Travelling with kids - Lisa

My lovely sister-in-law Milly asked me to write something about how it is travelling with children especially when coming from a busy working life straight into 24/7 family time. It's taken me too long to try and articulate this but here is my best effort.

One of the main reasons for checking out of the regular (real?) life for six months was to spend some more time with my family. One friend suggested before we left that spending that much time with their family was amongst their worst nightmares. So I started to feel a bit worried....

But what I have learnt is that unpressured time with Chris and the girls wasn't something to be concerned about, even six months of it. Sure there have been moments when I hankered to be able to sit and read a book without being sat upon by a child, or not hearing "I'm hungry!" 20 times a day would be nice - but these are not things that truly matter.

I think what I will most remember are learning what my kids are really like as people. I have discovered things like how Charlotte is the most gentle person, she truly has no mean bone in her body. At one stage we were having some fun (at Chris's expense) as he was getting pretty hairy so I showed the girls a YouTube video of Staying Alive by the Bee Gees (their dad I had begun to resemble a Bee Gee after 4 months in the bush). Despite the laughs, Charlotte had to turn it off because she didn't want to be mean. As her mum, I am always being amazed at how she can identify birds on sight and talk about rock types across the country - but seems unable to find her wash bag EVERY SINGLE night to clean her teeth.

It been amazing to see them grow as people, in the security of their family - but facing new challenges every day. Seeing Aurora step-up and realise she was brave enough to climb through gorges in Karijini on her 7th birthday was a highlight. We have also discovered how she needs to make everything a competition with her big sister (not sure where on earth she gets that from....)

School while we have been on the road has been a learning experience for me as much as Charlotte and Aurora.  The workload in doing distance education is significant and requires lots of motivation and time. We have perhaps had too many moments where, let's say we haven't had the most positive learning environment! I have found myself wondering why I was putting so much energy into getting the work completed on time. There have however also been some great creative projects such as the stop motion animation film we made(see link to Daredevil Dave video below). We even wrote some story books together. In recent months I have using the long drives as classroom time, and climbing in the back seat to sit between the girls and really focus on what they are trying to learn.

We have met a lot of families on the road, all with different aged kids, length of trip and travelling style. Most families out there seem to be younger than school age - which seems horrible for travelling (we can hear the toddler tantrums across the campgrounds). However other families with school aged kids have a wide range of strategies. I can say with certainty that I don't subscribe to the often stated belief by other families that formal schooling is unnecessary because 'they learn so much out here'! Yes of course they learn something about geography, culture and history along the way from tours, museums and interpretive signage. I thing the girls really appreciate this because scientist / tour guide Chris been able to succinctly explain and link together the geology, culture or ecology of every place we visit. 

This is all great, and part of why we are travelling - however in no way does it substitute for the reading, english and maths knowledge acquired in a school environment. Hopefully the distance education will fill some of that gap. It will be some time before i can appreciate if this experience has been of value or detriment to them educationally. We will also see what other ways it has changed their attitudes, understanding and behaviours. For me, hopefully the time is spent tutoring them has improved my understanding of the school curriculum and this will enable me to support them over the next years at least.

So with just a few weeks until we get home and go back into normal life it is simply time together I that I will miss the most. We have packed in so many fun and amazing experiences together over the last 5 months that it's hard to contemplate going back to busy city life where much of our interaction is all go go go and without the wonder of a new place to share every few days.

With all this in mind the experience is now even more special because time is limited. We have good friends, loving family and an ensuite bathroom waiting for us.