Two-year-old child has never been outside the town we live in.

[Anonymous]

I grew up POOOOOOOR like a PP on this thread. I don’t think my parents could afford to take us anywhere until I was probably 10 years old. There are so, soooo many kids in this country who aren’t jetting off to Europe or Hawaii or even Disney World every year ... or ever. More important that their parents respond to them with love and attention. You can read about different places and eat their foods at home. Traveling with little kids is stressful and some kids just hate the car - I’m dreading a 7 hour car trip with my toddler to see my family for Christmas so I definitely get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think that traveling is important as is exposing your child to as many things as possible at an early age (before five). You still have time, OP.

Which they then forget, because that is how their brains work.

OP, just pretend you took her places. She'll never know.

The brain synapses are there from travel, PP. Has nothing to do with memory. Travel is great for little kids.

+1 as well as emotional pathways. A baby learns he/she is safe in a totally different environment with different sounds, smells, and sights. Promotes self-sufficiency and well-being as well as risk taking.

Like PP wrote, retrievable memory has nothing to do with it. The baby's senses have all been enlivened.

Hehe.

You are making up stuff.

OP, my kids have travelled all over this country (every state but Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, Arkansas, Michigan and South Carolinia.

They have seen national parks, beautiful homes like Hearst castle, the Winchester house, and the Biltmore.

They have tasted the great salt flats, hiked through the giant redwoods in the Avenue of the Giants, climbed Manoa Falls and eaten wild blueberries off the top of Acadia.

They have been to NYC, Disneyland and Disneyworld, the Grand Canyon, the Alamo, Laura Ingalls Wilder's homested and town, the Seattle fish market, the Gateway Arch, and more.

We used strollers through age four and a monkey leash backpack for my one runner.

Many of their travel experiences happened before they were school aged.

They do not remember a dang thing from age two. They have fleeting memories of a few (significant to them) places and events from age 2-4. They loved the travels from age 5 on.

Travel if you can, but do not beat yourself up or listen to people who say you are holding your toddler back if you do not travel with them now. I promise it will be okay, and that your kid might still be adventurous, a lover of jew things and places, and easily adaptable if you wait a little longer to introduce her to travel.

[Anonymous]

^^a lover of New things

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think that traveling is important as is exposing your child to as many things as possible at an early age (before five). You still have time, OP.

Which they then forget, because that is how their brains work.

OP, just pretend you took her places. She'll never know.

The brain synapses are there from travel, PP. Has nothing to do with memory. Travel is great for little kids.

+1 as well as emotional pathways. A baby learns he/she is safe in a totally different environment with different sounds, smells, and sights. Promotes self-sufficiency and well-being as well as risk taking.

Like PP wrote, retrievable memory has nothing to do with it. The baby's senses have all been enlivened.

Oh come off it.

A farmers market sounds different than a grocery store.

You don't need to go to a different continent.

This. Yes, it's good to expose your child to the world outside your doors. There is absolutely nothing magical about travelling to another state or country. If there were, humans would have serious problems, because most people for most of history didn't take their babies all over the world if they could help it. They stayed in the same village or town or city or county. And their brains developed just fine. Travel is nice, if you want to do it and can afford it. So is going to the park, the farmers market, the grocery store, the zoo, and the museum. And taking hikes and nature walks. And listening to music.

The bigger problem, as I see it, is that you feel unable to travel because you can't control your child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think that traveling is important as is exposing your child to as many things as possible at an early age (before five). You still have time, OP.

Which they then forget, because that is how their brains work.

OP, just pretend you took her places. She'll never know.

The brain synapses are there from travel, PP. Has nothing to do with memory. Travel is great for little kids.

+1 as well as emotional pathways. A baby learns he/she is safe in a totally different environment with different sounds, smells, and sights. Promotes self-sufficiency and well-being as well as risk taking.

Like PP wrote, retrievable memory has nothing to do with it. The baby's senses have all been enlivened.

I'm a clinical psychologist and these posts are 100% bullshit.

Take your kid for a hike, to the beach, to a museum, to mommy and me classes, etc. and they will be just fine. They're two years old.
Plenty of people are brilliant without ever having been to Hawaii or Russia or Cuba etc.

