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Coach your kids traveling alone for the first time...

Coach your kids traveling alone for the first time...

Old Apr 8th, 2006, 12:32 AM
  #41  
 
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IT think TXTravelPro made an excellent point. When I was a teenager, I travelled abroad several times on my own and had some scary experiences-although fortunately nothing terrible happened to me, there were close calls that could have been avoided if my parents had helped prepare me better by making sure I had cash and a credit card and someone to call in an emergency. Although may parents had travelled abroad before, they were naiive, and so was I. I can remember landing in strange cities with just a few dollars and having to figure out how to get to a hotel and where to find something to eat.
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Old Apr 8th, 2006, 02:47 AM
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Just reread the original thread - one thing that jumped out at me this time was the little money/no credit card part. This has nothing to do with small town, affluence, etc. My mother in her 70s talks about going on dates with "mad money" in case you had a fight with your date - who goes anywhere, sends their adult kids anywhere without either money or way to get some - such as ATM card.

No one in my family gets into a car, much less on a plane without what I consider modern safety essentials - cell phone and credit card.
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Old Apr 8th, 2006, 05:14 AM
  #43  
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We have those consumer ed classes all over here as well. They do help.

Cali, has said basically what is exactly the current common mindset. Re nytraveler's point too, some of it IS based on poor problem solving or any common sense practice because of cradle to college overprotection. But it just is not as uncommon an occurrence as some posters think it is, especially at big city airports.

I don't fly a fraction as much as some others here and this scenario quite like TxTravelPro's has happened to me too twice in the last 10 years. Once was in Reno, NV's almost empty 3 am in the morning and once was at MWY in a bad weather situation.

These people just had no practice, it wasn't because they were impaired mentally.
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Old Apr 8th, 2006, 05:58 AM
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Just my 2 cents……….and PLEASE keep in mind I’m talking about my experiences with people I know here in my own community!

Many kids today, at least several that I know, are growing up in very expensive cul-de-sac suburban communities far out from the city (not that there’s anything wrong with that)! Mom and dad drive them everywhere, or they get their own SUV’s at age 16. You can’t walk to a store because there aren’t any (and no sidewalks to walk on anyhow). They talk a school bus to school. They hang out at their friends’ expensive suburban homes or the mall. Shopping consists of suburban roads with malls, Targets, chain restaurants, etc. They attend top public school districts. Their friends are all as well off as they are. Mom and dad can “teach” them how to be safe, but there is no real-world experience.

Many of them couldn’t find their way down a city street if you paid them. They would be scared if they saw a couple of non-white teenagers walking in their direction or a guy with a beer bottle in his hand. Have they ever walked to the corner store or past a scruffy looking apartment building? There are a million city experiences I could mention here, but you get the picture.

The city….any city….is where children can get real life experience! My friends in the burbs look down on the city, as though the whole place is a ghetto. Why not take the kids on a Saturday to a neighborhood and walk around, eat in a restaurant, shop. Walk up and down some old streets and mingle with the people who live there. Nope, my friends in the burbs don’t do that.

But they’ll put them on a plane alone to visit Auntie M in Kansas and suddenly their kids become wordly!

The funny thing is, I'll raise my kid in the city but I am totally uncomfortable letting him fly somewhere alone....at least before he's 17. I was 17 when I first went on vacation with a friend, so that's my comfort zone.

Different strokes I guess.....
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Old Apr 8th, 2006, 01:20 PM
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I have to agree with the scare of riding a bus. Although I plan complex vacation itineraries, I can't seem to understand the logistics of planning a bus schedule. I can't even read the maps. And the few times I have ridden a bus, I was always tense that I was either on the wrong bus, wrong direction, or would miss my stop. Inevitably, kind strangers would help me figure it out.

Bottom line that we all seem to agree that we should help coach new travelers to remain calm when things change.

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