Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
If family relationship building is not necessarily a primary objective of your va-
cation, it's quite possible that the inclusion of a friend will make life easier for you.
This is especially true in the case of only children, who may otherwise depend exclus-
ively on you to keep them happy and occupied. Having a friend along can take the
pressure off and give you some much-needed breathing room.
If you decide to allow a friend to accompany you, limit the selection to children
you know really well and whose parents you also know. Your Disneyland vacation is
not the time to include “my friend Eddie from school” whom you've never met. Your
children's friends who have spent time in your home will have a sense of your parent-
ing style, and you will have a sense of their personality, behavior, and compatibility
with your family. Assess the prospective child's potential to fit in well on a long trip.
Is he or she polite, personable, fun to be with, and reasonably mature? Does he or she
relate well to you and to the other members of your family?
Because a Disneyland vacation is not, for most of us, a spur-of-the-moment
thing, you should have adequate time to evaluate potential candidate friends. A trip
to the mall including a meal in a sit-down restaurant will tell you volumes about the
friend.Likewise, inviting thefriendtosharedinnerwiththefamily andthenspendthe
night will provide a lot of relevant information. Ideally this type of evaluation should
take place early on in the normal course of family events, before you discuss the pos-
sibility of a friend joining you on your vacation. This will allow you to size things up
without your child (or the friend) realizing that an evaluation is taking place.
unofficial
TIP
We suggest that you arrange for the friend's parents to reimburse you after the trip
for things such as restaurant meals and admissions. This is much easier than trying
to balance the topics after every expenditure.
By seizing the initiative, you can guide the outcome. Ann, a Redding, California,
mom, for example, anticipated that her 12-year-old son would ask to take a friend
on their vacation. As she pondered the various friends her son might propose, she
came up with four names. One, an otherwise sweet child, had a medical condition that
Ann felt unqualified to monitor or treat. A second friend was overly aggressive with
younger children and was often socially inappropriate for his age. Two other friends,
Chuck and Marty, with whom she had had a generally positive experience, were good
candidates forthe trip. After orchestrating some opportunities to spend time with each
of the boys, she made her decision and asked her son, “Would you like to take Marty
with us to Disneyland?” Her son was delighted, and Ann had diplomatically preemp-
ted having to turn down friends her son might have proposed.