After the initial shock when we
told our children we are moving to Sweden, they immediately knew what to do. They know the drill, and they started getting ready for move sooner than we did. We still had our everyday work to go to, clients to take care of, blog posts to write. Life didn’t and couldn’t change in an instant. While our children still had their school play to get ready for, homework to do and their everyday chores to take care of, they were able to get started with the physical process of moving immediately.
Start Traveling With Children When They Are Young – It Will Become a Second Nature
Children are so adaptive, or maybe it is just our children, the nomads of the world, who have been dragged around the world since they were mere weeks old, and who got passports under the age of two weeks and all traveled to other countries under the age of two months.
I always say to parents, don’t wait traveling with your children until they “get older and it gets easier”. No. It gets easier when
they are older because they are used to it, not because they are older. Look at two adults, one who never travels and one who travels constantly – traveling is easier for the one with traveling experience, not for the one who is older.
Age doesn’t have anything to do with it.
A few days after we told our children about the move to Sweden I walk into their room and find an enormous mess.
Toys, clothes, books… everywhere.
Before I even say a word, my oldest daughter jumps in and says “I know, I know, it’s messy. But the plastic bags are things we are throwing away, the paper bags are filled with things we can donate or sell and the plastic bins and stuff still in the closet are things we want to keep”.
A few days ago this beautiful creature looked at me with her gorgeous eyes with a look that could have killed because she was so upset we were taking her away from New York. Today she is already organizing everything she and her sister and brother own and already packing for the move.
And we don’t even know when we are moving.
And I have barely even started yet.
Nomadic life with children can be easy. Because they learn to adapt, they learn to put things in perspective (and understand why we can not move that big Barbie house and they don’t even ask if they could) and they learn to prioritize and see what’s really important in life.
