Here’s an interesting article on the benefits of allowing your children to plan your vacation.

The author makes a convincing point that it helps teach responsibility, cooperation and mistakes are a great learning experience. The following is an excerpt and please let us know what you think in the comments below.

Summer is a time of family trips and outings. Figuring out a plan that suits everyone can be tricky. It pays to involve children in the decisions—without giving them too much control.

Taking part in family decision-making teaches children valuable skills. They learn to advocate for what they want, listen to others’ wishes and make compromises. But parents who have ceded some decision-making to their children warn there are right and wrong ways to do it.

The Johnson family of Denver is planning a car trip to western Colorado this summer. Amber Johnson says her daughter Hadley, 12, persuaded the family to go jet-boating, racing over the Colorado River at speeds of up to 40 miles an hour in boats driven by professionals.

It’s a plan Ms. Johnson and her husband Jamie would never have chosen for the family. But Hadley sees children’s museums as cheesy. “I’m kind of growing up and everything,” Hadley says. “I’m a little more crazy and adventurous than museums.”

Bode, 10, says he was nervous at first about jet-boating. Ms. Johnson reassured him that passengers wear life jackets and the boats are safe. Now he’s on board with the plan. “I think I might actually learn something, including having a positive attitude and being willing to do new things,” he says.

Giving the children a voice keeps them excited and interested, Ms. Johnson says. It also means suffering through their mistakes. Bode and Hadley picked a hotel online for a road trip last summer because it had a big pool, says Ms. Johnson, editor of Mile High Mamas, an online community. She suggested they might want to do more research, but “they jumped on it because it looked really fun,” Ms. Johnson says.

Read the rest of the Wall Street Journal article here.

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