You are a clinical psychologists and you have never heard of the benefits of travel and experiential learning? I am very surprised.

Also it is strange that you, as a psychologist, took the unfounded leap to the converse proof - that because there are brilliant people who never traveled that traveling therefore does nothing to further brilliance.

Very strange leaps for a clinical psychologist, of all people.

The posts are not bullshit as they are not exclusive positions. Yes, travel does benefit young children for the reasons provided. No one ever stated that the lack of travel hurts a child.

I'm also a clinical psychologist and I concur the bullshit assessment. This is what happens when parenting magazines water down neuroscience.

OP, play with your kid. Love her. Nurture her and do what you need to do so she feels secure. If your family wants to travel and you can, do it. But pretending that travel somehow gives toddlers a developmental edge is ridiculous.

Of course there are benefits of travel and experiential learning.. but show me a shred of evidence that says that traveling (again, at TWO years old) somehow confers incremental benefit over and above other novel experiences. The likelihood that there are special "travel synapses" or "travel pathways" is far fetched at best. While I doubt that literature exists for this precise topic and age group, I would wager that even statistically significant results would be clinically meaningless.

Oh, and by asking HOW developmentally behind her child was going to be, one could deduce that she was indeed asking if not traveling would hurt her child.

Finally, would I use converse proof in a research paper, grant application, research talk, etc.? No. But it is perfectly appropriate for a stranger on an internet forum who is wondering whether she is hurting her child developmentally because she has not traveled. I'll also refer you to the cognitive therapy technique of cognitive restructuring, which, among other things, asks the participant to challenge irrational thoughts. Thinking to oneself "plenty of people are brilliant despite never having traveled as a child" is an appropriate application of the technique.

[Anonymous]

I am a phd osycbolfist and the benefits of travel for synapses argument is bullshit. for a 2 year old (almost) everything is new. they don't need to travel abroad (my own kids have but they barely remember anything).

[Anonymous]

^^
psychologist

[Anonymous]

The problem is not that your child hasn't travelled, it's that you're too anxious of a parent to do new things with your child. Think about how your anxiety may be limiting your daughter in other realms. The more at ease you are with parenting her, the better her childhood will be. Whether she travels or not.

[Anonymous]

This is a silly question, but I do want to point out that I lived for a time in West Virginia for work. I met a ridiculous number of people there that had never been outside the state and saw no reason why should ever leave the great state of West Virginia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a silly question, but I do want to point out that I lived for a time in West Virginia for work. I met a ridiculous number of people there that had never been outside the state and saw no reason why should ever leave the great state of West Virginia.

Yes, and that has worked out so well for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think that traveling is important as is exposing your child to as many things as possible at an early age (before five). You still have time, OP.

Uh, I'm not concerned about taking my kids places when they're 2. My 5 year old doesn't remember what we took him to last year or the year before.

HAHA! This!

OP, you are a riot. My child is 8, and let me tell you, she doesn't remember a lot of events I dragged her to when she was 4!

[Anonymous]

If your "town" is metro DC I wouldn't worry - but if you are talking about Hillsville - yeah. It is a problem. Your child should be experiencing lots of different locales. You don't have to go abrubut a 25 minute ride to the Zoo or a ball game might be something to consider.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your "town" is metro DC I wouldn't worry - but if you are talking about Hillsville - yeah. It is a problem. Your child should be experiencing lots of different locales. You don't have to go abrubut a 25 minute ride to the Zoo or a ball game might be something to consider.

* abroad. You don't have to go abroad

[Anonymous]

Do all your relatives live in the same town as you, or do they always come to you? Building close relationships with grandparents/aunts/uncles/cousins seems more important to me than travel for travel's sake at this age.

[Anonymous]

I haven't read all the responses, but I think the issue is a mental block more than anything. The more you travel, the less you will dread it. My DS is 18 months and he's been to the west coast twice (third trip next week!), Europe once, a few shorter flights, multiple 4-5 hour train rides, and one road trip to Philly. Several of these trips I made by myself with him, without DH. It isn't fun being in transit with a toddler, but you get through it and it's really not a big deal.