Is this normal? Tween not liking parent’s hometown

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Germany and my family goes every year. Different large city.

Do your kids speak German? Have friends or access to other kids their age? What are their interests? Ours like it and go happily every year. Munich is great, plenty to do.

What did he say he doesn't like?

They both speak German, but the younger one doesn’t have friends. The older one 2-3 friends she met through her sport. The younger one refuses to do anything like camp and sports classes. I offered sailing, tennis, riding. Answer is no. Relatives and children of friends don’t match up age-wise.

Why are you surprised they don't want to go? Completely predictable. These children of ours start to become their own people and parents and family are not their focus. They want to be around peers and friends. Totally normal. In fact, I'm shocked your older child doesn't object.

The older child has friends through her sport. That's why she doesn't object.

[Anonymous]

Eh, we don't all get the perfect summer sometimes. It's ok. Your kid will survive a few weeks of their "less than ideal" summer vacation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Germany and my family goes every year. Different large city.

Do your kids speak German? Have friends or access to other kids their age? What are their interests? Ours like it and go happily every year. Munich is great, plenty to do.

What did he say he doesn't like?

They both speak German, but the younger one doesn’t have friends. The older one 2-3 friends she met through her sport. The younger one refuses to do anything like camp and sports classes. I offered sailing, tennis, riding. Answer is no. Relatives and children of friends don’t match up age-wise.

Why are you surprised they don't want to go? Completely predictable. These children of ours start to become their own people and parents and family are not their focus. They want to be around peers and friends. Totally normal. In fact, I'm shocked your older child doesn't object.

The older child has friends through her sport. That's why she doesn't object.

Most teens still would prefer to be home with their "real-life" friends if they have a strong and active social life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Germany and my family goes every year. Different large city.

Do your kids speak German? Have friends or access to other kids their age? What are their interests? Ours like it and go happily every year. Munich is great, plenty to do.

What did he say he doesn't like?

They both speak German, but the younger one doesn’t have friends. The older one 2-3 friends she met through her sport. The younger one refuses to do anything like camp and sports classes. I offered sailing, tennis, riding. Answer is no. Relatives and children of friends don’t match up age-wise.

Why are you surprised they don't want to go? Completely predictable. These children of ours start to become their own people and parents and family are not their focus. They want to be around peers and friends. Totally normal. In fact, I'm shocked your older child doesn't object.

The older child has friends through her sport. That's why she doesn't object.

Most teens still would prefer to be home with their "real-life" friends if they have a strong and active social life.

Most. Not all.

[Anonymous]

In my teens I would have rather died than spend a summer away from my friends - it doesn’t matter if it was Munich, Paris, London, or NYC. What matters is spending time with your friends and also not missing out on the fun and bonding that they will have without you - and dreading coming back and feeling out of the loop.

[Anonymous]

We also go to Munich every year and my tween hates it. He would prefer to stay home for the summer.

[Anonymous]

As your DC gets older, they will want to spend more time at "home" rather than traveling or even at a second home (especially if it's abroad) because they want to be home, see friends, get a job etc. I would suggest shortening your time there as they get older, speak with them about what would work for them. Maybe it's not ALL summer but it's 6 weeks. or 4 weeks. Once they get to college they probably will not want to go at all due to summer jobs and internships. Better to get used to the idea of scaling it back now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every summer we spend in Munich, which is where my DH is from. I absolutely love it. We have a small apartment there, friends, family, etc. Older teenager loves it, but tween/young teen for the first time told me he doesn’t like it. He was so excited to go this summer and now really can’t find anything good about it. Is this normal? It’s important to me that we all keep going every year, and not slowly erode this commitment. Has anyone experienced this?

I'm not sure what this means, but it's clear your tween isn't into it but your priorities are to go right now. By tween, do you mean 11? Well you have a few more years where you can make them go, and then you are going to get some teen pushback.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You spend the entire summer there? Of course your tween isn't interested - he wants to go to camp, spend time with his friends, and enjoy his room.

