Your child is preparing to explore somewhere incredible. A once in a lifetime opportunity to experience another culture, learn about their destination and do it all with their school friends. It is pretty easy to understand why they will be excited! However, you should also remember that your child will probably be nervous too and that your support throughout the process can only make the experience better for them.
Money:We think it is important for your child to fund some, if not all, of their trip overseas as it will allow them to really savour every moment of the journey and feel an incredible sense of achievement. However, we understand that saving or fundraising can be a daunting process for any young adult. Your encouragement and ideas will help them to achieve their goals – and don’t worry, soon you will miss the weekly cake sales which left your kitchen splattered in cake batter!
Preparation: There are a lot of things your son/daughter needs to prepare themselves with before they go away and at times it might overwhelm them. Consider ways you could help to ease this load such as suggesting family walks which will aid any physical training they may need to undertake. Or perhaps spending some time to research their destination together – we are sure you will learn something new and fascinating and having a little bit of background knowledge will allow them to gain so much more while they travel.
While They Are Away:Preparation is key to helping your child make the most of their trip but also consider how you can support them while they are away. As much as you might want to keep updated on their progress, your text messages might well be making your son/daughter incredibly homesick. Why not wait to hear all about it (we promise, you will… ‘This one time, in Borneo’…) when they get home.
Coming Home:Travelling might have been a bit of a shock to the system to your child but we often find that coming home is too. Be prepared for them to miss their trip, the people they met and the places they visited and enjoy listening to them reminisce!
And of course remember that we are always here to offer our support, all you have to do is get in touch.