You didn’t say this was going to be stressful…
My family has been worldschooling our kids for years and we love seeing so many other families engaging in this incredible method of experientially educating their children. With so many amazing things to see and do, it almost seems like a given that the whole travel experience will be fun and stress-free. But the reality is that that’s rarely the case in the real world. While traveling the world with your family can be wonderful in many ways, it can also be a huge source of stress. However, considering a few small things ahead of time can be the key to helping your family to thrive while traveling the world.
Helping Worldschooling Families Thrive Abroad
I’m familiar with all the planning that goes into it. It starts with seeing other families’ posts and longing for the chance to make your own. That longing becomes deciding on an itinerary and painstakingly planning the Greatest Trip Ever™. Obviously there’s so much to do and see that you’ll need to move pretty quickly. You buy several plane tickets, make a handful of reservations, and start packing up to head off on a worldwide adventure.
But before you even leave, the kids start complaining. But this is happening. You push through and explain how great everything is going to be and you get on your flights and you start your Greatest Trip Ever, but… it’s not really feeling all that great. Everyone is feeling stressed out; the kids just want to go home; this isn’t matching up to the picture you had in your head; and you wonder why, why, WHY. What are you doing wrong?
“No one said it would be stressful! The Instagram posts didn’t include the meltdowns!” Let me tell you now: travel is stressful. And it’s a great opportunity to learn stress management skills!
Traveling abroad can be an amazing and enriching experience for children, yes! And I know, you want it to be an unforgettable experience, but not because of how stressful it was! Here’s the thing: If you don’t plan for the stress, you’ll be blindsided by it when (not if) it comes.
Whether you’re still in the planning stages or in the middle of your adventure, now is the best time to start planning for travel. There are three major types of stress that worldschoolers face: Culture Stress, Transition Stress, and Homesickness.
- Culture stress: This is the feeling of disorientation and confusion that can occur when someone is suddenly exposed to a new culture. Children may be overwhelmed by the different customs, food, and way of life in a foreign country. For example, kids can get easily stressed walking through a marketplace where everyone wants to touch their skin or gorgeous hair.
- Homesickness: “I just want to go home!” kids might say. They may miss their friends, family, and pets, and they may feel lonely and sad. Really, homesickness is a missing of the familiar they used to feel safe in.
- Transition stress: Transition stress is very normal and on average lasts 3 months before and after a move, though I suspect in worldschooling families it lasts about 3 months after that first transition and may take less time to adjust when they’re living transiently.
It doesn’t really matter which particular type of stress your child is facing in the moment because the plan for all of them is the same.
How you can help your worldschoolers thrive abroad
Worldschooling families don’t pick up and start a life of travel because they don’t want their kids to thrive! They do it because they genuinely believe that getting the chance to explore the world together as a family will be amazing! And it can be. It just requires a bit of intentionality in the way you go about it.
Stay in tune with your kids before the transitions
Transition is hard for everyone, but oftentimes kids are going into these transitions with less experience and less control than we are, as the adults. It can be really helpful to get ahead of things and start thinking about the impact of travel on your kids before plane-day actually comes.
Emotions
How are you feeling about the trip? Excited? A little nervous? A little scared? It’s totally normal to have mixed feelings about such a big step.
Your kids will have mixed feelings too. And they will tell you all about them. They will be loudest about the feelings they think you’re not listening to.
Listen to how they don’t want to go. Listen to their reasons why without arguing or trying to fix it or reminding them of the good. (You can have other conversations later!) Try saying, “Feeling that way makes sense. That sounds hard. Thank you for telling me that.”
Oftentimes, once kids feel heard concerning their reservations, they’ll let their excitement show up!
Education
Giving kids a bit of knowledge and information about where they’re going will help them contextualize the influx of new information they’ll receive when they arrive. That is, it will give them a framework for understanding all the ways their new location is different from their old, and help them to see those difference as fun instead of intimidating. It will also help them know enough to get excited! Give them a framework for the culture, the ecosystem, the plan, and the stress.
- The Culture: What culture are you going into and what does that mean? Do they need to get used to a new dress code? Is there bartering at the stores? What are people’s attitudes toward children? What do they eat there? What if your kids don’t like the food there?
- The Ecosystem: What weather are you expecting? What sort of wildlife is there? What can you learn about the biomes present? Is there any safety information they should know?