+1 to this. Being the kid with an accent at a new camp with kids he doesn't know, when he'd rather be back home with his own friends is probably a bummer. Someday he might appreciate the opportunity to have such an experience as extended visits to a foreign country, but I wouldn't find it shocking that in the present he isn't happy.

I get the sentiment, but he doesn’t have an accent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Germany and my family goes every year. Different large city.

Do your kids speak German? Have friends or access to other kids their age? What are their interests? Ours like it and go happily every year. Munich is great, plenty to do.

What did he say he doesn't like?

They both speak German, but the younger one doesn’t have friends. The older one 2-3 friends she met through her sport. The younger one refuses to do anything like camp and sports classes. I offered sailing, tennis, riding. Answer is no. Relatives and children of friends don’t match up age-wise.

Why are you surprised they don't want to go? Completely predictable. These children of ours start to become their own people and parents and family are not their focus. They want to be around peers and friends. Totally normal. In fact, I'm shocked your older child doesn't object.

The older child has friends through her sport. That's why she doesn't object.

Most teens still would prefer to be home with their "real-life" friends if they have a strong and active social life.

Most. Not all.

OP's tween who is under discussion here seem to fall in the "most" category.

[Anonymous]

I don't think kids care about the culture or history, they want to have fun. Are there fun things for him to do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Germany and my family goes every year. Different large city.

Do your kids speak German? Have friends or access to other kids their age? What are their interests? Ours like it and go happily every year. Munich is great, plenty to do.

What did he say he doesn't like?

They both speak German, but the younger one doesn’t have friends. The older one 2-3 friends she met through her sport. The younger one refuses to do anything like camp and sports classes. I offered sailing, tennis, riding. Answer is no. Relatives and children of friends don’t match up age-wise.

It's an age thing. My parents live in London, and my teen DS spent most of the time we visited last summer in his bedroom, on the computer.

[Anonymous]

Kids are different. Some are extroverts and make friends easily in new situations; others aren't. And even if your kid speaks natively without an accent, that doesn't mean he's culturally fluent enough to be comfortable with German tweens who have a different set of cultural references day in and day out.

Is it possible to compromise by spending something less than the whole summer in Munich? I'm certainly not one to let my kids have their own way in everything, all the time, but I also think it's important to have compassion for who they are as individuals and recognize that what makes me happy won't necessarily make them happy, and that we all have a right to try to maximize our collective happiness as a family.

Maybe your tween will grow to love summers in Munich and want to return to spend time with family and friends, go to university, etc. if you keep it up with all summer every summer. Or maybe his primary memory will be of being miserable for three months and wanting nothing to do with Germany when he's out from under your thumb. So you should think about your long-term goals, not just your short-term goals, in deciding what to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Uh yes, and many of us are from hometowns far less interesting than Munich Germany.

+1

And here I thought the thread would be about the parents' hometown being small, rural, and with nothing to do but watch the [insert crop] grow (or have to be there to help harvest it).

But I suppose the "hometown" doesn't really matter, except that it's not the tween's hometown.

[Anonymous]

It's normal. I would offer him the option of A) Sleepaway camp in Germany or the US; B) Vigorous hiking daily; or C) Stop complaining.

My kids don't really like my hometown in Vermont either, because it's kinda boring, but here's the thing-- they're not from Munich. Your DH is from Munich and he has chosen *not* to raise his children in Munich. They're not having a Munich childhood. Just like my kids aren't having a Vermont childhood because I didn't choose that for them. They aren't really part of the community there (and believe me, as a local I always rolled my eyes at 'summer people' who thought they were), and they're not going to suddenly feel like they live there because of suummer visits. He's missing out on all the things he could do and the people he could be with if he wasn't in Munich-- that's the fact of the matter here and he's not wrong. He's his own person with his own goals, relationships, etc.