"Gordon" wrote in message
...

Neighbor went aboard his 39' custom with wife and 3 month old kid in
Mexico. 13 years later moved off of boat with 5 children and wife. Kids
decided they wanted to spend high school times with other kids.
Kids were home schooled on the boat and are very well adapted to life.
One is a multiple linguist, Spanish, Japanese, and Polish and I don't know
what else. All have some college and a couple have graduated.
I guess the point is, when push came to shove, the kids wanted to be on
land with their peers at that point in life.
Gordon

I also know people who went cruising with and homeschooled their kids.

One couple were teachers on sabatical and they had two boys - one in middle
school and one in 9th grade. But they only did this for ONE YEAR. I think
it was good for the boys, but they did go back to school at the end of the
sabatical year.

One couple did a circumnavigation which took several years with two girls.
But the girls were about 11 and 14 when they came back, and then they went
back to a regular school.

I've also met boat kids who were being homeschooled. The ones who are teens
do suffer from not having peers, as, while there are folks in the marina,
they are usually older. I worried about them WRT whether they would make
inappropriate friendships because there were no age appropriate experiences
available.

My husband was in the Navy, so he moved around a good bit, and by the time
my oldest was in 7th grade, she had been in 7 different schools (and the
second one in 5th grade had been in 5 different schools). It was always
hard for my oldest to switch schools, but I don't think it impacted her
negatively overall. But when it came to teen years and high school, I
stayed put in one place and Bob just commuted back and forth when he was
transferred to another district (In our case, he was at one base in
Maryland from 1973 to 1977, and then went to Crystal City (northern
Virginia) for two years before he retired. So it was possible for him to
commute.)

But although I deplore the language used, I do agree that unless the 15 year
old WANTS to go with her parents on this adventure, I would not do that to
her. I'd find some way to either postpone the trip, or have her remain in
an environment where she could interact with other teens.