Improving Your Vacation Experience with Your Children

Getting ready to head out of town for an end of summer vacation? 

Vacations can be a great way to relax, rejuvenate, and celebrate the summer. 

However, for parents with children who often misbehave, vacations can be stressful.

Here are a few strategies to help reduce stress on vacation caused by children misbehaving:

1) Before leaving for vacation, identify the situations that are likely to lead to your children acting up, or conflicts between you and your children (i.e. your child wanting to leave the beach before everyone else is ready, wanting to play games in the arcade all day, fighting with their siblings, not letting you relax and read a book).

2) Come up with solutions to address these situations. Write the situations and solutions down. If needed, determine a few rewards and consequences for your children's good or problematic behavior and write these down as well. Rewards might be 10 minutes of playing games in the arcade, staying up a half hour later, ice cream for dessert, extra video game time in the hotel room, etc. Consequences may include: no dessert, no television for the evening, loss of video games/use of ipod, etc. 

3) Talk with your significant other, parents, or whichever adults will be on the trip and directly responsible for parenting your children. Make sure everyone is on the same page with being aware of the situations likely to be problematic as well as solutions. In addition, make sure everyone is clear on what rewards/consequences can be used.

4) Talk to your children before leaving for vacation about your concerns. If they are old enough, get their opinion on what issues could arise and what solutions they can suggest to alleviate potential issues. Share with them your thoughts on situations and solutions. Also talk with your children about rewards/consequences, and give them an opportunity to suggest some of these as well. Children often are able to make good suggestions for both rewards and consequences, and if they are actively involved in the process, tend to be more engaged and willing to abide by reward/consequence behavior systems. 

5) If you feel that a more structured behavioral system is needed to enforce positive behavior during your trip, consider setting up a formal behavior sticker chart.

6) In general, if misbehavior is occurring, provide your children with an initial warning to stop the behavior, then give them two warnings before enforcing a specific consequence. Make sure to remind your children what the consequence will be when giving them the initial warning. 

With addressing most behavioral issues in children, the key is to plan ahead to determine specific issues that are likely to occur, and develop a plan to address them before getting stuck in the moment and not knowing how to handle situations.

I hope these suggestions are helpful and help aid you in having a wonderful, relaxing, and stress free end of summer vacation!


For daily updates on useful articles, you can also follow The Heller Psychology Group on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HellerPsych and 
Facebook: Facebook.com/HellerPsychology

Dr. Carey Heller is a licensed psychologist with The Heller Psychology Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland. He specializes in work with children, adolescents, and young adults, and is happy to answer questions and provide consultations for individuals who are considering pursuing treatment or an evaluation for their child, adolescent, or themselves. Dr. Heller can be reached at (301)-385-2610 or careyheller@thehellerpsychologygroup.com.

For appointments, please call the office at (301) 385-2610 or email The Heller Psychology Group at appt@thehellerpsychologygroup.com with your contact information and availability for appointment times.

*Disclaimer: The previous information is intended as general guidance based on my professional opinion, does not constitute an established professional relationship,  and should not replace the recommendations of a psychologist or other licensed professional with whom you initiate or maintain a professional relationship*