The question about whether to take kids out of school so they can travel always evokes a firestorm of discussion in the family travel blogsphere. Parents of younger children often feel the kids learn more while traveling than they do in the classroom. For some parents, family travel is such a high priority that they embrace homeschooling or even unschooling so the family can travel year-round. Still others plan a year off to travel the world and figure their kids can pick up where they left off when they get back.
Alternatively, for many of us more traditional traveling families with teens and tweens, family travel options often get squeezed by the demands of school, sports, sleep away camps and the pull of teenage friends at home. Our family has a standing rule that we only travel when the school vacation calendar allows .. but just this once we made an exception so the Princess could participate in the USA Hockey Tier II Nationals recently held in Dallas.
The Princess taking a faceoff at USA Hockey Tier II Nationals
The hocky experience was truly once in a lifetime as her team faced the best teams in the country at their level, winning against Michigan, Illionis, and Greenwich, CT before falling to Team Alaska in the quarter finals. The team of 15 girls, many of whom have played together for years, had a great time pushing themselves to play the best hockey possible and afterwards hanging out at the hotel pool. Off the ice, they had the opportunity to participate in opening ceremonies, go horseback riding, see movies, eat BBQ, shop and once in a while even do a little homework.
Despite our best intentions, fitting a week’s worth of school work into a few hours in between games and activities meant that the Princess faced a major schoolwork hole to dig herself out of once we returned. Ten days later she is almost caught up with just one major science project to go. Along the way, we’ve had a few meltdowns, some tears and a number of nights with way too little sleep, as the demands of her spring crew team and the daily grind of classes and ongoing homework left few extra hours for make-up work. Even with supportive teachers who cheered her on it has been a challenge to get back on track – we don’t think we would do this again for an average family vacation.
It was worth it!
If we had it to do over again, we’d still take her out of school for this truly unique experience, but, we would have been a lot more aggressive about getting the homework done, even at the price of being the unpopular parents. Having said that, this experience really underscores why we advise against taking teens out of high school to make room for family travel. The stress and angst of make-up work, at least at a high power high school like ours where honors classes resemble freshman college classes and seniors fill their schedules with AP classes, is only worth it in very rare instances.
As we have learned with #1 Son’s college quest, despite the fact that many colleges say they take a holistic view of the applicant, students who have opted for mainstream, in-classroom education strategies are evaluated first and foremost on the basis of their grade point average. It only takes one or two poor grades to bring a whole quarter of effort down a notch. For homeschooled and unschooled families the road to college and career is likely to take a different shape, but for mainstream families be sure to have a make-up strategy in place before you hit the road.
Do you take your teens and tweens out of school for family travel? If so, what is your strategy?
As we approach New Year’s Eve its clear that many changes are coming to the Travel with Teens and Tweens household in 2012. With #1 Son going off to college in the fall, things will never be the same — but – rather than focus on past, we’re looking ahead to 2012 with the following list of resolutions to celebrate this coming year of change!
