Pack your suitcase - we're embarking on an amazing adventure

Maria Kulakova, family psychologist

When I was a child, I had a dream - to study abroad. When my friend told me about her experience of such training, I always listened with bated breath to her stories.

I was 15 years old and I still believed in miracles and perceived travel as one of the manifestations of a miracle.

After becoming a mother, and then working as a family psychologist with teenagers and their parents, I was surprised to find that not all parents had a positive idea of ​​the independent travel of their children.

Gradually familiarizing myself with the different stories of parents associated with their childhood experiences, I discovered that many of them had negative experiences of the children's camp, when they were unlucky enough to face aggression from other children and connivance from counselors.

And there were also times when parents transmitted to their children the instruction that you should solve problems yourself, without disturbing adults. Needless to say, not all children coped with this experience constructively?

As adults, parents tried to protect children from such experiences, while often a child in such a family with all his appearance showed a desire for something new and a willingness to experiment.
And it often happens that parents are worried that their child does not yet have sufficient self-care and communication skills (shy, withdrawn, awkward, uncooperative, hyperactive, etc.). This anxiety for the child is natural and understandable, but it often interferes with seeing the child's potential.

Based on my practice as a family psychologist, I invite you to look your worries in the eye with me and determine the child's readiness to travel abroad with the class:

1. The child has minimal self-care skills. This includes brushing your teeth and hygiene, making your bed neatly and putting things on a shelf.
2. Your child already has an experience of sleeping outside the normal environment. For example, I've already been to the camp, slept in a tent or alone in a room.
3. He knows how to quickly find a common language with other children, does not get lost if they want to get to know him.
4. He is able to resolve conflicts constructively: he does not slip into offense, reasonably explain his position, defend his borders.
5. Your child is collected and takes an active position in the dialogue.

Put the pluses if you agree with the statement and count them.

So what do you have in the bottom line? I can assume that you hardly have more than 3 pluses out of 5.

Let's, for starters, deal first with those who scored 4-5 pluses. This means that your child is ready for the trip, that he has the necessary skills to make the trip easy and carefree. * And it probably also means that this is not the first time your child has been to the camp and / or on group tours and it was there that he acquired these skills *.

And now let's return to those children who are just about to acquire these skills (those who scored from 0 to 3 points). When it comes to the development of independence in children, counting on the fact that the child will grow up and become collected, sociable and courageous means not understanding the essence of the process of acquiring these skills.

Most often, these skills are acquired from a deficit, when a child feels that there are no parents behind him, and even more so in front of him, who are ready to solve his problems right there. However, if we are talking about a soft mode of adaptation to growing up, then the child certainly needs an adult - a mentor / curator who will be by his side if he needs help.

Hence, the main principle that you can safely convey to your child is as follows: if you have any difficulties, you feel that you cannot solve the problem on your own, contact your teacher / curator. He will help you with advice and deed, if necessary.

Traveling with a class is a way out into another reality, where each participant has the opportunity to learn a lot about himself: to enrich himself with the experience of a new culture, far from the usual roles, to show himself from the other side.

For this experience to be positive from start to finish, you need to consider the characteristics of your child.

• Does they have experience collecting things on his own?

If not, I recommend that you give the list of things to the child - so that he first try to pack the suitcase himself, and then together you would check if he took everything. This is an important point and here you need to be patient to answer the child's questions that may be obvious to you. For example, where are his socks, do you need a phone charger, and why put shoes in a bag before putting them in a suitcase, etc.?
At the end, ask him to save the list and use it to collect things on the way back.
I have been working with groups of school-age children for a long time and in different formats, I really like working with classes, since this is where there is an opportunity to turn around.

Just imagine, children in the same class for several years now, accustomed to seeing each other through the prism of statuses, like "excellent student", "fashionista", "strange guy" suddenly discover that people next to them are much more interesting and versatile than they could imagine ...

• Is your child good at teamworking?

  If your child is shy and shy, then it makes sense to take care in advance about sending him along with his friend from class. To draw the attention of the accompanying teacher to the fact that he may need help in finding a company. However, it may be that your child prefers privacy to noisy companies, then it is also worth informing the trip curator about this. You should not drag the child where he does not want with all his might.

• Amulets of Courage

  Your child probably has a favorite toy, already worn, but such a comfortable T-shirt or, in extreme cases, happy socks. Be sure to find a place in your child's suitcase for these things. Perhaps the child will even at first be against it and will not want to take them (after all, he is already an adult), however, I recommend that you still put at least one thing that will remind the child of the house and create a feeling of security.

Minutes of sadness are inevitable and important for a child's development, but let this time he have a "piece of home" with him.

Let’s summarize: I don’t know a single parent who would not want his child to become more independent, learn more about their capabilities, learn or reinforce the skills of self-care and self-care. On the trip, the child will have to learn these skills and this is good news!

As a family and social psychologist, I am an advocate of group travel, and as a mom of two, I believe the main challenge is choosing an organizer teacher to whom you can trust your child.