A guide to traveling with your parents (happy version)! Proven and effective

During the upcoming Spring Festival holiday, many people may be planning to take their parents on a trip, but...

After all, the travel views and living habits of the two generations are really different——

Many times, parents are used to being frugal and tend to choose cheap and affordable restaurants and hotels. They like to visit more tourist attractions, get up early, and take a lot of photos. However, young people prefer to stay comfortably when they go out to play, sleep in bed until they wake up naturally, and then go out to look for special snacks, stroll around niche attractions, and focus on being casual.

I would like to ask the following netizens’ complaints, do you feel like they are “playing me”?

"I looked for several hotels, but they all thought it was not good enough and kept revising it."

"My dad is too chauvinistic. No matter if he's right or not, he'll get furious if you disagree with him."

"When we were watching the show (in Xi'an), they (the parents) didn't show any interest at all, which made me lose interest."

…

But think back to how we felt when we first made the decision to "go traveling together". Both us and our parents clearly wanted to make each other happy and enjoy the rare time we could spend together.

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So, do you have any good suggestions on taking your parents on a trip?

Adult children traveling with their parents

4 types of interactions

A study shows that there are four main types of interactions between adult children and their parents when traveling: collaboration and participation, dependence and confirmation, confession and sharing, and learning and caring.

1

Collaboration and participation

It refers to the joint decision-making and participation in tourism activities by both parties, including information search, decision-making consultation and participation in activities. This process requires constant coordination, communication and cooperation between both parties and requires the joint participation of family members.

When everyone's decision-making preferences and activity attitudes are consistent, or even if they are inconsistent, but everyone is willing to focus on meeting each other's needs and will feel self-satisfied when the other party's interests are met, they will have a better travel experience and may also enhance mutual understanding.

In particular, if the two parties have different attitudes towards participating in an activity, but one party shows higher interest and enthusiasm, the other party may also be infected.

2

Dependence and confirmation

It refers to the situation where parents need to rely on their children or give confirmation and feedback to their children's behavior due to objective conditions. For example, because parents are not familiar with information technology or lack travel experience, they need their children to help them with itinerary planning, ticket booking, emergency problem solving, and communication with the outside world.

Parents are more like children when traveling. They desire their children's company and show a strong dependence on their children. The quality of the travel experience brought about by this role reversal actually depends on the motivation and evaluation of their children.

If you realize that "parents are old and need to be taken care of" and "they have become 'children'", and are inspired to think "it's time for me to grow up" and "I should take on the responsibility of taking care of my parents", not only will you feel a sense of enhanced self-worth, but your parents will also feel relieved and satisfied that their efforts have been rewarded because of their children's company and reliance.

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However, if the "egocentric motivation" is activated, that is, if you care more about your own efforts and contributions in this matter, and focus on the large amount of time and energy spent on travel arrangements and problem solving, you will inevitably feel tired and irritated, feeling that "everything is expected of me" and "it's really tiring." Parents who perceive their children's negative emotions will also feel that they have become a burden to their children, and experience strong psychological pressure such as disappointment and guilt.

3

Talk and share

It means that children and parents will have a wider range of communication topics besides decision-making and negotiation during travel, including emotional confession, sensitive topics, sharing of experiences, reminiscing about the past and looking forward to the future, etc. For example, you may be embarrassed to say "Mom, I love you very much" during travel, and topics that you dare not talk about in life or unresolved conflicts can also be communicated and resolved in a more effective way during travel.

Traveling together promotes communication and sharing between both parties, and can make up for the regret of having no opportunity to communicate in daily life.

4

Learning and caring

Traveling between adult children and parents is a two-way learning process. Adult children introduce their parents to new things and help them acquire new skills and new ideas. At the same time, parents will pass on life experience to their children, achieving intergenerational resource exchange.

However, when children are introducing their parents to new things, parents may behave in a way that deviates from social norms or is inconsistent with the situation, such as "taking out dried radishes in a Michelin restaurant in the United States" and "cutting in line at a scenic spot." When children are in a state of other-oriented motivation, they will understand their parents' behavior, actively communicate with their parents, and take this opportunity to instill new ideas in their parents, helping them establish a sense of civilization and change uncivilized behavior or habits.

When children are in a state of egocentric motivation, that is, they pay more attention to their own face and feelings, they will feel embarrassed and angry about their parents' embarrassing behavior. Although they will stop their parents' behavior in time, they may also scold or blame their parents, lose their temper with their parents, or even avoid interacting with their parents in the process. This in turn will make parents feel that their thinking is outdated and they can no longer keep up with the times, thus developing a low sense of self-efficacy.

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Traveling with parents (happy version)

Possibly effective suggestions

1

Communicate travel expectations with your parents

You know, when traveling with parents, the focus is not on the trip, not on us, but on the parents. No matter what the attraction looks like in our perception, if the parents find it interesting, it is worth going to visit and have a look. After full communication, determine the destination, so that the money can be spent wisely.

2

Let parents participate more in travel planning

Often, we are used to making all the food, drink and entertainment strategies by ourselves, thinking that this will make our parents worry less, but in fact, letting them participate in the itinerary planning may make the subsequent trip more enjoyable. Because in this process, on the one hand, parents can have a deeper understanding of the attractions and understand your choice of a certain tourist spot or a certain accommodation, and on the other hand, it will also make them feel more "needed".

3

Do a good job of psychological preparation

There will be some unexpected and unsatisfactory things during the trip: for example, the trip may be cancelled due to bad weather, there are too many tourists and you need to queue, the local food is not to your taste, etc. Be prepared with your parents and adjust your mentality so that they can be mentally prepared. You should also prepare yourself mentally . There will definitely be conflicts during the trip because of the different concepts between the two generations. Don't waste your time.

4

Look at the problem from a different perspective and resolve your emotions

Try to change from "self-centered orientation" to "other-oriented" . That is, when you feel irritated, think more about "it may be because of my parents xxx". For example, when your parents ask you about everything, your way of thinking is no longer "why do you have to rely on me for everything" but "this is because they need me more and more."

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Of course, there is another most effective way, which is to sign up for a tour group, and let the tour group and the tour guide arrange the daily itinerary, which saves worry and effort. Moreover, it can also divert the "conflict" that may have occurred between you and your parents.

However, although your parents may complain and express dissatisfaction when you take them on a trip, if you secretly listen to their conversations with their old sisters and brothers after they come back, you will definitely see them showing off the photos in their phones with a smile on their faces: "Look, my child took me to xx to play..."

At that moment, perhaps all the previous annoyance made sense.

Planning and production

Source: Jia Guangmei, Yao Yanbo, Fan Xuefeng, et al. Co-creation and co-destruction: Research on the value of tourism interaction between adult children and parents[J]. Tourism Tribune, 2023, 38(03): 36-49. DOI: 10.19765/j.cnki.1002-5006.2023.00.001.

Paper Recommender: You Shiyou, Member of China Science Writers Association

Review | Fan Chunlei Associate Researcher, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Editor: Yang Yaping