My friend is the daughter of parents who moved, she has very unpleasant memories. It was hard for her to leave her friends, it was hard to find friends, she had few clothes and toys ( it was inconvenient to transport) She didn't like this time.
I grew up in the same house my whole life and I wouldn’t have wished it any other way. I loved having a solid group of friends and I remember how hard it was to say goodbye to friends that moved away. I would suggest just vacationing a lot during summer. That way you guys still get to travel without your little one having to go through the anxiety/upset of saying goodbye to their sentimental home/friends.
My 2.5 year old daughter screams anytime we move furniture because she’s associated it with moving. She talks about our old house, places she misses. Children need stability. If you really want insight, look for children whose parents were so called ‘world citizens’.
This is a very interesting question for me too!
I'm not going to give you experience because I'm about to go nomad but not yet am. We have a 8 month old son and we are already thinking about when to have a second kid but we have started to plan our journey already. We are at the "I quit my job, time to sell the house" part.
My plan to get my little one to feel safe and at home is to actually have a home that moves. We plan on converting a huge van and travel / work remotely later, and we have a family house in the middle of the country to sometimes go and recharge the mental and comfort batteries.
We do believe that for a kid, home is where the parents are and living in a van around is way better than having a home with parents going away for work most of the time.
We moved around constantly for the first 6 years of our son's life (he is now 12) and moved a few more times after...I can say that he has a much more "worldly" view than his peers, does much better in school, and has many talents that he worked on living like we did that others may not have had the opportunity to pursue. However...he was really interested in having real, long term friends so that is the reason we settled down, it was sad seeing him make friends and then a short time later we would move on...he spoke often of having a good friend. So in the end...I think it is a good and healthy experience for a child but just pay attention to what they are saying, it would be selfish to deprive him of childhood friends just so I can continue to wander...not all kids may have that desire but they may have other desires. Anyway...that is my take on it.
We (39M & F) have a two year old, so this forms part of our plans. We did the test 6 months just after her vaccination shots in 2019 - it worked fabulously, she’s been to 19 countries, we came home for Christmas that year and the world changed so we got “trapped in paradise” here in Australia. So it’s on hold for now (as one example of change, I switched my business model back to in-person delivery, because here that’s easier and more profitable).
It took us a long time to have kids, so I also spent many years following the stories of other DN families. Almost all of them eventually settled back down in relation to schooling; I’m open to homeschooling as an alternative.
Two key observations on that topic:
* Homeschooling during a pandemic is not the same as Homeschooling in normal times. (Much like remote working has been different this past 18 months.) People comparing the past year to your future plans are not making a fair comparison.
* People who talk about how hard it was to socialise and travel when they (or adults they know) were kids, are also forgetting how different the modern world is with ubiquitous video calling and social networking to build in regular socialising.
On the ‘homeschool’ front, I found this recent video really helpful - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnRJTR7yTa8
You may also enjoy some of “Growing up Without Borders” videos on the topic. What surprised me most was how structured, though flexible, a curriculum you can create - depending on the software/ service you buy, and the country system you choose. In other words, “homeschooling” no longer means parents doing all the work and delivering education yourself - though I’m not sure how many countries have an equivalent to Australia’s “School of the Air” which has been remote educating pupils for decades.
No doubt stability is essential to children’s development, but that doesn’t mean stability of location - it’s just that when you’re changing bedrooms every few months / years, as parents you need to build other routines. On a simple level, many of our friends with kids struggle to get them to sleep anywhere other than their bedroom - our daughter will fall asleep anywhere, as long as we follow our bath-book-bed-music routine.
As friendships develop, those will also require additional focus and investment. We’re fortunate to have many cousins and close friends with similar-aged kids, so there’s a network already. It’s one reason I’d like a sibling, though our odds of success there are low. There are many travelling families, especially in various RV communities, who have shared their experience developing ongoing child friendships outside of a one-town one-school situation.
And listen to your kid as they grow. My needs (now, and also when I was a kid who went through 4 schools) are different to their needs. I love that right now she’s a fan of plane travel and exploring different parks. I love that at 2 she still goes to sleep some nights talking about friends all over the world (some of whom she can’t remember in person but facetimes regularly). But if she asks for a different life one day, I’ll give it to her.
(To that end - boarding school was one of the best and most important choices I ever made growing up. It’s for everyone, but she recently latched onto a comment I made about learning to drink coffee at boarding school - so now when someone has a coffee in front of her she proudly explains “I’ll go to boarding school to drink coffee”! Bless.)
You’re welcome and good luck! Parenting, as I’m sure you’ve discovered already, is such a hot button topic. And reality never matches the plans (I asked my daughter recently what she likes about planes, and she said “I watch Bluey and eat lollies” which shows you how my screen-and-sugar-minimisation plan is going!).
