Today I learned a lesson I thought I had learned before, but I think I’d forgotten about. I remember the same knot in my stomach I learned it the last time, so I immediately recognized it for what it was and it triggered the memory all over again. It has to do with one HUGE problem with family travel that is rarely talked about or usually even thought about until it’s too late. The problem I’m talking about has to do with raising independent confident kids through travel.

If you’ve been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you know I usually ask each parent and guest about how their kids are affected by family travel. I’m genuinely wondering if they had the same fears that we did before we traveled, and that I assume most parents have when it comes to the thought of taking your children out of the ‘normal routine’  and globetrotting into the unknown. Everything races through your head from kidnapping to getting lost in airport/train station/ whatever! Just plain ol’ unfounded, baseless fear!

You probably also notice that the guests usually reply with something like: “We saw our kids burst out of their shell” or, “They have become so confident as young adults because of all the adjusting they’ve had to do with meeting new people, new cultures, interacting more with adults, etc.”  or “We’ve been blown away with how grown up our kids have become from world travel!” All true!

Which is really, genuinely fantastic! I mean, that’s the point we are after! Why do anything if it’s not going to generate some positive change in our kids….if we’re not doing it for them, what’s the point?

The Downside

But here’s the downside, and here’s why I’m typing a blog at 5:38 a.m. instead of sleeping. I just dropped off my 13 year old daughter, Emma, at the airport where she’s on her way to visit a sailing friend in Chicago. She met Caroline in Israel in 2011, and they have remained good friends. Caroline and her family sailed around the world and are one of our first guests in Episode 2!

I guess when I say ‘downside’ that’s not 100% accurate. I mean, Emma has been SO excited for this trip, saving her own money to put towards it, and planning it for so long, that she could hardly sleep last night. And deep down for me it is exciting too to see her confidence in getting her bags packed, passport out, and off into the unknown of the airport.

As a paranoid dad, I went with her to the counter, with our printed out boarding passes, just to make sure everything was OK, the attendant asked her if she had any gels or liquids in her carry-on and Emma confidently replied: ‘Nothing over 3 ounces” The attendant replied, “Well, it sounds like you know what you’re doing, have a great flight” And that was it. She does know what she’s doing. It’s just a matter if I can come to grips with that obvious fact.

The Memory

The memory it immediately triggered was the same feeling I had several years ago, when I dropped off Maggie and Levi in Athens, Greece as they were two teenagers heading to a wedding in the US, while Rachel and I sailed with the rest of the family towards Italy to reunite with them almost a month later. Then there was the time we sent Maggie off on a little prop plane from an island in the Bahamas to connect her way through airports around the world to Israel and back. Talk about scary………but it never seems to get easier, and this pit in my stomach this morning is a good reminder.

Emma will be fine, I know that, but my heart is having a little bit harder time with it. She knows much better than most 13 year olds how to navigate the sea of concourses, the gates, and the ticket counters at an airport, and she’s seen a lot more of the world that most adults I know, but there is still that twinge that says she’s not ready. I think I know which one of us is not ready.

The downside is not her not being ready, because she’s become exactly what we wanted her to be: confident, secure, and independent! The downside is me not being ready……just. quite. yet.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about your experiences with letting teenagers go, was it this hard for you?

Erik