In June 99 my husband will be leaving with our two boys.10 and 12 for 6 months of traveling around Asia. I have pretty much figured out how to deal with missing the first semester of school. Is there anyone else out there that has done this with older children? We will be able to keep in touch via e-mail but I would like to know what to expect, as far as problems, entertainment etc. for the boys. Any information would be greatly appreciated........ thanks
[There are 2 posts - the latest was added on Sat 15 May, 12:52]
Use the form at the end of this page to add your own post.
Topics
| Thorn Tree
| Home
We spent last summer in Hungary and thereabouts with my
three children, now age 17, 14, and 12. It's important to
remember that kids this age are developmentally supposed to
prefer time with peers rather than their families. Any
chance we had, we allowed the kids to join up with other
kids. It was amazing to see language barriers fall. My
oldest is a son, and the others are daughters, and I was
acutely aware of watching out for my girls in particular,
and found myself to be very nervous when they weren't with
me.(Not generally my style) All in all it was a great
experience that we are planning to repeat again this
summer, and taking one of their friends along too. I was
respectful of their wishes to see some places that didn't
particularly interest me, but made for a good time anyway.
They wanted to go to London and Paris, obviously because
these were familiar sounding places. I would have preferred
to stay out of the big ciies. But, as I said, it was a good
political move and we had fun (especially geting aroud by
metro). They came home thiking they had missed a lot of fun
with their friends, but were willing (and now excited) to
plan the trip again. I couldn't seem to get them interested
in reading the guide books much to my dismay. Oh well. I
see no problem with taking a semester off of school. As a
friend of mine said, "you shouldn't let their schooling get
in the way of their education". Good luck, and have fun. I
think we are breeding a group of world travellers/world
citizens.
Check out curious kids.com. It's the website of a family
that's travelling all over right now. You can also
supposedly e-mail them although I haven't tried. Good luck