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WHY CHILDREN DON’T LIKE TO BE BESIDE THE SEA

BLACKPOOL: Kids would rather stay at home

Saturday August 2,2008

By Sarah O’Grady, Social Affairs Correspondent

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(9)

PARENTS planning day trips during the summer holidays have been sent a message from the kids. Don’t bother.

Almost 70 per cent of students say they hated family days out as youngsters and wished their parents had left them to amuse themselves.

Top of the hate list were visits to the Natural History Museum (or any museum) closely followed by days out in Blackpool or Bognor Regis and, almost as bad, trips to see distant relatives.

Only a quarter of 1,200 students polled in a survey claimed to enjoy family days out.

For 42 per cent the journey was the worst part of the trip, but 18 per cent blamed lack of “fun things to do” at their destination. And 12 per cent said they would prefer to be surfing the internet. Many students claimed that boredom had been to blame for any childhood sulkiness.

Nigel Whiteoak, manager of online auction site TeleBid.com, which undertook the research, said yesterday: “It quickly became evident that more would prefer to stay at home and do their own thing than enjoy a day out with the family.”

He added: “I have to confess I am one of the few who used to enjoy day trips to Blackpool with my family in the summer.’’

Life coach and youth worker Joseph Clough said: “This research shows that, despite attempts to ensure quality time spent with their children, parents are falling short and weakening their bond with them by enforcing time together.”

Ten most hated day trips

1 Natural History Museum

2 Blackpool

3 Bognor Regis

4 Visiting relatives

5 Weston-Super-Mare

6 Stonehenge

7 Warwick Castle

8 Model villages

9 Nature parks

10 Garden Centres

YOU'RE KIDDING ME.

03.08.08, 8:27am

I hated day trips when I was younger. Call me 'bratty', but a trip with 4 siblings in a car was never fun. It makes me laugh that people are blaming the internet whilst using it to vent their opinion. Luh-hoo, ser-hers!

• Posted by: DannyStanton • Report Comment

SARAH O'GRADY, SORRY BUT YOU BLEW IT ON THIS ONE DUCKY

02.08.08, 3:57pm

You must be all of 20 or so.

• Posted by: Pendragon • Report Comment

PARENTS ARE FALLING SHORT? REALLY!

02.08.08, 3:55pm

How about the ungrateful kids? Why is it always the parents who are at fault? You can bring your children up the best way you know how, and in the end it is the children who count as far as what they do is concerned. As in the saying, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. No pardon for the pun.

The article, unknown to its author, clearly states the present day problem: obsession with the Internet. This obsession excludes all else, including family. The obsessed are kids and also adults. There is no doubt that the Internet has had a chilling effect on family relations.

At one time it was the TV that was the bad guy, but most certainly now it is the Internet.

I remember trips to Morecamble, paid for by my hard working Mum. Looking back, I realize how she sacrificed to save for the hols in Morecamble. Did I sulk? Well there was no Internet then. But obviously those hols counted because when I got older I head for my hols to ... guess where? Newquay, or any place by the sea.

Stop denigrating parents please and feeling sorry for ungrateful kids. For me, I'd cut off tjhe trips to the seaside - and underwriting the alternative surfing on the Internet as well. And since when did kids have to be entertainted 24/7? What the heck has happened to our children? Bunch of spolied brats - on both sides of the Atlantic.

Get real and stop giving these kids their reasong for being. Their parents owe them nothing except a good upbringing and education. If they want to shove the bucket and spade, for heaven's sake let them but add the Internet too. Geez!

• Posted by: Pendragon • Report Comment

BY THE WAY

02.08.08, 1:39pm

I don't take my children to those places for holidays.....

I'm not a total sadist....

I read the article to my daughter and those places came to mind that really bore the hell out of her....

My daughters always enjoyed going to the beach finding winkles and crabs on the rocks, going to castles and roly-polying down the moat from the top right down to the bottom! Then a lovely ice cream from the on site van! Lovely!

We used to visit a place in Northumberland called Warkworth - right beside the River Aln, so we used to hire a rowing boat.

4 kids and two inexperienced mums on the oars. That kept the kids entertained for ages....fabulous place though..... I'm going there next week - without the kids.

They are adults now and make their own entertainment.

However, Warkworth is postively serene, and would be my favourite place to live on retirement. It is rather 'out of the way' for day to day living at the moment for me.

• Posted by: SandieL • Report Comment

CHILDREN AT THE SEASIDE

02.08.08, 1:03pm

Under the age of 10 kids love the seaside and days out as long as their interests remain paramount. eg. forget meals out that involve lengthy eating / drinking. Fish and chips are just fine !

We solved the problem by taking our teens friends with us. We went camping and the kids loved it. The kids shared a seperate tent yet we were close by if they needed us. A kids club/disco allowed them the freedom they needed to meet other young teens away from our watchful eye.
Not the perfect holiday for us parents obviously as we always had to be on hand and available .
We enjoyed barbecues on the beach and the kids ate their own freshly caught fish.
Good times.....not always easy...but a compromise is essential when bridging the generation gap 1

• Posted by: marigold • Report Comment