5 Reasons Everyone Should be an Expat at Least Once in Their Lives

If you're not an expat, you should be. At least for a while.

When I was a teenager, I planned to be an expat. A translator living in France to be exact. Then my great expat plan took a back seat, maybe even got shelved,  whilst I worked out a career and all that grown up stuff. Then, as is often the case, expat life just kind of happened whilst I was making plans for my non-expat future.

Though it was never part of the original plan to wind up in the Netherlands, that's where the turn in the road led, and I followed it. I'm glad I did. Aside from my beautiful family, I gained a whole new life.

Expat life changes things. It changes you. Whether you plan it or not, whether your stay overseas is a temporary move, or one meant for a lifetime, being an expat is enriching. It's life changing. And that's why I think everyone should do it, at least once in their life.

If you're still not convinced, here are five reasons why.

You Meet Amazing People

When you move to a new country you, by default, meet new people, people different from the ones in your social circle back home. You meet people who speak a different language, who are from a different culture, who have a different background.

Friendships grow with people from all walks of life, people who make your expat life colorful and enriching. Without even trying you learn about other countries, other cultures, other attitudes and traditions.

Of course, let's be real, you'll also meet arseholes; unfortunately they live abroad too - but thankfully they are in the minority. Avoid them and you'll do just fine.

You Immerse Yourself in New Cultures

When you move abroad you try new foods, you take part in new traditions and learn new customs. You are party to new ideas, new ways of doing things. You listen to new music. You see different political and economic systems in practice. You celebrate new holidays. You see the arts and heritage of a country first hand.

If you are lucky you even learn a new language.

You learn about a country's past, and you learn what traits a nation treasures, what ignites a nation's pride. You notice the details, things you don't read about in school books, or learn about in travel books.

If you open your eyes, you'll see a little piece of the world through someone else's eyes.

You Fall in Love with Your Birth Country

When you become an expat,
you see your birth country in a new light

What is that saying? Absence makes the heart grow fonder? Well it's true. Nothing gets you looking at your birth country with rose coloured spectacles quicker than leaving it. I never really understood what it was that made me British until I left Britain, and then it all became incredibly evident. It turns out, you can take a Brit out of Britain but you'll never take the Brit out of the girl.

You start to appreciate all those things that make up your national identity, and realise that your home country culture, customs and traditions really have moulded you.

You notice the things that are dear to you from your own culture (for example, I never realised how attached to Bonfire night celebrations I was until I left England and 5th November just became a regular day) and which customs seem ridiculous and disposable.

When you become an expat, you fall in love with your birth country, including all those funny little quirks and odd habits that you never get a second thought to when you were living there.

You Realise Just How Much it's People, Not Things, That Really Matter

Living overseas, even temporarily, forces you to re-evaluate everything; to look at what you actually need and what you want in life. It's a clean slate, a chance to start anew and dump the baggage you no longer need to carry with you - both physical and mental baggage.

You start assessing what you miss from your 'old' life, what you actually need to move forward and what it is in life that really makes you happy.

You focus a little less on the material and more on the emotional aspect of life. You focus on the truly important things in life. You appreciate the true worth of those friends and family that were on your doorstep before you moved, and you sincerely value the worth of new friendships.

Relationships matter more than material goods when you have to start over. You realise it's people, not things, that really make the difference in life.

You Meet the Better Part of Yourself

When you leave everything familiar behind and set your feet down on new territory, you soon learn what you are capable of.

You uproot your life and replant it in, what seems at first, a hostile environment. You do everything to make sure it thrives. Because you must.

You learn to think differently, to think outside the box. The rules you once knew have been discarded and it takes time to learn the new rules - so you'll improvise. Maybe you'll get creative with your career, or amaze yourself with how determined you can be, or how passionate you feel about realising a goal.

You notice both huge and subtle differences and learn to be more open and flexible, because you have little choice. You become more accepting of change, because you have to be. You go through an unconscious self-improvement course and come out the other side stronger, more aware of yourself and your capabilities.

