There are more and more digital nomads – people who travel around the world while working online.
This lifestyle is more common for younger people and couples without children.
However, as Millennials are entering their thirties, many of them get children and keep living the lives of digital nomads. With kids on your back, it’s necessary to adapt your life to little people and their needs.
Since they often change towns and countries where they live, it’s not easy for digital parents to ensure continuous education for their kids.
In this article, you can learn more about the options you have at your disposal to provide proper education for your children on the go.
1) Interchangeable homeschooling
When a couple of digital nomads needs to organize their life with children, they need to reorganize their professional and private habits.
Since most digital nomads are either IT-experts or work online, they have flexible working hours. This means that you can work separately. While one parent is working, the other one can take care of the kids, i.e. homeschool the kid.
Parents need to agree on the curriculum they’re going to use to teach their kids. In some countries, they might be obliged to follow the official curriculum of the local ministry of education. In others, parents will have more freedom in choosing the curriculum.
This is only one aspect, out of many aspects of homeschooling. If you decide to homeschool your kids, make a separate space where they’re going to study. Also, create a schedule and stick to it so that your kids have a clear and organized structure.
2) E-learning via digital platforms
Today, children and young teenagers spend a lot of time using different tech devices and apps.
Digital nomads can streamline these children’s habits into productive educational sessions.
Many publishing houses release CDs and online materials as additions to student books and workbooks. Parents can either spend time with their kids going through these materials or let their children use them alone, after home lessons.
Still, digital nomads need to be careful when choosing learning apps and tools for their children. There different apps for different age ranges of kids, which why parents should analyze the apps before letting their kids use them.
3) Traveling vs. local tutors
Depending on the budget and lifestyle you have, you might want your kids to work with private tutors.
Some families that often travel make an arrangement with an educator who travels with them and teaches their kids. This educational and upbringing model is more common for business executives than for digital nomads, though.
What would be practical for digital nomads is to find temporary local tutors, based on their current location. This is a reasonable choice for a married nomadic couple that changes their destination every six months or every year.
If you’re staying in Moscow, you should hire a local, English-speaking tutor who will teach your kids while you’re there. When you’re staying in England, you can find a private teacher in London to help you educate your kids while you’re working.
A great advantage of working with private tutors is that such lessons and homeschooling are complementary.
4) International schools in different towns
Digital nomads with a more detailed plan can register their kids for international schools.
For instance, you decide on what countries and towns you want to stay in the next couple of years or semesters. In line with that, you can contact several international schools in those towns and check whether they accept new learners for the planned period.
On top of that, some international schools have their departments in different countries.
So, you can have your kid go to the same school, but different departments as you move around.
International schools are a reasonable choice in terms of socialization. No matter how good you are at homeschooling or how professional your private tutors are, children need to spend some time with their peers, as well.
5) Local public schools
If you’re planning to spend a year or more in a smaller town that doesn’t have any international schools, a local public school could be a fine option.
Your kid can benefit from meeting kids from a different culture. This will increase their cultural awareness and help them understand the local customs of the place where you’re staying.
Some parents are afraid that their kids won’t understand the locals. While this is a reasonable argument, your kids could actually benefit from going to such a school. For instance, if you spend some time in Spanish-speaking surroundings, your kids will learn another important world language.
Again, such a decision demands some planning. For instance, if you’re planning to live in a smaller town, contact several local schools to ask them whether they would accept your kids. When you get a positive answer, your kids can start learning the basics of the target language via kid-friendly language apps.
Depending on your kids’ affinities and your own preferences, you might want to combine homeschooling and private tutoring or homeschooling and international schools. For families of digital nomads planning to spend a longer time abroad, local schools can be a practical choice, as well.
The worst option is not ensuring any kind of education for your children. So, as long as your kids receive some kind of education on a regular basis, you won’t have to change your lifestyle and you’ll be able to continue living as digital nomads.
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AuthorBio: Anne Harris is an HR specialist working for londongoverness.com. She recruits nannies, governesses and other childcare professionals, ensuring top-notch services for parents worldwide. In her free time she likes reading about education, and children’s welfare, as well as visiting sports events.