| Seems op is gone. Troll post? I sure hope so. |
You do you but I believe this is how current parenting got us into having kids like this. It’s ok to say we’re going to Italy to visit family and not give in to a tantrum about Hawaii or find a way to appease her. Good luck OP. |
+1 This right here. Which one is she OP? |
No. She still refused to pack all day, so I packed for her. I think calling someone to try to persuade her to go would help if she still refuses to physically leave. She would definitely be ashamed and embarrassed. We have close family in Italy, so we visit in Italy often, which is why she doesn’t want to go. |
Why would you embarrass her? Take some parenting classes and talk to her. Maybe she just wants to stay home if you constantly travel. Not unreasonable. |
What “privileges” have been taken away? Is there another parent in the home? If so, what is their take on this? |
For a 14 year old to refuse to go on a trip??? Yes, it is unreasonable. If embarrassment is the only thing that will work, it is the tool that should be used. Unfortunately she wasn’t taught respect earlier, so now is the time. |
| My DD is almost 14 so I empathize with this age. It’s hard. BUT she doesn’t get to refuse to go on a family trip. Tell her she needs to get her act together. She is going. Her attitude will have an effect on the kind if summer she has. If she acts a brat don’t pay for any extras this summer. |
Oooh. We have relatives in a foreign country and it was around this age that I started trying very hard to get out of the annual trip. When I was 15 I was so unpleasant that my mom started planning the trip without me and just taking my brother when I was away at camp for part of the summer. I absolutely hated that trip -- we spent so much time in other people's living rooms, listening to relatives I barely knew talk about the war. No kids my age, nothing to do. There could have been ways to make that trip more interesting for a teen -- such as giving me a chance to go somewhere on my own, seeing if the relatives knew any kids my age, etc. I know that I should not have been such a b---h to my parents about it and I knew that at the time, but nobody would listen to me. I wasn't 8 years old but the trip repeated itself each year as if I never got any older. I do not agree with your kid's behavior, of course, but if you get an opening, really try to listen about what is bothering her about the trip. Can you give her some freedom while she is there? Let her take a train somewhere, do something a little different? Europe is safer than here anyway. |
Oh, and I meant to add -- you know what is my happy place now, where I love to visit? That country I hated to go to. I love it now. |
Another dumb American. Europe is NOT safer than America, and certainly NOT for a 14 year old girl going places by herself. What sort of blithering idiot are you? I agree that OP should find ways to make this trip more bearable for her teen. But unless she knows the area like the back of her hand and speak without accent, no I would not leave her to fend for herself. I took the Paris metro by myself at 12 to get to and from school. But I lived there. OP's kid does not live where her relatives are. |
My goodness. So much anger there, my friend! Dumb American? Blithering idiot? Chill out. Taking a metro by yourself at the old age of 12 is not a flex, by the way. |
| Is there any chance at all she had a conflict or incident with a family member in Italy and doesn’t want to spend time with them? |
| OP you'd better update before 6 AM! We need to know how this turns out. |
Ok so if you guys do go to Hawaii next year make alternate plans for her. Can she stay with grandparents when you guys go on trips from now on? |