As an expat, you'll get to know yourself a little better, and you'll meet the better, more courageous part of yourself.

Over to you:Why else should you become an expat? What has been the biggest advantage of your expat life? Do you think everyone is cut out for expat life?

Straying From The Path to Now

Unknown to my younger self, I am sure that the path I have been on since I was a teenager was one leading me to a life abroad. It just wasn't a direct path. Sure, there were signs, hints and indications in my youth that a life beyond the borders of my birth country was something I should prepare for. That my later life would involve speaking a second language should have been clear to me at an early age.

My first trip abroad was a family holiday to Tangiers in Morocco. The unfamiliar sounds of an unknown language spoken all around me, the rich vivid colours of North African wedding attire sparkling in the glaring evening sun, the enchantment of a music so different to Western pop, the smells of exotic food cooking in the streets all served to pique my curiosity about life beyond the borders of my home land.

A school trip abroad to La Rochelle started my long lasting love affair with France. I homed in on modern languages, namely French and German for my GCSEs and continued my French to A-Level. My love of the French language went beyond the allure of my Liverpudlian French teacher. A school trip to Berlin a year after the wall fell enticed me to be a part of something bigger, it lured me to take a closer look at the world away from my own doorstep. Foreign languages became an integral part of who I was, who I was to be.

I centred my university degree search around being able to use my French. I eventually picked a European Studies course in Bradford, which included a study year in Toulouse. I use the word study lightly. It was less of an academic study year, more of a cultural immersion. I loved the smell and bustling of the local bakery every morning, I loved watching the old man in a beret that shuffled to the local supermarket in his well worn but clearly loved checked slippers, I loved browsing at the snails in the freezer compartment as I did my grocery shop - week after week failing miserably to pluck up the courage to actually give them a try.

After graduation jobs with companies like Michelin kept my French alive but when I later chose a career in Human Resources the need to speak a second language soon dissipated. My path seemed to change, leading away from where I had been sure I would go.

As a teenager I’d envisioned a life for myself abroad, in France, where I spoke the language and loved the culture. Somewhere along the way I got distracted and forgot where I was headed. My linguistic mind stayed with me, laying dormant but patiently waiting whilst I strayed from the path I should have been on.

And then one day my little brother met an American girl, online in a chat room. I was clueless. I had no computer of my own and had no idea how you could ‘meet’ someone in a chat room. After what seemed like no time at all he announced he was moving to Long Island, NY to get married. One family globetrotter fled the nest. But my own path kept me firmly rooted in England.

I needed to write a dissertation to finish my Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resources but the absence of a computer at home made progress slow but Father Christmas (disguised as my father) saved the day and I became the proud owner of a personal computer. It became my indispensable companion. It was to put me back on the right path.

For a reason I no longer remember nor can imagine looking back, my brother’s once uttered words, “go try a chat room. It’s fun” popped into my head one evening. I did a search and ended in a chat room talking to a Mexican. Just as I was getting bored with the whole 'chat room' experience a pop up appeared from another chatter. This time it was a Dutchman. My boredom vanished.

Christmas and the millennium were closing in and my days were filled with MSN Messenger and an endless string of emails. After that fateful evening I never entered a chat room again. Online chatting turned into a phone call on New Year’s Eve. Talking on the telephone turned in to visits to each other’s homes in foreign lands.

Seven months later my wonderful boss moved on and in his place came a woman who had a reputation for clearing the decks and bringing in her own people wherever she went. Business trips that were planned months ahead were suddenly superfluous and I whispered to my dad that something was afoot. I knew something bad was looming. He told me I was being paranoid.

Then one evening, sure enough, I was summoned to the dragon’s den. She informed me that my position would end in two months. Walking home with tears streaming down my face I made a call to the Netherlands with my mobile phone. I shared the lowlights of my evening and told my Dutch partner that I needed to find a job fast so that my mortgage didn’t become a problem.