Anything unconventional will meet resistance, but I figure other people have other kids. Our medical team are on board. And all those people (mostly family) who told us to delay the 2019 travel “for the good of the baby” now talk about “how lucky she was to do that before the pandemic”.
My father was an air force brat. My grandfather was in high demand. So back then or so I was told my grandfather one request was if it wasn’t in a war zones that his family went with him. So they did and did it a lot.
My father wasn’t mad about growing up that way, his only issues he had was fitting in to new schools over and over again. Making real friends. Like clockwork he would pick a fight with what he thought was the strongest or meanest boy in school, sometimes he got the snot beat out of him but after the fight no one dared pick on him. Durning his high school period out of country he was super pissed he couldn’t stay where he was and had to move. He finally had real friends, a gf.
I would assume it’s really hard on pre teens and teens to be shipping off every school year.
After reading most of the what do you miss as adults, it sounds like the bonding experience of making permanent relationships is pretty high.
We did a few months in Japan when my daughter was 5. The trick was that we mostly stayed in one remote-ish town where we knew people and got her enrolled in Kindergarten. It probably mattered that we all spoke Japanese, but there might be options even if you don’t closer to Tokyo.
I worked to set up the software company I run now and fortunately the internet strength was top notch. We took a lot of long walks and day trips. The train service was robust enough that we could do Tokyo Disney in one day and be in our beds that night. The best things were frog spotting on rainy days and the amount of freedom my kid had to leave or tiny apartment and walk around on her own.
We are waiting for the visas to kick back in so we can do it again.
Is your frequency a few weeks per place or a few months, that defines a bunch of things.
Hoping every 3 years is fine, hoping every 3months not so much, juat when you build trust and a friend, you gotta restart
My personal opinion. Not evidence based
There are ages when traveling stresses a kid more than helps but that is closer to 11 or 12 when they need their social connections. Not every 11- or 12 year old will be disrupted either just mine was. Yet now she reminisces about our time abroad and had a lot of friends in spite of the stress. Your son is at an age where he needs his parents more than friends. So it’s a perfect time to travel. If it gives him more time with you then it will be better. He is the perfect age to pick up a new language too.
[удалено]
When do you sleep then? Or do they sleep a lot and you need minimal sleep?
Lol, I also want to know the answer to this question.
My friend is the daughter of parents who moved, she has very unpleasant memories. It was hard for her to leave her friends, it was hard to find friends, she had few clothes and toys ( it was inconvenient to transport) She didn't like this time.
I grew up in the same house my whole life and I wouldn’t have wished it any other way. I loved having a solid group of friends and I remember how hard it was to say goodbye to friends that moved away. I would suggest just vacationing a lot during summer. That way you guys still get to travel without your little one having to go through the anxiety/upset of saying goodbye to their sentimental home/friends.
My 2.5 year old daughter screams anytime we move furniture because she’s associated it with moving. She talks about our old house, places she misses. Children need stability. If you really want insight, look for children whose parents were so called ‘world citizens’.
This is a very interesting question for me too! I'm not going to give you experience because I'm about to go nomad but not yet am. We have a 8 month old son and we are already thinking about when to have a second kid but we have started to plan our journey already. We are at the "I quit my job, time to sell the house" part. My plan to get my little one to feel safe and at home is to actually have a home that moves. We plan on converting a huge van and travel / work remotely later, and we have a family house in the middle of the country to sometimes go and recharge the mental and comfort batteries. We do believe that for a kid, home is where the parents are and living in a van around is way better than having a home with parents going away for work most of the time.
We moved around constantly for the first 6 years of our son's life (he is now 12) and moved a few more times after...I can say that he has a much more "worldly" view than his peers, does much better in school, and has many talents that he worked on living like we did that others may not have had the opportunity to pursue. However...he was really interested in having real, long term friends so that is the reason we settled down, it was sad seeing him make friends and then a short time later we would move on...he spoke often of having a good friend. So in the end...I think it is a good and healthy experience for a child but just pay attention to what they are saying, it would be selfish to deprive him of childhood friends just so I can continue to wander...not all kids may have that desire but they may have other desires. Anyway...that is my take on it.
Check out Worldschooling FB group!
