Make a plan together
You’re not a Victorian patriarch, so don’t approach holiday planning like one. All holidays are a series of compromises and the whole family will have a better time if everyone gets a say on what to do. Sit down before you go and share some ideas.You might end up in more dark, loud clothes shops than you would have chosen, but equally, you might get some nice surprises.
Culture shock is real
Unless your children are particularly lucky, foreign holidays will be strange for them, and the further you go the stranger it will be. Just because they behave like adult sophisticates much of the time, don’t expect them to take everything – poverty, street hassle, weird food, extremes of temperature – in their stride, and if you’re getting more strops, tears or general unpleasantness than usual, that’s probably why. Build in plenty of low-pressure downtime to minimise crises.
Don’t lose sight of what a holiday is
For most of us, the main purpose of a holiday is to relax and enjoy each other’s company, not to visit 15 museums your guidebook rates as “perhaps worth a look if you have time”. Your teenagers lying on their beds in semi-darkness while a world of sunshine and cultural enrichment waits outside is maddening, but you flecking their duvet with spittle as you rant about how you didn’t pay hundreds of pounds for them to talk to their mates back home simply has the effect of making everyone miserable. Step away. Take your book to a bar and order something colourful, possibly featuring a small umbrella. Much nicer.
Invest in enough adaptors/ chargers
You know it makes sense. I estimate that 65% of our household fights are about chargers, so a week with 65% less fighting constitutes a holiday in itself.
Give plenty of warning
Got an early flight or an infrequent bus to catch? Warn them, ideally more than once – they’ll look at you as if you are half-witted, but you’re probably used to that. If you want the slightest chance of having your teenagers where you want them, when you want them, this is essential. I recommend revelling in your village idiot status and repeating the warning several times more, while smiling beatifically. This bit is not necessary, but it is enjoyable.
Do stuff without them
Breakfast, for instance. Trying to get a teenager up before a hotel breakfast buffet closes is a hiding to nothing. Yes, you’ve paid for it. Yes, they’ll be complaining they’re hungry at 11am. Let it go. If you’re feeling especially nice or determined to get value for money, stuff a couple of croissants in your bag. This also holds true for outings. You’re desperate to see the uncannily preserved forefinger of a minor saint in some far-flung chapel; they’d rather chew off their own forefingers. Go without them. A mardy teenager is not going to add to your enjoyment of the shrivelled digit, and they might even be pleased to see you when you get back. Maybe.
Minimise the rules – but stick to them
Holiday is no time for imposing unrealistic screen-time limits or improving reading. Pare rules down to the bare essentials for safety and happiness: it gives them a better chance of being followed, too. Discuss the non-negotiables up front and make it clear what will happen if they don’t keep to them. NB: banishment from a trip to see a shrivelled finger is unlikely to be a sufficient deterrent.
If all else fails, seek out some toddlers
When your teenagers are being obnoxious and the red mist descends, try to find a family with toddlers to observe. They are easy to spot: they are the ones being hit over the head with plastic trucks outside your window at 6am, or leaving their patatas bravas to remove a rigid, shrieking banshee smeared in red sauce from the restaurant under the disapproving eye of other diners. You will instantly feel better about life with teenagers, with its lie-ins and (relatively) peaceful mealtimes. If you can’t find any toddlers, Volume 2 of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle on audiobook, with its angry-weary account of baby music classes and dreadful theme park days out with under-fives had a similar effect on me.