“Or instead of finding a new job there, you could move to the Netherlands…” he said and I could hear the smile on his face.

And suddenly I was back on the path I was destined to walk on.

5 Reasons I'm Glad my Children (Already) Speak Dutch & English

This is the third post in this month's expat blog link up about Celebrating Expat Life. You can link up your post on any of the titles so far this month at the bottom of this post - and read posts from fabulous expat bloggers across the globe.

You can read my 5 things I love about my expat life or the 5 reasons I'm glad my children are both Dutch and British in earlier posts.

This week here are my 5 reasons I'm glad that my young children are bilingual and can speak both English and Dutch, albeit the latter better than the former.

1. Aside from all the Benefits of Being Bilingual?: The positive elements of being raised bilingually are widely documented and study after study shows that the benefits are multiple. Speaking more than one language means more brain connections are made and in short bilingual speakers are a little smarter than mono linguists. Speaking multiple languages improves the ability to multitask, as the brain is switching between at least two different language structures. Memory improves. It has also been shown that being bilingual keeps dementia and Alzheimers longer at bay (that's what I told myself when I kept calling a banana an umbrella last week). I think those in themselves are pretty convincing reasons to be glad my sons are bilingual but if you don't believe me, how about from the mouth of a multilingual child, courtesy of Rita Rosenback?

Photo Credit: Valeer Vandenbosch

2. Making Language Learning Easier for Them: By learning two languages from birth I believe that they won't have to work as hard as I did to be able to speak different languages. I learnt French and German in school, and a minuscule amount of Italian and I had to work hard to do so. For my three sons English will be one less subject to worry about in school by the time they start formally learning English. It will be second nature to them and I hope they will find English lessons easy. I also believe it will pave the way should they wish to learn other languages.

3. Native Speakers: My three sons are learning a second language without having to do it formally in school - they start earlier than their classmates and have a native speaker at home to talk to, as well as other family members in England. They will continue to learn English in a natural setting, instead of only in the formal setting of a classroom. It can only help them when I think in terms of accent, pronunciation and the amount of practice they get.

4. Communication: Seeing that my husband is Dutch and I am British it was always an important point for us that our children should be able to communicate effectively with both sides of the family. That meant that learning English was a must if they wanted to be able to talk to my family, who are absolutely not linguists, and certainly no Dutch speakers. Watching their English develop, and hence their ability to talk to my family in England, is priceless, considering most of their peers would, as yet, be unable to carry out a conversation in English. It certainly helps them build a relationship with my British relatives and friends.

Photo Credit: http://grafdiss.blogspot.com/

5. It's a Small World: I love that they know from an early age that the world extends beyond the borders of the country they live in. They are familiar with many British things because they speak English. Language and culture is a package and they are well aware of a world outside of the Netherlands from a very early age.

On a final note: I am also hoping that my three sons will play an important part in the education of the next generation of English speaking Dutch people. They'll be able to correct those typical Dutch mistakes that all children seem to be taught in school, and maybe, just maybe, there will be around 90 other children making their way in the world with the correct pronunciation of iron, a better understanding of the difference between England and Great Britain and knowing that the words teach and learn are not interchangeable.

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<a href="http://lifewithadoublebuggy.blogspot.nl" title="Expat Life with a Double Buggy"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ0N6ik1LnF-b7CpjdqQ8Yn8g85ywT1Czd8tSzxer-Z80tW2UfPEFjOZhEVBWNMxbLsD2eOvaG8y9WqvG_ddeeXi6YSRDvtv1yvFJ1C3LHosBfoOfQk2OQiP6fMGDX_pBAKihGZfcLM3Y/s1600/ELWADB+LinkUp.JPG" alt="Expat Life with a Double Buggy" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

An InLinkz Link-up

Old McDonald Had a Dutch Farm

'Knor' or 'oink'?

And on that farm he had a pig. Depending on whether that farm is nestling in the Netherlands or in England the pig says knor or oink.

