There are a countless number of lessons to be learned on the road. We are literally and figuratively exploring uncharted territory every day. So we are faced with life lessons and opportunities for personal growth at every turn. By far my favorite of these lessons is learning the ability to adapt to new and unpredictable situations. Having to cope with the unexpected isn’t easy and, when you are on the road, 75% of our encounters are random by nature. There are a few ways I handle this as a parent.
...On The Road
As parents, we tend to choose what kind of parent we want to be and then adapt through trial and error. Children are ever changing so parenting should always change along with them. What they need as babies will not be the same thing they need as toddlers or as pre-teens. For me, my parenting has evolved but holding on to the same core believes. Giving my children a voice has always been a priority for me. I grew up in the final stages of the era that claimed that “children should be seen and not heard”. So the opposite holds true for my parenting. I will give my kids every opportunity they need to express themselves. One of my children prefers talking things out and the other prefers sitting quietly until she’s able to work through her thoughts. I’m somewhere in between the two techniques but I make sure I give them room to choose their own type of self-expression as I guide them through how to cope with their surroundings.
It has been a little more than a year now since we started traveling, since we decided to take my work and my daughter’s homeschooling on the road, and still every time we are about to embark on a new adventure I am filled with a sort of anxious fear. I have started to embrace this feeling. Mainly because as I listen to it, I feel it’s not requesting for me to grow roots, but to be mindful of each step. The way I plot my destination has always been for me a sort of listening technique. I listen to what the universe presents, I hold it and feel it, and if it feel right, I say yes. This has a tendency of plotting a course of discovery. I end up in places that are magical with people that are conscious and in adventures I could have never imagined.
All in all my story is pretty straight forward. I got divorced; I started homeschooling my girls; I sold my business after 10 years of working 16 hour days; And then I headed out on the road. Sure, it wasn’t this clear and simple and it all happened in the span of 2 years, but that is the basics of the whole thing. I was tired of the world I was living in, I was coping with a chronic illness, and I barely had time for my children. Life felt like a black hole. No matter how much I would give, life always wanted more. And no matter how fast I ran there was just no going through the finish line.
Everyone that has worked from home can probably relate in some way to the feeling that daily life just gets in the way of work. I merit this to our surroundings. When you create a home your main focus, even if you have a home office, is to make the home a place to live, relax and play. I would say the same goes for travel for me. the road is my home where I feel comfortable enough to live, relax and play. I know it may not be easy to imagine but in striping away all the “musts” of daily life, I left a canvas that after two years still has blank spots. I created a concept of what living (vs vacationing) while traveling means to me and how I want to see it to fruition. I created check-in points for my children and I maintain clear communication at all times. And created a way for them to enjoy just being alive but still get a more traditional homeschooling curriculum in regularly. The one thing that seems to elude me is my work.
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ABOUT KAREN
Karen Matamoros is a coach helping parents create freedom in life, business and homeschooling while creating daily flow and cultivating their relationship with their children. At the core of her work, she believes in catering to the child as a whole, and thus she offers kids and teens classes that cater to the entrepreneurial spirit and to help children grow into their dreams. She has also founded Project: KAring, an alternative education portal for kids focused on the body, mind, and soul. She created this community to make free form education easily accessible to every child, though a directory, forums and scholarships. A few years ago, she decided to sell her 6-figure business to start unschooling her two daughters on the road full time and has been traveling the world ever since.
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