Ask Anything – Spring Break Guidelines – February 2014

Spring Break Guidelines
by: Dr. Tina Lepage

Q: Spring break is coming up and my children who are freshman and sophomore (one boy, one girl) in high school want to go away to a beach with other kids and parents I don’t know well. On one hand I don’t want to be a stick in the mud, but this really is the kind of thing I imagine a senior in high school doing, not younger. I don’t want to be the overlay anxious parent who doesn’t let them have fun with the other teens, but as you can tell I AM anxious. Suggestions?

A: Your concern about allowing your young teenagers to go to the beach over spring break is understandable. Horror stories abound about teenagers getting drunk and hurting themselves on spring break beach trips. You say you don’t want to be a stick in the mud by saying no to your teens but you are anxious about letting them go. OK, let’s see if the anxiety is making your decision for you or if you have sound, parental reasoning that you might be getting ready to disregard because you don’t want to be a stick in the mud…

What are your guidelines for allowing your children to spend a week away from home? Is it important to you that you know the parents and trust their judgment or do you have more of a laissez-faire approach that says something like ‘the experiences they have will be life experiences that add to their growth and development?’ And if it’s important to you to trust the parents, what would make you more comfortable to trust them if you don’t have years of friendship to rely on? If you disregard your hesitation because you don’t want your children to be unhappy with you, what will happen to your authority on other important parenting decisions? It’s important for you to have a clear perspective on how you’re making the decision to let them go to the beach or not. If you make it based on anxiety, there’s a good possibility you will not be able to explain it to your teens, who will almost certainly press you for your reasoning, and there’s also a possibility you won’t feel good about your decision after the fact. Anxiety is just the starting point in parenting, not the ending point for decision making. Your anxiety may be telling you something very valuable but it’s necessary to then bring in the reasoning mind in order to sort through that very unpleasant and confusing state.

So here are some possibilities for criteria you might use to help make your decision:
1) Do you trust the parents to be the guardian of your children for the week? If you’re answer to this is ‘no’ then go no further. If you’re answer is ‘I don’t know’ or ‘yes’ then continue…
2) If you’re not sure you trust the parents who have invited your son and daughter to the beach, what would allow you to get a better sense of whether these people are trustworthy or not? A telephone conversation? Sitting down to talk over lunch? If you don’t have a history together which would naturally bring about trust (provided they are trustworthy), you’ll have to use some other criteria for determining whether you trust them.  You might consider what their weekend habits are like and whether they are engaged and present around the house with their kids or more inclined to let them to go the bonus room or the basement and not see them for the rest of the night. You might ask them what their attitude toward drinking in high school is. I would not be afraid to ask this of parents who might have responsibility for your kids for the week.
3) If you trust the parents, do you also trust your children to make good decisions while they are there? What would help you feel more comfortable trusting your kids? Would a conversation (not a lecture) beforehand make you feel more comfortable that they are not going to do anything unsafe while they’re away? If you haven’t had the talk about sex, drugs, and alcohol yet, or if you haven’t talked about it lately, this might be a good time to do that.
4) Where exactly are they planning on going? Is it party-central or a family-oriented beach the family is going to?
5) What will the house rules be while they are away? Think of things such as unsupervised time allowed or not, new just-met beach friends allowed to be present, etc.

The point is to get clear with yourself on what is important to you in both protecting your teens and allowing them opportunities to gain greater independence from you. Anxiety can be a good indication that you need to take a closer look but ideally it won’t be what makes your decision for you. In your question I hear anxiety both about the safety of your children and about how they will react to you if you say no. Both are OK, it’s just that if you know the sources of your anxieties you have a better chance of setting them aside in order to make a thoughtful, parental decision in the best interest of your children.