A Dutch cow, standing in a lush green field in the Netherlands does not moo; it goes boe, (pronounced boo). An English sheep would have little problem understanding a Dutch tourist sheep, they seem to speak the same language and will happily baa together.

The same cannot be said of chickens. Tok says the Dutch chicken, which I think may draw a blank look from her English counterpart. Cats and dogs seem to transcend the language barrier but whilst a neighing English horse may seem more than a little negative to a Dutch horse, he may in turn believe he is the butt of a joke as the Dutch horse retorts with hihi.

'Waaaaa' is as scary as a Dutch lion gets

A Dutch speaking mouse pieps (pronounce as peep) and an English mouse squeaks. A mighty lion roars in English, and says waa in Dutch. Yes, it is difficult to imagine a scary Dutch lion.

If you are rudely awoken by a kukelekuu then your sleep has been interuppted by a Dutch cockerel. An English one will announce it is time to wake up with a cockle doodle doo.

The busy bee on the lavender in your Dutch garden will zoem, but will happily buzz his way around an English garden.

Language is certainly a funny thing and I for one am not certain how to explain to my sons why an animal living in the Netherlands makes a different noise to one he would meet in England. So far, they have not asked, accepting it is what it is. But if they do I will be directing them to their father who can explain why the Dutch animals make such strange noises..... after all a pig clearly does not knor. A pig quite obviously oinks....... even a Dutch one. Right?

What noises do animals make in your second language? Are the sounds wildly different than in your mother tongue?

This post has been adapted from a post originally published on A Letter from the Netherlands.

Multicultural Kid Blogs Scavenger Hunt

Are you a multicultural adventurer? Do you look back to a childhood filled with exploration and treasure seeking? Are you raising a little world citizen? Well, from the comfort of your tablet or computer you can relive those childhood adventures with a virtual scavenger hunt to win great prizes whilst discovering amazing blogs from around the world  on the topic of raising multicultural children. For more information visit the Multicultural Kid Blogs webpage.

It all starts next Monday.... are you ready?

How To Get Your Children to Fall in Love with Reading

I read an article last week about boys falling behind girls in school and particularly when it comes to reading. I am a writer, therefore I read. I read a lot. Whilst I don't quite have the time to read like I used to pre-motherhood I still try and get through as many books as I can. If you want your kids to read, then be a role model for them, let them see you reading for pleasure. I encourage my three sons to look at books as much as possible and so far it has paid off - my sons love looking at books and it is fun to watch my eldest enthusiastically start his reading journey.

"Kids with parents who read for pleasure are six times more likely to do so themselves -- and their grades shoot up. Which is why I talk about the books I love, and ask kids about their favorites, every chance I get." Lisa Bloom (Author, 'Swagger: 10 Urgent Rules for Raising Boys in an Era of Failing Schools, Mass Joblessness and Thug Culture')

I was quite shocked to read that boys have a tendency to think that reading is a girl's thing and I intend to do everything in my power to make sure my three sons continue to think that reading is the most natural thing in the world and I want to keep them interested in it as a foundation for later years. Not only are their language skills enhanced, reading also provides fun moments and important relaxation for children who tend to be hopping from one extra-curriculum activity to another.

Story Time
(c) Amanda van Mulligen

Books are an important part of our home. To get children looking at books the most important thing is make them accessible. We have a bookcase in our front room and the bottom two shelves are filled with books for the children. Even our 19 month old shuffles over to the bookcase, grabs himself a book, toddles over to the sofa and inelegantly hoists himself up to sit so he can thumb through his book. When he's finished he throws the book on the floor or table and returns to the bookcase for another book. (We're working on the last stage of this with him......)

My eldest two often sit with a book for a few minutes before we leave for school in the mornings and discuss the size of dinosaurs, the meaness of the look on a T-Rex's face or how fast Thomas the Tank Engine can go around Sodor.

They also each have a bookshelf in their room with English and Dutch language books, and we keep books on hand in the car to entertain them on longer journeys. They never have the excuse that they can't get to a book!