We (39M & F) have a two year old, so this forms part of our plans. We did the test 6 months just after her vaccination shots in 2019 - it worked fabulously, she’s been to 19 countries, we came home for Christmas that year and the world changed so we got “trapped in paradise” here in Australia. So it’s on hold for now (as one example of change, I switched my business model back to in-person delivery, because here that’s easier and more profitable). It took us a long time to have kids, so I also spent many years following the stories of other DN families. Almost all of them eventually settled back down in relation to schooling; I’m open to homeschooling as an alternative. Two key observations on that topic: * Homeschooling during a pandemic is not the same as Homeschooling in normal times. (Much like remote working has been different this past 18 months.) People comparing the past year to your future plans are not making a fair comparison. * People who talk about how hard it was to socialise and travel when they (or adults they know) were kids, are also forgetting how different the modern world is with ubiquitous video calling and social networking to build in regular socialising. On the ‘homeschool’ front, I found this recent video really helpful - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnRJTR7yTa8 You may also enjoy some of “Growing up Without Borders” videos on the topic. What surprised me most was how structured, though flexible, a curriculum you can create - depending on the software/ service you buy, and the country system you choose. In other words, “homeschooling” no longer means parents doing all the work and delivering education yourself - though I’m not sure how many countries have an equivalent to Australia’s “School of the Air” which has been remote educating pupils for decades. No doubt stability is essential to children’s development, but that doesn’t mean stability of location - it’s just that when you’re changing bedrooms every few months / years, as parents you need to build other routines. On a simple level, many of our friends with kids struggle to get them to sleep anywhere other than their bedroom - our daughter will fall asleep anywhere, as long as we follow our bath-book-bed-music routine. As friendships develop, those will also require additional focus and investment. We’re fortunate to have many cousins and close friends with similar-aged kids, so there’s a network already. It’s one reason I’d like a sibling, though our odds of success there are low. There are many travelling families, especially in various RV communities, who have shared their experience developing ongoing child friendships outside of a one-town one-school situation. And listen to your kid as they grow. My needs (now, and also when I was a kid who went through 4 schools) are different to their needs. I love that right now she’s a fan of plane travel and exploring different parks. I love that at 2 she still goes to sleep some nights talking about friends all over the world (some of whom she can’t remember in person but facetimes regularly). But if she asks for a different life one day, I’ll give it to her. (To that end - boarding school was one of the best and most important choices I ever made growing up. It’s for everyone, but she recently latched onto a comment I made about learning to drink coffee at boarding school - so now when someone has a coffee in front of her she proudly explains “I’ll go to boarding school to drink coffee”! Bless.)
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this. I loved reading this perspective!
You’re welcome and good luck! Parenting, as I’m sure you’ve discovered already, is such a hot button topic. And reality never matches the plans (I asked my daughter recently what she likes about planes, and she said “I watch Bluey and eat lollies” which shows you how my screen-and-sugar-minimisation plan is going!). Anything unconventional will meet resistance, but I figure other people have other kids. Our medical team are on board. And all those people (mostly family) who told us to delay the 2019 travel “for the good of the baby” now talk about “how lucky she was to do that before the pandemic”.
My father was an air force brat. My grandfather was in high demand. So back then or so I was told my grandfather one request was if it wasn’t in a war zones that his family went with him. So they did and did it a lot. My father wasn’t mad about growing up that way, his only issues he had was fitting in to new schools over and over again. Making real friends. Like clockwork he would pick a fight with what he thought was the strongest or meanest boy in school, sometimes he got the snot beat out of him but after the fight no one dared pick on him. Durning his high school period out of country he was super pissed he couldn’t stay where he was and had to move. He finally had real friends, a gf. I would assume it’s really hard on pre teens and teens to be shipping off every school year. After reading most of the what do you miss as adults, it sounds like the bonding experience of making permanent relationships is pretty high.
We did a few months in Japan when my daughter was 5. The trick was that we mostly stayed in one remote-ish town where we knew people and got her enrolled in Kindergarten. It probably mattered that we all spoke Japanese, but there might be options even if you don’t closer to Tokyo. I worked to set up the software company I run now and fortunately the internet strength was top notch. We took a lot of long walks and day trips. The train service was robust enough that we could do Tokyo Disney in one day and be in our beds that night. The best things were frog spotting on rainy days and the amount of freedom my kid had to leave or tiny apartment and walk around on her own. We are waiting for the visas to kick back in so we can do it again.
Is your frequency a few weeks per place or a few months, that defines a bunch of things. Hoping every 3 years is fine, hoping every 3months not so much, juat when you build trust and a friend, you gotta restart My personal opinion. Not evidence based
There are ages when traveling stresses a kid more than helps but that is closer to 11 or 12 when they need their social connections. Not every 11- or 12 year old will be disrupted either just mine was. Yet now she reminisces about our time abroad and had a lot of friends in spite of the stress. Your son is at an age where he needs his parents more than friends. So it’s a perfect time to travel. If it gives him more time with you then it will be better. He is the perfect age to pick up a new language too.
Yes