Keeping in touch with young children while in Europe
 

Hello. I'm going on a 10 day trip to Spain with my mother. My son will still be in school (and wasn't invited, anyway!), so I'm wondering how best to keep in touch with a 7 hour time difference. I've not left him for more than 3 days before, and that was a domestic trip, so we always Skyped/telephoned.

I have an Android phone and a Google Nexus 7 tablet. I would like to try to shoot some video blogs to upload to Facebook or YouTube, but will likely not have any better Internet connection than a portable hotspot.

Any and all suggestions appreciated, especially if you have direct experience.

Thanks in advance for any help!

How old is your son? You can still Skype. My friends do that all the time even with time difference. However, kids are usually fine until the missing parents calls them. Then they get upset.

I agree with HappyT about about making contact in case your son gets upset. Well, maybe a short phone call would be okay but is Dad going to be home? The son will do fine! Not Skype or chatting but how about some fun postcards for him to look forward to instead of a phone call? Send a card before you leave so he receives it after you are away. Send another from the airport. Then send one when you land. Or leave your itinerary and he can put a pin on the map of where Mom is today. It sounds like you will both be busy. You will probably miss him more. :)

Love the idea of having your son pin your itinerary on a map (from a former third grade teacher! :-)

Does your son have access to an email account? I have sent little messages home to my boys that way (actually, also by fax, back in the Dark Ages!). They looked forward to hearing from me daily, and we could communicate at times that were convenient.

Otherwise, if you can get a good internet connection, Skype is a great option. If you are Apple users, FaceTime also works over WiFi.

When I travel, I use my Android phone as a portable hotspot. However, I used to have a Nexus 7, and it was just too underpowered to work well with Skype. I recently got a new Xperia Z3 Compact to replace it.

Won't you have wifi in your hotel? That works better than a data connection, unless you have 4G. If your son gets out of school at around 3 PM, you should be able to call him from your hotel room in the evening.

Fine----Your post is full of memories as it seems I wrote the entire thing.

Many, many years ago, I left my two school age kids with their dad while I traveled to Asia. This was the time before the computers and cell phones became popular.

I wrote a postcard at every occasion, and daily. The first one was from my local airport, next one from N.Y. Those days planes stopped for refueling at various points, so I wrote 3-4 postcards even before reaching my destination.

I would rush to the book store, write a postcard and mail it right away. Although in London, I got teary eyed when I found that there were no mail boxes because of some security measure.

So, anyway, at my destination, I wrote daily too and the kids had mail coming often and they remained happy. Those postcards are now precious souvenirs.

Now a days we try to use Google Hang Out and most often it works well.

OP--enjoy your trip.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I think you're right,

HappyTrvlr and Finecheapboxofwine, my son, (who will be six in May) will probably not miss me too much. I know I will miss him more! I LOVE the idea of postcards and the map/itinerary! He's got a map pinned to a wall in his playroom.

So, I may just skip the Skype since our boy doesn't do well unless he maintains his regular sleep schedule. I don't want to make it TOO hard for Dad!

Thanks again, and cheers everyone.

You can email him or text him or IM him or Skype him at noon before your lunch (1 PM-in Spain, 8 PM at home. You can do it at midnight Spanish time when you get in after dinner and catch him before he goes to school.

"my son, (who will be six in May) will probably not miss me too much." Five years old? Depends on the family dynamics, the child, and how much Dad will be around.

Try it a couple of times, skip a day, and check his reaction. Then you will know how much trouble you need to go to for the rest of the trip.

Akis, you've got your time zones backwards! It looks as though Hollywoodhtx is in Houston. which is 7 hours earlier than Spain. At 1 PM in Spain, it will be 6 AM in Houston.

Calling him in the evening while you're in Spain, whenever he gets home from school, shouldn't interrupt his sleep.

Duh! My goof!

Have you though about sending them a post card and then talking to them when you get home, explaining that post cards are nostalgic? You would be retuning home about the same time as the first card arrived.

Remember, it's what we used to do before the advent of the internet and smartphones and didn't need immediate contact, or satisfaction.

As much as I like the postcard idea, international mail unfortunately takes quite long.

Electronic media enable you to take him with you "virtually".
Take a photo of him, have it printed and laminated so it is waterproof and does not bend. Carry it and take photos with his "flat" self in the locations you visit, and e-mail the photos home daily, together with little reports what "flat xxx" did and saw. That way he is somehow with you and can follow your trip, pin the locations on a map and so on.

(Inspired by "Flat Najim", a 7 year old boy in Canada whose photo currently travels the world: https://www.facebook.com/FlatNajim/p...=page_internal )

Or take a "foreign correspondent", for example a small plush animal.

If I were a kid, and my Mom took my teddy bear to Europe and left me at home, I'd be doubly angry.