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From: John and Alys Esmond (no email)
Date: Sat May 05 2001 - 10:07:00 EDT
We've been living aboard our 36' custom sailboat with our son for nearly 3 years now. He's going to be 7 next month, and has adjusted to an unusual life easily. We never had him in day-care, so there were no issues about removing him from social circles. We have occasionally asked him if he wants to live in a house, and, for now, he is vehemently opposed.
He has his electronic entertainment centre (a magnet for the other kids in the marina on rainy days) consisting of a Gameboy, Dreamcast and 12V TV/VCR hooked up to DSS satellite. This keeps him occupied pretty well when he's not role-playing Pokemon up on the deck with the dog or bouncing around in the zodiac. He and a friend went for a dingy ride yesterday, and they went swimming! Not too surprising, you say? We're in Lake Ontario, and the water temp. yesterday was 14C.
We are homeschooling (boatschooling) him; he is 20 lessons away from completing Grade 2 with the Calvert School home education program. We HIGHLY recommend this curriculum... school in a box with an instruction manual that teaches us how to teach him. If we had placed him in "normal" school, he would have been put in grade 1 as the system is based on age, not ability. His schooling takes about 3 hours a day, and we can do it at any time of day, any day of the week. I work in retail, so do not have the classic 9-5 schedule. Working around a "school day" would be very difficult. The time we save not ferrying him back and forth to school, the money we save by not having him baby-sat before and/or after school, and the additional income I am able to earn more than defray the cost of the program and the time we spend teaching and supervising school. We are in complete control over what he learns and when he learns it. He is advanced in math and reading, so is not held back by slower children, but has difficulty with spelling and writing, so we are able to spend the extra time with him he needs. "Normal school" would be quite difficult for him, I believe. The fun(ny) part is re-learning stuff we've forgotten!
Safety is a huge consideration. He never goes outside the cockpit without his lifejacket. He's fallen in 3 times in the last 3 years, each time we were far enough away from him that not having a lifejacket on could have had serious repercussions. He was never an accident-prone kid, nor is he the type to stick knitting needles into receptacles (unlike his mother), so perhaps we've had an easy time indoctrinating him into boat rules.
Alys
----- Original Message -----
From: Brandi Gahrmann
To:
Sent: May 1, 2001 8:24 AM
Subject: lv-ab: Children onboard
Are there any members of the list currently cruising with kids aboard?? and
if so, do you home-school?? I would like to discuss some issues and
questions we have with you but don't want to bore the list with them :)
Brandi Gahrmann
"Edelweiss"
Edel 665
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