"Two of the greatest gifts we can give our children are roots and wings." -- Hodding Carter
This idea first originated around January 2018 when the Winter Blues were hitting (me), and we were at a place where our mundane repetitive life began to drain us. I began questioning whether we were on the right path with the boys' education, school experience, my career, my work environment, and our precious family time began to get stretched thin. Put it simply, we were on a hamster wheel with work, school, after school activities, then repeat. It was speeding up and out of control. We were already getting burnt out... same old same old. We needed a change, we needed something to happen to pull us out of a rut. The idea came to me from my spirit guides (sounds mysterious doesn't it). After my friend did an energy reiki, each morning I received answers, solutions, and ideas. "World schooling" was the perfect concoction for allowing the boys the time and pace to learn and for them to enjoy learning again. Public school in Bemus was taking all the fun out of it. Both boys were academically advance for their grade levels and the school wasn't quite meeting their potential. My school psych background and testing allowed me to verify all of this, and come up with a better educational plan for them. I was missing my time with my boys and yearning for the Stay-At-Home-Mom days of no schedules... I discovered I was not quite ready to cut the cord and fly into a full fledge career- which was pretty toxic and negative at Pine Valley. Our world-schooling family travel year was going to be everything but conventional. Brad thought I was joking at first, but then when he realized its perfectly legal and possible to pull your kids out of public school, he hopped on the band wagon and saw the benefits. We felt we were the lucky few to be able to budget and afford a year of adventures, while respectfully balancing it with Brad's ability to run and operate his company. Instead of taking off for the whole year, we would go on numerous adventures and international trips throughout the year. Our curriculum would revolve around the place we would travel to and allow for lots of creative, active, and adventurous learning that public school could never offer. The home breaks in between our trips would give us down-time to process our previous trips and prepare and study material for the next. Most importantly, we knew the boys would need a balance of home comforts, Gravity kitty cuddles, and to be able to see and reconnect with their buddies.
I call this next year the EXPERIENCE, LEARN, and BOND family world-schooling year- the ELB! Our own version of the inspiring Eat, Pray, Love book/movie. Its going to be about experiencing new places, cultures, museums, trying new things together and individually, and developing new hobbies. Learning hands-on and out of the box, active learning on the go, independently, and through different "classrooms". Learning about ourselves and who we are. Bonding with family during our travel, trusting one another, depending on each other, and strengthening the brother-brother relationship, mom-sons relationship, dad-sons relationship, and lots of uninterrupted family togetherness. You see, with the boys being 8 and 6 years old, we have this this teeny window of time where we still have them to ourselves. Sooner or later, the boys will be obsessed with their friends, and wanting to spend every moment with them. They will be involved in after school activities, sports, and other commitments that will deplete our precious family time. To be able to take a year all to ourselves, without schedules, commitments, school calendars, and that constant ticking clock, is well, every parent's dream come true! We couldn't have asked for better timing with the boys' ages and grade levels. Their academics and curriculum all manageable, and this would actually allow me to work 1:1 with each of them to figure out their learning styles, give them strategies, and we can work at their pace, and pursue their interests. They need their love for learning re-instilled because their elementary school has unfortunately taken that away from them. This is an opportunity not to be passed up, and we would never regret it. I had my foot in the door of my school psych career and figured out exactly what/ where I wanted to pursue it. We finally down-sized and sold the cottage, Ellicottville ski property, the Range Rover, and my BMW, (2 houses and 2 cars!) and of course Brad was fortunate to have the flexibility with his work schedule and working remotely while traveling.
Everything we've done and places we've been up to now has led to this new chapter. Traveling with the boys at a young age has made them adaptable travelers and their brains continue to absorb and retain everything they are exposed to. No better timing to give them the world than us as teachers, hand-in-hand in this journey of self-growth, and give them experiences and knowledge that will help shape them and mold them into open-minded, driven, compassionate, and educated adults. Instead of traveling the world in one year and hopping from country to country, the plan is to "slow travel" and pick a different region (continent) to travel slowly and explore, connecting with family/ friends when we can, and finding a home base and schooling atmosphere or program where the boys can soak up the most they can and branch out socially. Its about forming connections so its more meaningful and becomes engraved in their memory. That's how we usually travel (we are not really vacation people as can be seen from our prior trips). We've always been city explorers, adventure seekers, road-trippers, and always preferring authentic local experiences over engineered touristy ones. I hope this extraordinary year will make the boys world-explorers and thinkers on a whole new level. I hope it will change us as a family, bring us even closer, and establish an amazing tight-knit foundation of love and trust, so much so that when our boys become teens they will want to continue to travel with us and pick the destinations. These are some big goals, hopes, and ambitions, sooooo, let the adventures begin!
