12.19.2010
In the Travel Section of today’s LA Times, there was an interesting article about giving the gift of travel to a loved.[1] Although the article didn’t focus entirely on kids, I want to include its opening paragraph:
As parents struggle to find just the right gift for their children this holiday season, let me make a suggestion: I’d give the gift of independence. In this age of “helicopter parenting” – our unceasing hovering over our children – it’s not always easy to instill in them the joy of independence and its corollary, self-reliance. Do we really want them to put us aside and embark on some other journey, separate from our care? Yes, I’m not suggesting dropping a teenager in the middle of the Gobi Desert and wishing him good luck…but a series of escalating challenges is the quickest route to becoming your own person. Travel not only opens a window to the world; it also grants the traveler an opportunity to peer deeply inside himself…When we travel, we change under the influence of impressions, memories and experiences that force us to reexamine and reevaluate our present, our past, who we are and what we aspire to be. Travel puts life into perspective, often reminding us of what’s important.
I was sixteen years old when I spent my junior year of high school abroad. As a teen, of course, you think know absolutely everything but when I think about how young I was, I’m astonished that my mother, very much a control freak, allowed me to go. It was also the year where I began to grow up emotionally in ways that I wouldn’t have ever been able to do otherwise. I was always “older” than most because of my situation at home and the responsibilities I had but that year abroad…it made me see the world and what was possible. I agree with the journalist that when you travel alone (or with a select few friends) and become faced with decisions that only you can make, it forces you to draw from within in order to find a solution. This produces confidence and allows a “take charge” mentality to emerge. As parents, I imagine that the point is to help your child develop these kinds of characteristics and I believe that traveling is a perfect template.
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