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| Student in Córdoba, Argentina photo by Jamie Douglas |
By Jamie Douglas
When deciding to move abroad, whether it is for personal or professional reasons, it is simple to make decisions and assumptions for your own self and partner, provided you have no children. However, if you do have younglings in the nest or about ready to take flight, things are more complicated.
Some children are very attached to their friends and relatives, and when transplanting them into a new and unfamiliar environment, they will suffer in transmigration, while others are completely open to that new adventure and new environment. Thankfully, we are now in the cyber age, where even pre-teens can easily connect via Skype, Facebook, and the various messenger programs that make it so easy to communicate.
Skype, for very little money, offers you a local number in many countries, such as the USA and Canada (visit skype.com for detailed information), and with that number, people can contact you for free and you can be identified as the caller on others’ caller ID.
As far as uprooting your child or children, every case is unique. For instance, one sibling may be dancing for joy at the prospect of moving to faraway places (me), whereas others (my brother), hate the idea of leaving all that is familiar behind. (He stayed behind and I went to the USA from safe secure Switzerland.) I took full advantage of the opportunities to travel the USA as soon as I was old enough, setting out on a lengthy journey that, 40 something years later, still has not ended.
Along the way, I had a daughter, got married a couple of times, and having chosen photography to be not only my profession but also my passion, the wheels kept turning, so that my daughter grew up in many different locales, ranging from St Croix, USVI, to Costa Rica, Mexico, and Maui, with intermediate stops in Europe and all of Central America.
She seems to have suffered no ill aftereffects, being a very dedicated mother to two lovely girls who are very active in sports, having stayed married to the same man for many years, and generally living a very stable life.
When expatriating for any amount of time with the kids, several important things must be taken into consideration, first and foremost, their health. If there are serious health issues, make sure that your destination is able to cater medically to any pediatric situations that you are aware of.
Then there is their education. Even though the USA has slipped seriously in recent years in academic standards compared to many other nations, your children will more than likely have to attend private schools in foreign locales, something which can be pricey.
On the other hand, some countries offer excellent educational systems in their metropolitan areas (after all, they do produce scientists, doctors and all kinds of other highly skilled intellectual individuals). In many locales however, the rural schools lack many things that we take for granted.
Also, many times the school day is split in two, with lower grades going in the morning, and middle schoolers going in the afternoon. High schools are rare in the countryside pretty much everywhere, requiring the extra effort to go to the nearest larger town or city, which may also offer private schools such as Waldorf, Montessori or parochial schools.
I suggest that you investigate this subject thoroughly before setting out to live in the Pampas of Argentina, or the Mato Groso in Brazil.
Your children may require a great deal of patience, encouragement, and creativity in helping them to adjust. On the other hand, they might just as well quickly adapt and make new friends, as at first they present a curiosity, and the local kids will want to know them. Children have the amazing capacity to learn a new language as a sponge soaks up water, and will soon be telling you what it is that people are trying to tell you.
There will of course be new dishes to be tried, and new ingredients to be gotten used to, as not everything is available outside of metro areas, so a degree of tolerance is required in that field as well. Something important to remember if you migrate to Latin America, is that Mexican food is unique to Mexico and the USA. Each country has its own regional food stuff which has evolved over many centuries, and in most instances is very good, though often lacking spiciness.
Meat and poultry in many places are expensive and not always easy to get. And today’s prices of grains are being driven up by speculation; conversion to Ethanol (seen as a crime against humanity in Third World countries); many ranches in South America’s Beef Belt – Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil – are converting to soy, a monocrop, which will deplete the soil and bring about more fertilizer and pesticide use along with the Monsanto and Cargill genetically engineered seed stocks. The Province of Rio Negro, Argentina, has just made a deal with China for 100 (!) years, to give them 300.000 hectares of land, port and airport facilities, to build factories to process the soy beans, all tax exempt, something which will be a burden on the entire population, now and in the future, as they also gave them the water rights to some very important resources. (End of Rant)
If your kids have that inborn curiosity that most children have, they will enjoy and adapt rapidly. Over the years, I have seen many of my expat friends’ children grow up and become everything from artists to diplomats. The extra native language skills acquired will be immensely beneficial to them, not to mention the poly-cultural tolerance that will be absorbed and cultivated within their emerging personalities.
I don’t recommend setting timelines, like “We’ll go for a year and see!” Rather, prepare them for a multiyear change of living experience that will shape their lives forever. Likewise, do not make promises for an early return to the relatives at home, especially grandparents, as they of course are generally very attached to your children, being as they are an extension of themselves and you. Do make sure that you budget for frequent visits, and urge your parents to come visit as often as you can handle them. (A guest cottage is great for that).
There are no set rules or guidelines for bringing your children abroad. But it is imperative that you know their feelings well, and if possible, via internet, connect them to some of their future peers in your intended destination, and bring familiar items with you, so that they don’t feel completely disconnected from their former lives.
Love your Children! Be good to your Mother Earth!
Jamie Douglas
Patagonia
To contact Jamie regarding this article, email: jamie@expatdailynews.com
Jamie Douglas is an Adventurer, Writer and Photographer with an amazing array of Nikon equipment, and a lifetime of experience traveling and documenting. To contact him for assignments and new adventures. email: jamie.douglas [at] yahoo.com
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I think many people miss a huge opportunity by putting their kids straight into International school, because the only time you can become truly fluent in another language is as a child, and you can only do that through a truly immersive experience. Whatever the standards of local education, giving them 6 months or a year of it (combined with tutoring if needed to maintain standards) will mean bilingualism for life, a gift beyond price
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