HEALTH PLUS:A holiday abroad sends shivers down many parents' spines
ONCE THE stress of awaiting the Leaving Cert results is over, most families expect to return to quiescence. Not so. For many, a new contentious issue arises in relation to post-Leaving Cert results - celebrations abroad where large groups of school graduates take to the sun to celebrate before the new rigours of third-level life.
While parents recognise the entitlement of their young adult offspring to celebrate if they have worked hard and achieved well, there are realistic parental concerns about this kind of holiday enterprise. Television programmes "uncovering" the chosen sun destinations do not reassure!
Parents worry about the large peer group. They are alarmed by images of young people, drunk, drugged or unable to determine the risk to their physical safety, their future health and their psychological wellbeing in these contexts.
Conversely, Leaving Cert graduates are affronted at the lack of parental trust in them, that having studied conscientiously they are not perceived to be capable of managing themselves on a short holiday in the sun. And with the lack of sun this summer, they argue that they need to get away to be refreshed, invigorated and revived for the stress of the transitions in the year ahead.
Herein lies the problem. There is such predictable divergence between what the young person believes they are requesting and what parents perceive they are condoning, that until each understands the other's position, an amicable solution cannot be reached.
From the students' point of view there is logic. A holiday is not unreasonable and if they are prepared to pay from their own earnings then this is hardly a parental decision. They expect parental trust, support for their independence and acknowledgement of their maturity or how else can they ever grow up?
Parents should not, they say, believe negative media generated, salaciously edited images that are unrelated to them. It's neither illegal nor immoral to take a package holiday to the sun: the problem, they say, is parental paranoia.
Parents want their children to celebrate. They affirm their offsprings' right to spend what they have earned in their own way. But parents also assert their right to advise about situations that may be unsafe, that may get out of control and that could, and sadly sometimes do, end in tragedy.
The issue is not one of trust or distrust of the young person. It is distrust of other people, other influences and the false sense of invulnerability that young people often display at the height of their exuberance, which can have dangerous consequences.
Parents agree that problems can occur in any situation, in any part of the world, but the risks, they say, are greater if there are too many young people celebrating together. Their worry is alcohol, spiked drinks, tourist assault, falling over balconies, down lift shafts, off cliffs, car crashes, boating accidents and swimming tragedies.
It is more difficult to judge danger in unfamiliar countries and cultures. Judgments of people are altered so young women need to be more wary about whom they go out with, get in a car with, or allow to take them back to the hotel.
Tourists are doubly disadvantaged: they are identifiable to others but these others are not identifiable to them in risk terms.
What is important in the parent-child debate is that it does not degenerate into "I'm 18, you can't stop me", followed by that most damaging phrase "if you go you need not come back to this house".
Resolution can be reached by families if there is reassurance from young people about where they are going, with whom (preferably friends who parents trust), details of travel agents, accommodation, medical facilities, 24-hour reception, on-site security, insurance, contacts and acknowledgement of parents' concerns.
Some parents upgrade accommodation, offer to pay for insurance or safer destinations, and emphasise that if the situation gets out of hand they will pay for a return flight home. Many young people have had the experience of going away with "good friends" only to be abandoned or betrayed by them.
How and where exams are celebrated is a decision for each family based on parental confidence in their child's capacity to cope and the support structures put in place together.
But most important is that parental concerns are understood, not as parental distrust but of parental protection and love. Knowing this adds a protective factor for young people and an important safety net if things go wrong.
Marie Murray is a clinical psychologist, director of student counselling services in UCD and author of Surviving The Leaving Cert: Points for Parentspublished by Veritas