To keep children interested, you can put a basket of books under the coffee table filled with topically themed book. Gather books about summer as warmer days come to greet us, or about autumn as the leaves turn to beautiful shades of red and start tumbling to the ground, or put a basket of Christmas related books under the Christmas tree - keeping a theme going makes reading particularly relevant to the children. You can also match the book theme to projects the children are working on in school, or for pre-schoolers events or celebrations that effect them such as potty training, birthdays or an impending house or country move.

Story time also gets children buzzing about books in our house. If you make story time an event it not only provides cosy family moments to cherish, but also shows children how fun and uniting books can be. In the summertime grab a blanket and an ice cream and sit under the shade of a tree with a book and read to your kids. Last Christmastime the five of us gathered around the dining table, illuminated only by candlelight, holding our mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows and listened to papa reading "De Kleine Kerstman" (Santa's Littlest Helper). The kids loved it and were a captive audience. And we did too. And as a bonus, you show your sons that reading is not a girly activity if dad is the one doing the reading.

Use books as the basis for other activities
(c) Amanda van Mulligen

Using books as the foundation for other activities is also popular in our house. My three year old and I recently sat and read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle together. Then we grabbed play dough and made the caterpillar and the food he ate through. My pre-schooler loved it. There are so many wonderful, creative websites out there that can give you ideas - one of my favourites is The Imagination Tree.

I also recently had the pleasure of reviewing Giselle Shardlow's kid's yoga book Luke's Beach Day: A Fun and Educational Kids Yoga Story and we had a lot of fun going through this book together - reading and then trying out the yoga positions. Such activity books are a great way to get kids falling in love with books.

If you are lucky enough to still have a local library then make use of it. It has a real sense of an outing for my children when we say we're going to the library to choose some books. It's a great way to build on the fleeting interests that children suddenly have. My six year old has become fascinated with dinosaurs so we took him to the library to check some books out. He loved choosing them and his library membership is free. Many libraries also have a regular story time for toddlers which is great fun for them, and makes the idea of books and reading natural from the start.

Some of our family favourites:

Raising Bilingual Kids in the Netherlands

Yesterday my son came home from school pulling a red suitcase on wheels behind him. The "logeerkoffer" as it's called in school. The lucky recipient of the case gets to choose a favourite book and any objects or toys related to the book and put them in the case to take back to school the next day. Then the child talks about the book, and the teacher reads a paragraph or two to the whole class.

Last time my son brought the case home he chose the Dutch version of The Gruffalo and took cuddly toys of the Gruffalo, the mouse and a snake to accompany the book.

This time he chose a book that he is constantly dipping in to and although not really a bedtime story book, asks me regularly to read it at night as he's tucked up in bed in his pyjamas. The book "My Day at the Zoo" by Terry Jennings was accompanied by a very wide assortment of stuffed toys representing animals that could perceivably be found in a zoo. His first statement whilst he filled up the case was,

"I know what "My Day at the Zoo" is in Dutch!" and when the deputy head, chatting to him in the corridor in school, asked him this morning which book he had tucked away in the case he effortlessly replied,

"Mijn Dag in de Dierentuin"

Of course, the most interesting point is that my son took an English book to his Dutch school and I was curious what the teacher would do.  When my son came home at lunchtime he said he told the class about the book and the juf had read from the page about dolphins out to the class. In English. Trying to get any further information from him has proved fruitless but he did say she didn't translate the bit she read, and some of the children in his class (group 2) can count in English. 

I realised today that raising my children to be bilingual in the Netherlands (at least with English & Dutch in any case) is a far easier job than it would be if we lived in Britain. English as a second language is very normal here - it's just that my children have a head start. 

Bilingualism: Keep the Brain Trained for Old Age

As we age wouldn't it be great to stay mentally
active as well as physically? Bilingualism may well be
the answer
Photo Credit:John Boyer

When we bring up bilingual children, we are not just giving them the gift of communication in more than one language, we are giving them the gift of efficient, quick working brains.

