Do your kids get along better…or worse…on vacation?

Before I had kids, I imagined that once I did, they would be best friends. However, it turns out my kids don’t get along that well. They fight constantly. All. The. Time. It’s exhausting.

Except for when we go on vacation.

When we were in Mexico last month, the way they treated each other made me feel like the mom from some Lifetime made-for-TV movie.

Here are two notes my 10-year-old daughter *Bird wrote to my 8-year-old son *Bear.

Over the course of our vacation, Bird spent hours creating elaborate offerings “from the Dragons” for Bear to enjoy. She made him a bracelet and floated it to him on a leaf in the ocean, she saved her dessert and placed it on his pillow at night while he was in the bath, she found a beautiful moth and put it in a plastic cup on his towel at the beach.

My “vacation kids” are the kids I was expecting to have!!

What happened?? To be fair, I think I am a “vacation mom” as well. I’m much more relaxed. I’m not always working. I’m more permissive and less on a schedule.

The fact that we’ve been able to travel so much over the past year (thanks to my hobby of points and miles collecting) has made SUCH a huge difference in our entire family dynamic. My kids have learned what it feels like to be friends, and it has carried over into our daily lives.

So now I’m curious: is this a “thing?” Do your kids get along better on vacation? And (more importantly) has it lasted?

*So yeah – I did grow up in Berkeley, but I didn’t really name my kids Bear and Bird.

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