Dear Mary-anne: Our teen is bailing on our family holiday.

QUESTION:

We've planned a family holiday for the last fortnight in January. There's been plenty of warning for everyone, we've booked a bach and we all agreed on this holiday six months ago. But now, our eldest son, 16, wants to stay home and work in a hospitality job and earn money to buy a car. We've rented our own house out but he says he's going to stay with his mate. I'm so disappointed.

Gone are the days when you can strap him in his car seat with a toy and a biscuit. You can't force your 16-year-old to go on a holiday. Even if you resort to bribery or coercion, he can walk away. And if you do win the battle it might backfire anyway; you want your son there with a good attitude or not at all.

While you were planning and dreaming about this family holiday, your son was making his own plans and he's envisaged a car and all the freedoms that go with that. 

ANSWER:

I've learned a couple of lessons over the years, with sons. One is that I didn't always know best. Sometimes when I schemed or manipulated a situation, it became clear that there were problems with my plan too. Perhaps the beach partying among teens at your holiday venue would turn out to be worse than having him at home working.

Another thing I learned is that, at this stage, it's just a plan. He could well be testing the waters and once you've stressed and argued the point, he might change his mind, or the job falls over etc.

And while your son may think it's a plan set in concrete, what about his mate's family? Do they want your teen as well as their own? Do they even know about this proposal? You might find they are going away on holiday too. Your son is only 16 so you're quite within your rights to discuss this with the family he intends staying with.

It's a disappointing situation but your son isn't planning anything too dreadful; he just wants to work. It might be a summer too soon for you, but it was going to happen at some stage anyway. Tell him how much you'll miss him on holiday and wait a bit, he might just be grumbling away in the backseat of the car after all.