Keeping Diverse Ages Content

Negotiations broke down before breakfast was served. Matt and Reggie insisted they couldn’t wait one extra minute before heading to the beach where they could jump into the giant ocean waves. Melanie, five years younger, was just as passionate about spending the morning splashing in the pool with other preschoolers.

My husband, busy meeting with business colleagues at the Florida hotel where we were staying, couldn’t help. It was one of those times I wished there were two of me.

“Vacation is a real lesson in compromise,” said Chicago child psychologist Victoria Lavigne. Even when kids are close in age, as her two sons are, they may have different interests and agendas, making it difficult to get them to agree on how they want to spend their time on a family trip: tennis, the pool, shopping or video arcade.

“Teen-agers can be the worst,” said Los Angeles pediatrician Jeff Fireman. “It’s hard to get them to want to travel with the family in the first place.”

Toddlers and preschoolers can be just as difficult to reason with when they want to do something instantly. Try explaining the concept of deferred gratification to a 3-year-old.

“Sound bites are the answer--changing activities frequently,” said Kathy McGarrity, an attorney whose four children range from a 9-year-old to 10-month-old twins. “But you’ve got to face it that they’re all not going to be happy all of the time.”

The greater the age span, the more difficult to find common ground. And these days, more parents are grappling with just that situation on vacation, as they try to meet the needs of half-grown children from a first marriage alongside those of much younger kids from a second.

Such is the case for Tim Hauser, a member of the jazz and pop vocal group Manhattan Transfer, who at the moment is trying to figure out how to keep his 13-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son happy on a summer trip to France, where he’ll be touring. “They get on each other’s case a lot,” he said, adding that the family decided to leave their baby at home in Los Angeles this trip because trying to mesh all three of the children’s needs would be too hard.

“The secret is to do things that the grown-ups enjoy,” said Anna Bartoli, a mother of three from Northampton, Mass. “Everyone can pick up on your interest and enthusiasm.”

Bartoli says bringing a friend along for the older children can also help tremendously. “Everyone behaves better because there’s a stranger in the family,” she said.

University of Chicago child psychiatrist Bennet Leventhal suggests that before heading out a family should acknowledge potential problems and plan accordingly.

“Trying to keep everyone together all the time will not be productive,” he said. “It will be frustrating for everyone.”

Instead let parents split up for an afternoon or a day. Travel with another family whose children are similar ages. Arrange for a sitter one evening and take the older kids to a movie they want to see or out for an adult dinner.

Reward younger children with a special treat for going along with what their older brothers and sisters want to do. That may not turn out to be difficult. Once they’re beyond toddler age, “they’re anxious to be part of the team,” Bartoli said.

I used that tactic in Florida, persuading Melanie to build a “big kids” sandcastle on the beach--after extracting a promise from Matt and Reggie that they’d give Melanie a swimming lesson in the pool later. Everyone was happy . . . for a few hours, anyway.

Leventhal, whose children range in age from 16 to 7, said he picked a centrally located London hotel for an upcoming trip so his teens will be able to set out on their own and one parent can easily head back from sightseeing when the youngest needs a break.

Even for kids not quite old enough to explore a city on their own, a museum or amusement park can provide an ideal dose of much-wanted independence. Arrange to meet at a certain place and time while you head off to the children’s area. “It’s a way for the kids to show they’re responsible and for you to show them you trust them,” Fireman said.

Another strategy is to plan activities everyone enjoys at a place every member of the family enjoys. The Mendozas, for example, all look forward to camping and fishing trips. “It’s a time for us to be together,” said Cherie Mendoza of Los Angeles, pointing out that such excursions satisfy both her teen-ager and her 6-year-old. Yet she knows that when her third child is born later this year, the dynamic will change dramatically to accommodate an infant.

Taking the Kids appears weekly.