What did you do when teenagers no longer want to camp?
13 & 16 year old. I know it is coming. I can see the signs. Therapy needed & quick.
Forum Discussion
Oh I feel your pain, just recently crossed that stage in our married lives and it's not been easy for me. Our youngest just left home last week for college in Fairbanks AK and our kids were only weeks old each when they first went camping. RV'ing has been our passion for over 20 years with kids.
My dad never let any of us kids drive his vehicles, I've let my kids drive ours even though they do have their own daily drivers they bought with their own money. But when camping I did let them drive our Suburban to town if the campground wasn't way out, just so they could have fun. (Mostly they did like doing things with us)
The picture below is also the first time we let our oldest son drive with his sister just over 100 miles to the campground himself. My wife and I would often leave early ahead of the kids, enjoy a night or two alone, and then Friday afternoon the kids would come out right after school.
And as mentioned, we've always let our children bring friends. I've managed to get extra bicycles in our trailer and now that they are young adults we try to book sites with Yurts so all the young folks can crash there and stay up late, even though our bunkhouse like most can provide a lot of beds. If the weather is nice, tents are good, and we've had tents set up right under the awning when it wasn't so nice.
And we love to winter camp, and you do things different than summer. We go to movies in town, stop at outlet malls, go cart racing, hauling mountain bikes up a mountain and then racing down on the bikes and so forth.
We still have board games and cards, a TV and DVD player, but never a video game console of any kind. I miss my kids though I'm enjoying the freedom to travel with just my wife and the dog. Our kids hung in there to the end, and even now my boy likes to borrow our truck and slide in camper for his own outings.
All the best, Hans
My dad never let any of us kids drive his vehicles, I've let my kids drive ours even though they do have their own daily drivers they bought with their own money. But when camping I did let them drive our Suburban to town if the campground wasn't way out, just so they could have fun. (Mostly they did like doing things with us)
The picture below is also the first time we let our oldest son drive with his sister just over 100 miles to the campground himself. My wife and I would often leave early ahead of the kids, enjoy a night or two alone, and then Friday afternoon the kids would come out right after school.
And as mentioned, we've always let our children bring friends. I've managed to get extra bicycles in our trailer and now that they are young adults we try to book sites with Yurts so all the young folks can crash there and stay up late, even though our bunkhouse like most can provide a lot of beds. If the weather is nice, tents are good, and we've had tents set up right under the awning when it wasn't so nice.
And we love to winter camp, and you do things different than summer. We go to movies in town, stop at outlet malls, go cart racing, hauling mountain bikes up a mountain and then racing down on the bikes and so forth.
We still have board games and cards, a TV and DVD player, but never a video game console of any kind. I miss my kids though I'm enjoying the freedom to travel with just my wife and the dog. Our kids hung in there to the end, and even now my boy likes to borrow our truck and slide in camper for his own outings.
All the best, Hans
