Reply to Would you let your teen cut short a service trip b/c unhappy?

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[quote=Anonymous]DD, 15, is on a two week service learning trip with a non-profit. Week one was pretty good: the kids were kept very busy doing Habitat-type work and she liked it and made a close friend. But with four more days left, she seems really unhappy. Complains that they are no longer doing service but seem to be spending a lot of time just sitting around in the base house doing nothing; there are a couple of mean girls in the group, and the counselors are themselves bratty and irresponsible college kids. There is probably some truth to all of these complaints: it does sound like the counselors are not well-organized, for instance, and they have too much down-time. Anyway, DH is in the same city as DD's service trip, visiting relatives, and she is begging him to come pick her up a few days early. Her argument: the whole point of the trip is service and they are not doing any more service, and she is miserable and feels like this is a waste of time, basically sitting around doing very little with people she does not much like.

DH thinks he should just go get her a few days early. I think she should stick it out. I said I thought it might be reasonable for him to pick her up a [i]little[/i] early- like the night before the scheduled end of the trip - but that leaving three days early is not appropriate. I guess I feel like dealing with annoying people, boredom and disappointing situations is part of life, and she should suck it up. DH is sympathetic to DD's view that there is no point sticking it out when she is neither doing service nor having fun and it's no burden on us to have her leave a few days early.

Thoughts? WWYD in this situation?[/quote]

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