Learning another language was definitely challenging and took serious work on everyone's part, but now we can all speak Spanish, which is incredibly rewarding. The kids speak it without an American accent, and when we go back to Mexico, Mexicanos hear our kids speak and wonder why these Mexican kids are hanging around with a couple of gringos like us.

Q: What are some of the challenges you faced in dealing with a different school system?

(courtesy of the Bernick-Roehr family) [enlarge photo] THE FAMILY TRAVEL SABBATICAL HANDBOOK • A Family First-aid Kit Checklist • Are the Kids Old Enough to Live Abroad? • Q&A with author Elisa Bernick

A: We faced a variety of challenges; however, nothing ever felt insurmountable. In fact, both kids had terrific school experiences in San Miguel, and we were surprised at the quality and variety of private preschools and elementary schools that were available. The options diminished in quality during the middle school and high school years, and expat families we know did have to work harder to find schools that were acceptable for their kids at those grade levels.

Originally, we had envisioned sending our kids to Mexican public schools; however the public school system in Mexico is sorely lacking funds and infrastructure, and it just wasn't a learning environment we wanted for our kids. Because we had the luxury of time on our side, our daughter did the last half of second grade in a private bilingual school, and she met with a Spanish tutor twice a week. Once she was fairly fluent, we moved her to a private Mexican school for all of third grade. She was the only gringa in a school of 500 students, and there were 45 students in her classroom. Our daughter was initially quite challenged by the sink-or-swim approach, but after a few hard days of feeling like a duck out of water, she loved it and did well. She made wonderful friends, she liked her teacher very much, and we were impressed with the general quality of the curriculum.

The primary challenges we encountered mostly had to do with different philosophies about parental involvement in school activities (almost none), homework assignments (more than at home and more rote memorization), school uniforms (many different kinds), and the type of teacher-pupil interaction that was acceptable. There was an initial transition period that was frustrating for both the kids and us, and we experienced occasional misunderstandings with school officials that we chalked up to language and cultural differences. Nothing, however, was ever too dire, and eventually everything worked out fine.

The thing to keep in mind when considering schooling abroad is that taking a family sabbatical is an enormous learning experience in itself and the most educational aspect of attending school abroad is simply being in another country. We made it clear to our kids that academics weren't the important thing about going to school in Mexico. The point was to embrace the culture and the language, make friends, and have fun!

Finding the right school for your child depends on your child's learning style, your family's sabbatical goals, and the academic options available in your sabbatical destination. There's necessarily a lot more give-and-take between schools abroad and visiting families. Oftentimes, you'll end up cobbling two or more schooling options together (with a tutor or two thrown in) to come up with something that works. Don't be surprised if you finally hit upon something that works only after trying one or two things that don't.

Q: What was the experience of reentering the U.S. like? And how did it compare to the experience of acclimating to life in Mexico?

A: The reentry experience was both exciting and difficult. We returned home to a long list of chores and concerns that required our immediate attention. We were inundated with invitations from friends and family. Driving a car made us feel strangely cut off from our environment, and the kids experienced an odd sense of foreignness that made them feel different from their friends for awhile.

We experienced a sort of transition shock in reverse, and we found ourselves homesick for the friends and lives we had left behind in San Miguel. In particular, we felt uncomfortable with the pace of life here in the states. American culture is fueled by a pervasive, transparent tension, and while we'd been away it was obvious that we'd been fueled by something altogether different. We loved seeing our close friends again, but they had a wound-up edge to their energies that made us uncomfortable. At times, we felt like astronauts returning from 18 months of weightlessness and having to learn how to negotiate gravity all over again.

As in Mexico, once we took steps to establish a loose structure to our day, we all started to feel more relaxed. And we also began to make conscious decisions about how much American media and culture we would allow back into our lives. We continue to resist the "warp speed" many families fall victim to here in the States and try to pursue a more family-centric lifestyle, but it isn't easy. It means working less, wanting less, and actively resisting the most potent and seductive aspects of American culture. But we try. We limit our activities, we don't use shopping as a form of entertainment, we cook rather than eat out, we try to walk and ride bikes whenever possible, and we make sure to carve out a great deal of family time when we just hang around and play cards, read, speak Spanish (poorly), and pretty much do nothing.

Q: How has your sabbatical experience changed the way you travel now?

A: One thing we do is to try to take longer trips with the kids rather than taking a few short trips during the year. This isn't always feasible, of course, but we have managed over the past few years to organize our lives so that we've taken several family trips that have lasted a month to six weeks.

We also travel differently together as a family. We laugh and enjoy ourselves more because we have a much more realistic view of what it means to travel with kids. We always build swimming into our travels. Always. Whether it's a beach, a hotel pool, or running through a sprinkler, water is the big equalizer. We are also more flexible about changing the rules on the road when necessary. Sometimes an ice cream cone right now instead of after lunch can turn a bummer into a blast. And we plan our schedule with our kids' interests and energy levels in mind. We don't try to do more than one activity per outing, and if we do a museum in the morning, the afternoon is going to be a picnic and a swim or some sort of park adventure. This kind of schedule can be a bit disappointing for us adults at times, but it also makes for a more relaxed and enjoyable trip for everyone. When things do get tense with the kids, we try and remind each other that maintaining a sense of humor can save the day when maintaining a sense of perspective is impossible.

Q: What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you set out for Mexico?

A: Ummmm...not to eat pig eyeball tacos? Michael insists they were actually heart valve tacos, but they tasted like pig eyeballs to me. Sorry, this is a really hard question. I guess I wish we'd known even earlier in our lives how important it is to embark on big adventures such as our sabbatical and to not be daunted by the challenges, internal doubts, or naysayers along the way. We had an inkling of this before we went on our sabbatical, but this adventure has certainly heightened our sense of mortality and made us more concretely aware of the fleeting amount of time we actually have together as a family. It has instilled in us the self-confidence to push ahead with our dreams and to take some significant risks in our lives. We are more interested in making larger gestures in the world similar to the sabbatical itself. Since we've returned, we've designed and built an unusual 1,200 square foot addition onto our tiny house, and we did the majority of the work ourselves. Michael started his own architecture firm this year with a partner, and I wrote this book and pushed hard to get it published. Perhaps we just dream a bit bigger now and believe more fervently in the potential of those dreams.

Q: Have you stayed in touch with any friends you made while in Mexico, and do you think you'll return any time soon?

A: We are still extremely close with many of the friends we met in Mexico. The bonds created by sharing this sort of adventure are really strong, and it's been important to keep those ties alive. We've visited these friends here in the States, and we've been back to Mexico numerous times and stayed with our friends who still call San Miguel home. We are actually planning another visit to San Miguel this winter. These ongoing relationships remain a touchstone in the story of our life as a family and are constant reminders of what our family accomplished in the past, and of the potential adventures that we can look forward to in the future.