No really. I kid you not. Recent research showed that those in their 60s who had been raised speaking two languages could quickly move from one task to the other with almost an automatic action. People from the same age group who are monolingual reacted much slower to a change of task and had to use much more of their brain and effort to carry out the switch from one task to another.

It has been thought for some time that bilingualism slows down some ageing processes and helps slow down the onset of dementia in an ageing brain. This latest research may explain why. In essence being bilingual means that your brain is trained from an early age to switch from one task to another i.e. it switches from one language to another automatically. Two languages are always active in a bilingual person's brain. This early and constant training seems to make the brain work more efficiently when it comes to task changing. Bilingualism is brain training from an early age!

Yet one more reason to bring up bilingual children......

Brainy Bilinguals

Are you making sure your children
learn at least two languages?
Photo: Mokra

According to a recent headline on NU.nl, bilingualism is the new crossword puzzle. In short, bilingualism promotes a higher level of concentration and aids memory function. This is the conclusion from research done with groups of teenagers in the United States.

Knowing and using two languages keeps your brain sharp - in the same way that doing crossword puzzles does.

This latest research adds to the already substantial confirmation that bilingualism is good for the brains!! Another reason to make sure your children grow up maintaining your home country language, whilst learning and using the local language too!

Bilingualism in Kids, Government Clinics and Codswallop

Bilingualism in the Netherlands: A good or bad thing?

A recent article about bringing bilingual children up on Radio Netherlands Worldwide intrigued me. well actually, it maddened me a little. It reported something, in my eyes at least, that seems like nonsense - that a child should be brought up with only one language. This is according to 'scientists' and relayed through 'government clinics'.

First of all, the concept of government clinics baffled me. What the hell is a Dutch government clinic? This turned out to be the consultatiebureau, which sounds a lot less sinister than government clinic.

For parents out there living in the Netherlands, you will already be familiar with the consultatiebureau. It's a kind of local health centre for children aged 0 to 4. The nurses and doctors there check a child's development, administer vaccinations and refer children to specialists when necessary. It's funded by the government, hence the title of government clinic in this article I assume.

Secondly, and more importantly, the idea that it is better to bring your child up speaking and learning one language and not more is rubbish. In my humble opinion that is. My eldest son speaks Dutch as his mother tongue but speaks English too. It has gone through waves over the year which language he prefers to talk in and which excels. Since he started school his Dutch is stronger and his preferred language and we work at English together. My 21 month old understands instructions in both English and Dutch.

The article states that linguists also disagree that children should focus on one language only. Research has proven bilingualism is good for the brain!

The thing that I really don't understand from this article is that the staff at the consultatiebureau I visit here in Zoetermeer has done nothing but encourage, give advice and praise bringing up my children so they can speak both Dutch and English. It gives them an advantage, so they have said. And I agree. In fact, to go a step further, the advice is for me to speak English (and therefore not pass on my mistakes in Dutch to my children) and my husband to speak Dutch to them (and hence not pass on the notorious mistakes the Dutch make with English such as "A teacher learns you things.")

So, is it just certain areas where a second or third language is discouraged? Or are there particular languages which the consulatiebureaus would rather parents didn't pass on to their children? Is the standard of Dutch spoken by bilingual children here in the Netherlands low?

I found some information on KiesBeter.nl which outlines what a consultatiebureau is and does - and one of the tasks is to ensure that children can speak Dutch. If your child is being raised here and living here for the long haul, will go to school here, then of course a child should be able to communicate in the native language. But the idea that the consultatiebureau insists that its better to bring up with just one language (and presumably then just Dutch) seems not to tally with my personal experience.

What is your experience? Have you been encouraged to speak your mother tongue with your children by the consultatiebureau? What do you think about bilingualism: good for children or not?

Incidentally, if you are thinking about raising your children to be bilingual check out tips here.