CRUISING WITH KIDS: WHAT AGE IS BEST?

 All the cruising parents we have met found the experience of voyaging with their children very positive, and the ties established during several years of voyaging built the foundation for a lifetime of intense and fulfilling family relationships. Though some parents worried about the risks to their children initially, most ended up feeling cruising was better for their children physically and mentally than life ashore. In fact, cruising with kids is harder on the parents than on the children. In addition to the things all of us have to deal with while voyaging, cruising parents spend a good deal of their time educating, entertaining, and worrying about their children.

We've met children aboard ranging in age from infants to young adults. Any age can work, but most parents say the children get the most out of it if they are old enough to remember the experience but young enough not to want to be somewhere else. Toddlers and teens tend to create the biggest problems aboard. 
Babies fit well into shipboard life. They sleep a great deal, stay where you put them, and keep hours that are consistent with changes of the watch. For many women, the worst aspects of being pregnant while living aboard were morning sickness compounded by seasickness in their first trimester and finding a place with high-quality, affordable medical services to have the child.
But infants turn into toddlers quickly, and toddlers are not as well suited to life aboard. Toddlers are too young to understand why they can't play with the gimballed stove and too old to stay where you put them. Their mobility is astonishing, their curiosity unquenchable. To keep toddlers safe, you must childproof an area of your boat and never leave them unattended on deck. Several of our friends chose to have a baby during the last year of their voyage so they could return to the relative safety of shore before the child reached the "terrible twos.
" Preschool-age children are more flexible and often adapt more quickly than older children. They can be taught to swim and understand the word "no!" You don't need to worry about schooling, but you will spend time inventing ways to keep them entertained. Preschool-age children are more work and worry and are less help than older children. They are too young to get the full benefit of voyaging and may not remember much of their trip. Still, going with children this age is preferable to not going at all.
If you can work out the logistics of schooling, most voyaging parents agree that the ideal ages to take kids cruising are between 6 and 12. The children are old enough to get the most out of the voyage but young enough that they can be back in school ashore in time for university preparatory work and standardized tests. With the increasing popularity of homeschooling, an array of high-quality programs has become available. With only one or two students, teaching can be focused, and kids learn in much less time than in a normal classroom. Homeschooling takes discipline, especially in paradise. On most "kid boats," the first 2 to 4 hours of every day are devoted to school; then kids are free to do whatever they please. Home-schooled children generally score well on standardized tests.
We met only a few boats with teens aboard. Some teens loved it, and some hated it. On boats with unhappy adolescents, no one has a good time. The excellent homeschooling courses now available combined with the resources on the Internet have made university preparatory work possible for disciplined teenagers living aboard a boat. Teenagers need to decide if this type of program will let them fulfill their long-term goals and then need to commit to making their schooling work If your older children don't buy-in, wait until you can go on your own.
After an extended period of voyaging, most children returned to school and did well academically. Some children's social development suffered due to a lack of interaction with peers. While most cruising kids moved effortlessly into new situations and made friends easily even where there was a language barrier, they had less experience v€ith the ins and outs of long-term friendships and the on-again, off-again nature of schoolyard popularity. This made integrating into life ashore at the end of the voyage a challenge for some children. To provide as much socialization with peers as possible, boats with children aboard tended to travel together, even if the parents were not the best of friends.

Teaching Children to Fish 

As I mentioned earlier, fishing is an excellent way for parents and children to spend time together. If more parents took their kids fishing, family bonds would be stronger, and inter-family problems would be fewer. Fishing gives kids something constructive to do, an activity to occupy their time. Fishing provides a common tie between parents and children. It gives them something to plan, look forward to, and enjoy together. 

Parents should be careful how they introduce their children to fishing, however. Those first trips should be short, simple and with a maximum opportunity for catching such "easy" fish as sunfish, perch or bullheads. Don't start out fishing more than an hour or two. Don't get frustrated if your kids lose interest. Don't criticize them if they have trouble with their tackle. Don't nag them if they want to throw rocks in the water instead of sitting quietly and watching a bobber. Remember, fishing should be fun! If you make those first trips enjoyable, your kids will keep coming back. Then, before you know it, they'll get serious and you'll have fishing partners for life.
Fishing provides a common bond between parents and children. It gives them something to plan, look forward to, and enjoy together.