This idea first originated around January 2018 when the Winter Blues were hitting (me), and we were at a place where our mundane repetitive life began to drain us. I began questioning whether we were on the right path with the boys' education, school experience, my career, my work environment, and our precious family time began to get stretched thin. Put it simply, we were on a hamster wheel with work, school, after school activities, then repeat. It was speeding up and out of control. We were already getting burnt out... same old same old. We needed a change, we needed something to happen to pull us out of a rut. The idea came to me from my spirit guides (sounds mysterious doesn't it). After my friend did an energy reiki, each morning I received answers, solutions, and ideas. "World schooling" was the perfect concoction for allowing the boys the time and pace to learn and for them to enjoy learning again. Public school in Bemus was taking all the fun out of it. Both boys were academically advance for their grade levels and the school wasn't quite meeting their potential. My school psych background and testing allowed me to verify all of this, and come up with a better educational plan for them. I was missing my time with my boys and yearning for the Stay-At-Home-Mom days of no schedules... I discovered I was not quite ready to cut the cord and fly into a full fledge career- which was pretty toxic and negative at Pine Valley. Our world-schooling family travel year was going to be everything but conventional. Brad thought I was joking at first, but then when he realized its perfectly legal and possible to pull your kids out of public school, he hopped on the band wagon and saw the benefits. We felt we were the lucky few to be able to budget and afford a year of adventures, while respectfully balancing it with Brad's ability to run and operate his company. Instead of taking off for the whole year, we would go on numerous adventures and international trips throughout the year. Our curriculum would revolve around the place we would travel to and allow for lots of creative, active, and adventurous learning that public school could never offer. The home breaks in between our trips would give us down-time to process our previous trips and prepare and study material for the next. Most importantly, we knew the boys would need a balance of home comforts, Gravity kitty cuddles, and to be able to see and reconnect with their buddies.
I call this next year the EXPERIENCE, LEARN, and BOND family world-schooling year- the ELB! Our own version of the inspiring Eat, Pray, Love book/movie. Its going to be about experiencing new places, cultures, museums, trying new things together and individually, and developing new hobbies. Learning hands-on and out of the box, active learning on the go, independently, and through different "classrooms". Learning about ourselves and who we are. Bonding with family during our travel, trusting one another, depending on each other, and strengthening the brother-brother relationship, mom-sons relationship, dad-sons relationship, and lots of uninterrupted family togetherness. You see, with the boys being 8 and 6 years old, we have this this teeny window of time where we still have them to ourselves. Sooner or later, the boys will be obsessed with their friends, and wanting to spend every moment with them. They will be involved in after school activities, sports, and other commitments that will deplete our precious family time. To be able to take a year all to ourselves, without schedules, commitments, school calendars, and that constant ticking clock, is well, every parent's dream come true! We couldn't have asked for better timing with the boys' ages and grade levels. Their academics and curriculum all manageable, and this would actually allow me to work 1:1 with each of them to figure out their learning styles, give them strategies, and we can work at their pace, and pursue their interests. They need their love for learning re-instilled because their elementary school has unfortunately taken that away from them. This is an opportunity not to be passed up, and we would never regret it. I had my foot in the door of my school psych career and figured out exactly what/ where I wanted to pursue it. We finally down-sized and sold the cottage, Ellicottville ski property, the Range Rover, and my BMW, (2 houses and 2 cars!) and of course Brad was fortunate to have the flexibility with his work schedule and working remotely while traveling.
Everything we've done and places we've been up to now has led to this new chapter. Traveling with the boys at a young age has made them adaptable travelers and their brains continue to absorb and retain everything they are exposed to. No better timing to give them the world than us as teachers, hand-in-hand in this journey of self-growth, and give them experiences and knowledge that will help shape them and mold them into open-minded, driven, compassionate, and educated adults. Instead of traveling the world in one year and hopping from country to country, the plan is to "slow travel" and pick a different region (continent) to travel slowly and explore, connecting with family/ friends when we can, and finding a home base and schooling atmosphere or program where the boys can soak up the most they can and branch out socially. Its about forming connections so its more meaningful and becomes engraved in their memory. That's how we usually travel (we are not really vacation people as can be seen from our prior trips). We've always been city explorers, adventure seekers, road-trippers, and always preferring authentic local experiences over engineered touristy ones. I hope this extraordinary year will make the boys world-explorers and thinkers on a whole new level. I hope it will change us as a family, bring us even closer, and establish an amazing tight-knit foundation of love and trust, so much so that when our boys become teens they will want to continue to travel with us and pick the destinations. These are some big goals, hopes, and ambitions, sooooo, let the adventures begin!
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