the five golden rules for a peaceful holiday – time.news

2023-07-27 12:52:12

by Maurizio Tucci

A theoretically precious moment to strengthen the relationship with the more “distant” parent can turn into a further occasion for conflict. Here’s how to avoid it

If summer holidays with children, naturally for those who can afford them, are not always easy to organize, the problem increases when parents are separated. The rule requires that children – if minors – normally spend at least a couple of weeks of vacation with the “non-placement” parent, or with the parent with whom they do not usually live.

A theoretically precious moment to strengthen the relationship with the more “distant” parent through a fairly prolonged period of coexistence in which a relationship can be developed that is difficult to bring about in the classic “weekends every 15 days” in which commitments, friends , school affect and greatly reduce the time we spend together.

Five golden rules for a peaceful holiday

In theory, precisely, because unfortunately even holidays, especially in separated and conflicting families, can turn into a further occasion for conflict, if not downright suffering, especially for the children. Chiara Vendramini, president of the GeA-Parents Association (founded by Fulvio Scaparro), which deals with family mediation, helps us identify those “good practices” that can protect, or at least reduce, the risk that a holiday transform into a war, premising that “at the basis of everything there must always be the willingness to dialogue between parents and the involvement of children, especially if they are already teenagers, in decisions”. Here is the handbook:
1) Try to share the choice of vacation with the other parent and in any case always be precise and detailed on where you go and what you do.
2) To facilitate, during the holiday period, constant contact between the child (or children) and the parent left alone.
3) Try to organize “tailor-made” holidays, especially when dealing with teenagers, and don’t give them the feeling of having included them in a holiday chosen for themselves.
4) Avoid, unless it is already a consolidated and positive relationship, to go on vacation even with the new partner.

5) Avoid planning «stratospheric» holidays to compete with the other parent (who can’t necessarily afford them) or as compensation for the little time dedicated to the son or daughter during the year.

Anxieties for all ages

The age of the children is certainly an important variable, especially when it comes to taking them on holiday alone. If taking a teenage son or daughter on holiday is a complex matter even for families who live happily ever after, for a separated and non-located parent the problem is amplified. This is also because the normal parent-child conflicts typical of holidays (from returning home in the evening, to the desire for independence or, simply, to the hours spent with the smartphone in hand instead of dedicating oneself to the activities that the parents propose) risk being interpreted differently and make the overall report more critical. But there are also problems for the other parent who often finds himself having to manage, from a distance, bad moods and discomforts that the son or daughter may show.

With children, with whom it is certainly easier to plan a holiday that satisfies them, motivations change, but anxieties remain. First of all for the parent who “leaves them” with an ex-partner whose caregiving skills he does not necessarily trust completely, regardless of goodwill. But even the non-cohabiting parent (who is almost always the father) often experiences this period of foster care with anguish and a sense of even “technical” inadequacy. “Even just for the banal having to decide – as Chiara Vendramini reports again – whether, in a motorway service station, he should accompany his daughter to the women’s toilets or take her with him to the men’s toilets”.

What if they don’t want to go?

Just as it is not infrequent that children experience their parents’ separations by attributing faults they do not have, holidays with the “other” parent can also be a source of guilt, sometimes towards both: the “abandoned” parent, but also of the parent with whom they are on holiday and perhaps they understand the difficulties and, not infrequently, also the economic sacrifices. But what happens when a teenage son or daughter, on holiday with a non-located parent, just doesn’t want to go?

Is his will respected or can he somehow be forced to do so? «Naturally – explains Donata Piantanida, family lawyer in Milan – the non-placed parent, if he does not reach an agreement with the other parent, can apply to the judge to assert his rights. He judge who still has the obligation to listen to the minor (if he is over 12 years old), whose will is increasingly taken into account as age increases. In practice, unless suspicious situations are identified (such as manipulation by the placement parent), the will of the minor, especially if he is close to being of age, is always respected ».

July 27, 2023 (change July 27, 2023 | 12:51)

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