Bye, darling! Try not to get arrested!
When our teenage children go on holiday alone for the first time, what’s the best advice to give them?, asks Anna Maxted
Our 16-year-old son, dizzy with relief after GCSEs, was going to France with a friend, and my husband and I were dispensing advice. He had already answered incorrectly to “What’s the biggest threat you face?” (“No, it’s not terrorism – it’s crossing the road!”). We knew he’d be cycling everywhere, so I was listing the many hazards. “Mum,” he cried, “I know how to ride a bike!”
And I know that he does. But the truth is, when our beloved teens travel alone for the first time – be it to Spain or Reading Festival – we anxious parents struggle to relinquish control. Ever since Oscar decided, at eight, to walk to school alone, my shtick has been to stress my belief in my children’s capabilities, and ridicule my neuroses – thereby alerting them to potential danger yet giving the impression they’re capable of dealing with it. For instance: “Watch out for parked vans, in case a man jumps out and tries to grab you!”
Lisa Brockie from Fife, stressing about the perils of freedom and youthful exuberance, messaged a detailed list of rules for her 18-year old, Finlay, to follow on his Magaluf holiday, which went viral last week after he shared it on Twitter.
“Remember to eat,” she says, urging him not to judge food by how much alcohol he could buy for the same price. “If there’s a boat party or even a pool party… stay away” (she bolsters this order with a reminder of when he accidentally walked into a pond and came home naked). She also warns against getting a tattoo – though, if he must, let it be discreet, ie, on his backside.
She continues: “Don’t have unprotected sex… in fact” – clearly an optimist – “don’t have sex at all.” She also notes, “Don’t take your passport out at night for ID. Over the past month or so you’ve lost two provisionals, three door keys, bank cards, money and a wallet.” Understandably, she adds: “You can’t be trusted.”
A common concern. We know what they’re capable of. And even sensible teens make mistakes. Days before his GCSEs last year, my usually level-headed son, Oscar, ended up in hospital on a drip, having decided to eat warm sushi from a friend’s bag.
If you’re currently fretting about your teenager’s first trip abroad, it may reassure you to learn that frantic anxiety about our teen’s first lone venture is natural. “We are hardwired to keep our children safe,” says Elaine Halligan, London Director of The Parent Practice, which coaches parents, and author of My Child’s Different. “We’ve all read about children going off, coming unstuck, falling off balconies, dying of an overdose.”
The question is, how can we help them protect themselves? “There is a
careful balance to be struck,” she says. “We struggle as parents to let go. It is our job to assist our children in the process of growing up, not to impede it.” Ideally, we’ll have supported our children yet encouraged self-sufficiency since secondary school age, if not earlier.
“To make our children safe in the real adult world, we need to start teaching them independence and self-reliance from an early age,” says Halligan. “If we don’t, we’re setting them up for failure. Over-protected children form a learned helplessness. They cannot cope when they need to problem-solve. When we do too much for them we don’t help them develop the life competencies and skills that enable them to have confidence and go forward into the adult world.”
So when are they responsible enough to be let loose? At 15, Oscar asked to go to Brighton with friends we didn’t know. They’d stay with so-andso’s sister, an adult, in her 20s! “Great,” muttered my husband, “a child with money.” Our son was going through a rebellious phase. We said no.
Halligan’s children, however, started travelling independently of her aged seven and 10 – flying to Scotland to visit family. “It depends on your child’s temperament and level of maturity. I’d never push my children into something they feared. But they wanted to give it a go.” At 18, her son drove 18,000 miles across the world to Mongolia.
Meanwhile, by 16 Oscar had matured enough to stay with a friend, also 16, in France for a week. His friend’s parents would join them a few days in. Oscar was by now a responsible, capable, caring young man – as one of our male friends put it, “the finished article”. Of course there would be silliness, but I trusted him, and his friend (who we adore) and his friend’s parents (ditto). But I was jittery about bike accidents. And pool accidents. And sea swimming. Also, diving and hitting his head.
