One of our biggest concerns with moving to a foreign country is the children being isolated from other children their age and not developing the appropriate social skills. I keep focusing on what they will be missing by not attending a traditional school and I forget to focus on all the advantages. As parents, Christina and I are extremely concerned about screwing up our kids education. It's such a huge responsibility and we only get one shot at it. A quick break down of what I see the advantages and disadvantages are to what we are calling "world schooling." Chime in and let me know if I am overlooking anything.
Advantages:
Broadened world views
Experiencing other cultures
Learning foreign languages
Making new friends
Learning through experiences
Disadvantages:
Difficult developing long term relationships
Not participating in school sports
Limited social interactions with peers
We of course are going to do our best to try and mitigate the disadvantages. First by trying to become more social ourselves. The more expat families we meet and interact with the more opportunities for our children to make friends. Second, by getting them involved with some kind of sports or activities. We have encouraged our children to participate in sports as early as they could. They have played soccer (futbal), American Football, Baseball, Track, and Basketball. Ayden really likes playing baseball, so far I haven't found anything in Pattaya but I will keep looking. I did mention to him martial arts, and the other day he mentioned he would like to learn how to play golf as we were passing the driving range on base. I showed some Muay Thai videos to him and Christina, of course, Mom is not a fan of him getting in the ring, I am not to sure Ayden is either. There are lots of golf courses in Pattaya we should be able to get him into some kind of golf club. Ayden recently became a PADI Junior Open Water Diver and we dive together weekly. Zachary has never been much into sports but he did like playing baseball and loves swimming. I have researched at length and found international dance and gymnastics classes for Sofia. We will continue to try and find new activities and support any they want to explore.
Looking at the above advantages I think they definitely outweigh the negatives. Luckily for our children, with the advent of social media they will be able to keep in touch with kids they meet along the way.
We are having to train ourselves to think differently about how to educate and not be so concerned with how it was for us. It's great that Ayden gets to attend a school dance tonight. The rest of the children might never get that experience, but they will get hundreds of other experiences majority of children will never get. In the end I think we are doing the right thing, only time will tell.
