Holidays: How to survive without my teenager?
updated the 1 August 2016 à 16:14Oh my teenager! The idea of him leaving this summer, gives me cold sweats! What do I do?
That’s it. Your teenage child goes on vacation with his friends for the first time, and you feel the risk of the tear faucet experiencing some leaks during his departure. Or worse, several weeks before the big day, you were already diagnosed with new-type Tourette Syndrome, based on “You’ll call me right? You’ll make sure you will?” giving even the most expert stalker a run for his money.
Of course, like Sandra, 44, who is about to send her son of 16 years with his band mates for two weeks of camping, you’ll imagine the worst: “The drinking parties that end in alcoholic comas, the allocated budget exploded in just two days or meals exclusively comprising of chips!” And you think back longingly to the years when your only fear was that his work won’t be winning the big sandcastle competitions…
According to Richard Marchand, Gestalt therapist and family therapist: “For the beginning of the teenager’s holiday with his mates, it seems essential to me not to drown the child with phone calls. Parents should know the difference between informative and intrusive. In this sense, we can ask him to call once arrived, once during the stay, and upon return. I would advise parents to break camp too. It can be very positive at this pivotal moment, for the parents since their children are busy enjoying something else. For the former, it is an opportunity to meet, to arise and thus to question where they want to take their relationship once free of the children. This is, of course, with the exception of going too far. This is the confusion for the teens feeling the need to update their concerned parents about what they do, without feeling too clingy. The right distance is complex to achieve. But everyone comes out a winner. In fact, it appears to me first start as a journey outward to the teenager and a domestic trip for parents. In both cases it’s a win-win.”
Josephine Lebard and Nur Syazana H.
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Holidays: How to survive without my shrink