They might be smart, but we shouldn’t assume that older teens are worldly. “We’ve got to do some coaching around the pitfalls and hazards,” says Halligan. But, as we all know, sometimes teens just zone out. So, how to prevent your wise words becoming a soliloquy?
Halligan says: “Be positive, respectful, and listen and accept their feelings and opinions. One issue teens often have is that we nag, lecture, accuse, threaten, blame, judge. Do that and they will withdraw, counter-attack, or become defensive. Instead, talk empathetically. Humour is key, without underplaying the serious possible consequences of risky behaviour.”
Our pre-France talk included the assurance, “if there’s a problem, call us – whatever it is, we won’t be cross!” a reminder about unrefrigerated seafood, the plea that if Oscar must drink, to choose beer over spirits and pace himself – plus the warning: “Don’t climb trees or go to a multistorey car park if drunk!” (My husband is obsessed with the perils of drinking and heights, for reasons we won’t dwell on but which, when he was a student, left him with two broken arms.)
Talking of which, how honest should we be about our misadventures? Addiction specialist Mandy Saligari, director of rehabilitation centre Charter Harley Street, says regaling teens with your exploits to seem cool and understanding can backfire – they see it as permission. If they ask if you’ve taken drugs, you might compliment them on an interesting question, and say: “Why are you asking me now?”
My husband has always been frank with Oscar about the risks of drugtaking – he had friends who died. There’s no glamorising that.
If you have a trusting relationship, and your teen knows you care, some advice will stick. Oscar, now 17, says: “I’ve always had good advice from Dad about drugs, so it’s become part of my understanding and I’ve never needed to be told, last minute, not to do them. If you tell teenagers ‘drugs are bad’ the day before they go off to a festival or to Ibiza, they’re not going to listen as it seems accusatory.”
Should we accept that we won’t know everything about our teenagers’ exploits – and that’s probably for the best? That depends on the context. I’ve known parents turn a blind eye to an obvious drug issue, to avoid having to confront the problem – or address it. Yet it’s equally unhealthy to demand a full report of their every move. Halligan says: “Teenagers are entitled to a private life. They’re not going to share everything with parents.” Furthermore, “Teenagers will only tell us the truth if we’ve spent time developing a relationship based on mutual respect and trust and honesty.”
Some of Brockie’s demands were unrealistic but it’s clever to set strict boundaries, knowing they’ll be broken. Saligari, author of Proactive Parenting, says: “If you’re permissive, and say, for instance, ‘Fine if you smoke a bit of weed but nothing stronger,’ the chances are they’ll smoke weed and worse.”
It’s better to have a zero-tolerance attitude – which they internalise. It might not prevent them experimenting, but Saligari says: “If you say ‘Do not smoke anything at all, I absolutely disagree with you using any kind of drug, and here’s why,’ it means they’ve got to slide in the door smiling, they have to work hard to cover it up, minimise their use of it, in case they get caught. You ignite their conscience and they’ll feel guilty about any drug use.”
At 16, Oscar went on a school trip to Russia. The boys would be responsible for their passports, money, and have free time in Moscow. My instructions included: keep your passport in one safe place; if you’re mugged for your phone, give it; don’t be charmed into going anywhere with anyone; OK, what did I just say?
He now informs me my advice was poor, as “it was mainly about not annoying Russian officials. I wasn’t going to annoy them anyway – they were all massive and carrying Kalashnikovs.” So what would have been useful? “‘Don’t exchange all your money at the airport’. Because I got bumped [ripped off ]. And the food was rancid – you should have set out a map of Burger Kings near my hotel.”
Finlay’s mother got it right with bite-sized messaging. My friend wrote a rambling note for her 18-year old, including the instruction: “Don’t forget your passport.” Her daughter got to the airport, but forgot her passport. My friend realised teenagers don’t read rambling notes.
Teething problems apart, once they take flight, we can only trust that we’ve equipped them to look after themselves. Incidentally, judging from his social media feed, Finlay enjoyed Magaluf. He might not have obeyed every maternal rule, but he did retweet someone’s comment:
‘It is our job to assist our children in the process of growing up, not to impede it’
‘We can only trust that we’ve equipped them to look after themselves’