Letting teens walk the parks unsupervised

[Luigi's Girl]

My daughters - ages 17 and 15 - go to the parks with me and their grandmother. It is a family vacation so we all stay together, shop together, eat together, ride rides together, etc. They have never asked to go off by themselves at the parks and I'm glad they don't. At the resort, they go off and swim, eat or go the the arcade and that is fine with me. To me, if we are on a family vacation then I want to do things as a family. Just my opinion.

Good luck on your decision.

WOW! I can't believe I had to read 3 pages before I found a person or two who feels the same as I do. I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me. I feel better now.
When me, DH, DS17, and DD14 go to WDW we stay together the whole time. Even when the kids have had their cousins with them there was never a thought about going off on their own because we're on a family vacation and want to experience all of the fun together. There is plenty of time for them to be off on their own when we're back home. I guess you could say our vacation motto is "The family that plays together stays together".
(Not to poke any fun at the real saying since we pray too!)

 

[Disney01]

I agree with the above posters. We are together on family vacations. I don't understand the people who don't see their kids all day, like the kid who goes off to DQ all day. But everyone is different. Don't you want to spend time with your kids?

We also don't vacation with friends or allow our son to take a friend. We see friends all the time at home and during vacation want family time together. I notice my son acts differently when he is away from his friends. He doesn't have to be all "cool".

 

[mill4023]

My daughters - ages 17 and 15 - go to the parks with me and their grandmother. It is a family vacation so we all stay together, shop together, eat together, ride rides together, etc. They have never asked to go off by themselves at the parks and I'm glad they don't. At the resort, they go off and swim, eat or go the the arcade and that is fine with me. To me, if we are on a family vacation then I want to do things as a family. Just my opinion.

Good luck on your decision.

I understand your point completely. A family vacation is for spending time with your family. However, at age 14, it's only natural that kids are wanting some independence from their parents and there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing. You can find a balance where you spend family time together and still give your teens a little time to be on their own. At 14, if they are responsible kids, I think I would be OK with letting my daughters go on their own for awhile as long as they are in the same park. I would be a lot less worried about them being in a disney park than I would if they were going to a local mall.

Maybe you could give them a couple free hours each day and spend the rest of the time together.

 

[DHSsenior007]

For spring break this past school year, my family went to WDW and my parents let me take my best friend. We're both 16 and we had a BLAST!! I know the parks really well, and it was my friend's first time. I always had my cell phone with me so my parents could call us if they needed to and we were always in the same park. As for the boy thing, while we did see some hot guys, we never really did anything about it. Most of the time, they were with their family or some other girls, or we just didn't want to. Truth be told, the most trouble I got into that week was shopping too much! Darn those evil credit cards...

Have fun and as long as you trust your daughter and her friend, they should be fine. True, something bad could have happened, but if you make sure your daughter and her friend knows what to do, it should be great!