3 boys, 6 suitcases, 3 weeks, 11 hotels, 4 cities, 5 towns, 3 US States

Holidays yays and nays....

It was time, with my youngest child now 3 yrs old and my oldest 9 yrs old, to have an international holiday, take the children on an adventure, explore another country. So after 12 hours of flying, we arrived at our first destination, Los Angeles, the start of our driving, exploring holiday. The plan, Disneyland, Santa Monica, Universal Studios, Grand Canyon, Sequoia National Park, Yosemite, South Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Los Angeles and home.

This holiday yay was not having a mobile phone or laptop, we checked emails every so often but made sure it was when the children were in bed. I know the kids appreciated this!

I was surprised to see how my children reacted to new situations and what they reacted to. Many questions from my 9yo about why some people are homeless.

Yay for the shopping, nay for the constant need to remind my children to control themselves, the constant need to say “ssshhh, stop it, hands off each other, stay still, don’t get in the people’s way, stop it, don’t do that, don’t touch that, quietly please, don’t run in the shop”, over a hundred times in three weeks..... Yay, there were other parents with children doing exactly the same things. I would hear parents using the same phrases and I felt “normal”. It appears that cultural differences don’t matter when it comes to child behaviour. Children tend to behave similarly all over the world.

Yay for learning more about how my children are and what special qualities they have. Yay for my 9yo who dislayed empathy and wanted to give homeless people dollars. Yay for my 8yo who comes up with witty and unconventional ways to get points across and cycled 13 kms over the Golden Gate Bridge without complaint.

What I did learn:

Children cannot control themselves when tired or excited.

Times what you feel like by 10 and then you may come close to how your child is feeling emotionally or physically. That may explain the first point of my learning.

Don’t know what your child is thinking – just ask? Don’t allow learning or teaching opportunities to pass you or your child by.