave hotels, backing whatever is important up to whatever cloud, having a waterproof bag for their camera on days that it might rain, not living like a slob when sharing a room, all of it. Also, don’t bail them out or they won’t learn. The only way to make them master ninja travelers is let them learn from their own mistakes. They rarely learn from your knowledge base.
- A solution oriented outlook. No whining or complaining but giving us concrete ideas on how to change something they don’t like. It’s as simple as when they’re tired, suggesting we sit at a cafe for a coffee and dessert. We love solutions like that!
- On the other hand, we want early notification when health issues are brewing. We don’t care how embarrassing it is, constipation, UTI, yeast infection, tell us early on that something’s off. This isn’t complaining, this is trying to stay out of the ER in timbuktu at 3 in the morning. One girl had her wisdom teeth out in Costa Rica. Apparently next time she wants stronger anesthetic (yikes). We always found doctors and pharmacists who can help.
- Managing their moods. This means not mistreating others in the family when grumpy, and not tanking the entire family experience. We all have our hormones and bad days to contend with, they’re expected to develop strategies for managing theirs.
- Being grateful. This is not something you can ask for or demand. Being grateful often evolves when you’ve visited many poorer countries. As their awareness grows, their attitude shifts. We will call the girls out on any type of entitled behavior but overall, our years in Guatemala raised their baseline of awareness of how fortunate they are. We as parents model our appreciation of spending time and experiences with them, because that’s how we feel. The girls often express their gratefulness towards us, after a great day, an experience, a meal, even ice cream, they thank us. We reinforce that appreciation by slipping them whatever foreign currency is on hand. jk.
This mostly unspoken set of expectations, has worked extremely well for us. We keep tweeking it as we go.
