Helping Expat Kids Survive Thrive

Advice on Schooling, Making Friends & Fitting in Abroad

By Elizabeth Ballard, M.S.

When my little family moved to a cloud forest in the Highlands of Panama, I had no clue about how I was going to continue with my son’s education and help him continue being the happy, social kid he was.

Boquete, Panama, is one of the “hot picks” for places to retire overseas. And while it is peppered with gated retirement communities, it remains essentially a farming town. No movie theater. No skate park.

In 2008, Boquete didn’t have the amenities it has now such as an international school and a beautiful lending library. There was no four-lane highway to Conway. Actually, there was no Conway.

Earlier on in our seven year adventure, my family was one of just a handful of expat parents muddling through the tears and trials and triumphs, holding each other up with strong shoulders, good advice, creative solutions, and a fair amount of wine.

We had decisions to make about homeschooling vs. enrollment vs. online study; about language school vs. full-immersion. Looking back, our adventure has been a great success. Today, my son is a thriving young man who moves with ease between the two cultures and languages he embodies and embraces.

Parents considering a move abroad with school age children probably won’t ease into the adventure until they have a solid plan of attack when it comes to their kid’s education and general happiness. Let’s face it: A happy child equals a happy parent. Or at least a more relaxed one.

Growing bicultural kids can be an exciting, life-changing experience that broadens children’s worlds and opens up their minds in unexpected ways. Still, expat kids face challenges specific to their situation, and they don’t necessarily possess the tools necessary to process the changes and the losses in a short span of time.

It is not necessary to go to a rural town in Central America to benefit from my experience. My book, Helping Expat Kids survive Thrive: Advice on schooling, making friends, fitting in” http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SKBWU0Y is part helpful primer, part personal account. It takes a candid look at what worked —and didn’t work so well—for my family the families around us. It is full of suggestions, tips and checklists for the people considering a move overseas, with kids.

There is more than one way to approach educating a child abroad, and the decisions parents make depend on many variables, most especially on the individual child. My personal bias leans toward providing the fullest local experience possible because it’s my position that most kids really don’t want to stick out like a green apple in a barrel of reds.

Helping Expat Kids survive Thrive: Advice on schooling, making friends, fitting in” is available on Kindle. To view it and read the first few chapters FREE, follow this link.

http://withloveandbutter.org/my-book/