How to prepare to live on a boat with your children

My son and I lived on our forty foot sailboat for two years and it was one of the best parts of my life and now, ten years later, it is something that he also considers a wonderful period in his life. I have some tips that I would like to share with parents who are considering living on a boat with their children on how best to prepare for this new lifestyle.

1. Make sure your kids are comfortable on board before you pitch the plan to them. Of course this depends on his age (my son was 12 when we left, more on that later) but he grew up sailing so this was a very easy part of our preparation. Some families we met while living on our ship started life on board with very little previous sailing experience and told us that it was a very difficult transition for many months. Just as the saying about first impressions is critical, the same applies to a drastic lifestyle change like this. Take your kids out on the boat for a few months, make sure you have lots of fun activities planned, and make sure the conditions are good when you go out, including good weather and calm seas.

2. Get them excited about what life on board will be like. You know what your kids like to do and what aspects of life on board will appeal to them, so be sure to accentuate that. My son loves adventure and going to new places, so it was easy to talk to him. We would sit down with a map and map out where we would go and talk about all the interesting things to see and do in those places. My son never really liked school or homework, so I told him that instead of spending 8 hours a day at school followed by homework, homeschooling would only take him 2-4 hours, including homework. task; Needless to say, that really appealed to him.

3. Discuss your children’s concerns with them and make them comfortable with plans to overcome them. One of my children’s concerns was that they would miss their friends and family. This was a very valid concern and I also wanted to find a solution. We agreed that we would go home every 2-3 months and spend a week or so staying with a family member who lives in our hometown. This worked very well for us and the time we scheduled to go home was usually centered around a popular holiday or vacation time, so we were able to spend a lot of quality time with friends and family. We also had many friends and family who visited us in some interesting places to help us keep in touch with all of them. Another thing we did was open a web page that my son created and kept up to date. He also had a contact page so it was a great way for him to get involved in our trip and to keep our family and friends involved with what we were doing and helped to reassure them that we were safe and having a great time.

4. Make sure they are involved in planning and preparations. This will also make them more comfortable with plans for living aboard and help them get excited. My son and I sat down together and we chose what equipment we would buy and of course I especially made sure that he was involved in selecting the items that he would find interesting or fun. We spent hours (spread over months, of course, a 12-year-old’s attention span is somewhat limited after all) sitting at the kitchen table choosing electronic devices, safety equipment (his own self-inflating vest, strobe light to attach to the vest, submersible VHF radio, etc.), graphics of the places we would visit, courtesy flags for the countries we plan to visit, and did I mention the latest video game console? I hate to admit it, but that was the last straw that got him excited about our plans to live on board. I told him I’d get him the latest PlayStation console, hey, whatever it takes to keep the peace in the family. Our last stop before leaving was one of his favorites. We went to Walmart and stocked up on a lot of dry goods. If we were ever lost at sea, we could have lived for 6 months with what we bought. Keeping him out of the Smores Pop Tarts was the hard part. I must admit they are good, especially after a few seconds in the microwave.

5. Pick a good time in your life to leave. Of course the important thing is to leave, you will never regret it and you may not be able to choose or wait for the ‘perfect time’ to go, but it certainly makes sense to wait until the end of the school year or some similar milestone. . I was lucky that the perfect time to leave was when my son was entering high school (7th and 8th grades for him). We left in the fall after all his friends had started high school (which is a difficult and transitional time for kids anyway) and returned just before the summer break that preceded their entry to high school . He was 12 when we left and 14 when we returned, so he was old enough to be of great help on the boat, old enough not to have to constantly worry about getting hurt or falling overboard, old enough to do it. most of the homeschooling himself (which was great because instead of daydreaming while the teacher was talking, he had to be active in his schoolwork) and not old enough to become a sultry, ‘I’m ashamed to be with my parents’ teenager – that came later after we got home.

6. Educate your children at home. Before leaving, I researched the best way to homeschool my son and quickly decided to use The Calvert School because they met all of my criteria:

• I was looking for a recognized, respected, and established homeschooling business.

• She wanted detailed daily lesson plans with additional projects, experiments, and outside reading assignments that matched her course work.

• He wanted his exams to be scored and the homeschool system to keep a transcript

His homeschooling worked out very well while we were living on board and when we returned to their public school system they readily accepted The Calvert School’s transcript and placed him back in honors classes so it was a very smooth transition.

Overall, living aboard a ship with my son was a great experience for both of us and it is something we will never forget. We had some tough times, of course, but those are the ones you remember and laugh at. Years later, my son told me that it was difficult to get back to his friendships, but we did our best to avoid it by keeping our house (we rented it while we were away) and quickly put him back in the same Boy Scout troop and several their old sports teams, so it was a pretty quick transition. We both agree that we got much more from our experience living on board than the rewards we endure and we have a bond that few parents and children can share.

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