- The Plan: What time are you arriving? How are you getting from the port or station to where you’ll be sleeping? Where will you be sleeping? How will meals happen?
- The Stress: Remember I said if you don’t plan for the stress you’ll be blindsided by it. We don’t want your kids to be blindsided either! Let them know that stress exists and ask them to tell you when they feel it. This is such a great opportunity to build self-awareness.
Notice your kid’s regular rhythms
A change in location can be a big disruption to your kid’s normal routine. Knowing your kid’s rhythms and doing what you can to maintain them where you can is helpful for giving them a sense of consistency in the midst of change.
How they like to travel
My daughter prefers to have a solid 24 hours of not leaving the house after travel. Did we just arrive in Cairo? Cape Town? Casablanca? She doesn’t care. She doesn’t want to explore. She wants to sit and be in her own space for 24 hours. She doesn’t always get her way, but because I’m aware of her rhythms, I can cater to them and make sure she’s enjoying her trip as much as I am!
When they’re about to lose it
My son gets sensory overload and, while we were in a food court bar in Cape Town with a rugby game on (South Africa vs Australia), I knew there would be trouble. And that’s why we always have ear plugs on us. He was able to enjoy his ostrich burger and we were able to enjoy the game.
You might, though, choose to limit exposure to things. If marketplaces make your child miserable because everyone is always touching them, try to find a solution that doesn’t involve them in the marketplace or them put of reach of those who are touching. I know one family who would braid their daughter’s hair everyday to reduce the temptation to touch.
How long they take to settle
Most worldschooling families find spending at least a month in a location is enough to get over the stress of transition and actually enjoy the location, without having to move so fast that the stress is high. Which means if your itinerary has you staying in a different place every few days, that’s probably too fast. When I hear that shortly into a worldschooling journey, everyone is stressed and having a miserable time: their itinerary was usually moving too fast. You need rest.
Their biological needs
Kids need rest and they need more rest than adults. How does your itinerary accommodate their need for rest? (Pro tip: You can’t “rest” on the plane/train/boat etc. Plan additional rest time.) What about food? My daughter eats small, frequent meals. I’ve tried to convince her otherwise. It hasn’t worked for me. If I doubt the access to snacks, I need to pack them. Otherwise we’re going to encounter stress. Their toilet needs? My son needs a toilet approximately every time I see one. If I don’t mention it when we walk by, we’ll be walking back to the toilet 5 minutes later. Now I mention it every time.
Other keys to successful travel with kids
A lot of what makes traveling with kids successful has just as much to do with the environment that you set up as the parent as it does with the actual events surrounding travel.
Positive Childhood Experiences
Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) are researched factors that have been shown to reduce the negative impacts of trauma and hardship, by building resilience in children. Have you heard that kids are resilient? It’s a total myth. (If kids were so resilient, so many of us wouldn’t need therapy!) Resilience in kids isn’t an inherent thing. It’s built. It’s created by things like feeling heard by their parents, feeling prioritized, feeling safe in their home, and having friends.
You can find the full inventory of PCEs here.
Your mental wellbeing sets the baseline
Your stress sets the tone for the whole family. If you’re feeling stressed, even if you’re not communicating it or showing it, that can be sensed by the entire family and they attune to that. Unfortunately, kids are not as good at politely managing their stress. And when we don’t respond with all the emotional safety they might want (because we’re stressed too!) that further raises the stress levels.
Just like on an airplane, where we need to give oxygen masks to ourselves first, we have to prioritize our mental well-being while traveling. So look at that travel itinerary again and think, “as much fun as it sounds, planning on there being stress throughout the trip, is this realistic for my mental wellbeing?”
Remember that eustress is still stress
Eustress is the opposite of distress. It’s stress but with positive feelings about it. This is going on a fun adventure, experiencing new things, loud, noisy, fun places. It’s our itineraries! But even though it is the Greatest Trip Ever, it’s still stressful. Which means we’re going to need stress management strategies. This can look like scheduling rest days and guiding your kids through practicing strategies like breathing exercises and grounding techniques.
Traveling abroad can be a wonderful adventure for children. What can make or break the whole experience is your kid sensing that you’re prioritizing them in this adventure. By being a prepared and supportive parent, you can help your kids face travel stress head on with rich stress management tools so they can move through that stress to an incredibly enriching experience.
