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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My child has been asked to go to Europe with his travel team over spring break to train with teams there. It sounds fun and I'm sure he would have a good time and get something out of it, but is it truly worthwhile? My son goes to a private school and would have to miss a week of school for it, plus its expensive. I also worry about him being considered less committed to the team by not going. I'm not sure one of us parents would be able to go along, maybe one of us but we could not go as a family as we have other kids at home in school that week plus again the expense would be a lot for us. What are others' experience with this? [/quote]

I'm not a big fan of "trips to Europe" which essentially end up being 3 or 4 games and a few training sessions.

In contrast, though, my (12 year old) daughter recently went to Iceland with her club and it was an *incredible* experience because :

1) Upon arrival, the host club evaluated my daughter and her teammates and rather than keep them all together, they parsed them out in accordance with their abilities, so that they would train, and later play in a tournament, with one of the many teams/tiers within the host club. So, one player might end up on the host's tier 1 team, another might end up on the tier 2 team. I think there were 7 or 8 tiers within a 2 year birth span. My daughter had no English speaking teammates, which was a tad stressful for her,

2) Host family, host home, host food, host warmth, host everything. So much more culturally enriching than staying in a hotel or hostel. The host family created  Facebook page for the the stay and every few hours, we'd see photos and videos of my daughter, her teammate, and the kids in the host family being kids, eating, swimming...and most gratifyingly, they even did FB Live videos of my daughter in her games, so I was able to watch her games as they were happening, in real time. She was treated remarkably well and the family was in touch with us on a constant basis thru Messenger . I'm still in awe.

Whether your child's team wins 5-0, loses 5-0, or anything in between, that can be done locally. There's always teams within 30 miles that can beat your team and whom your team can beat. One doesn't have to go to Europe to do that. But if more assimilation can happen, ideally being gently out of one's comfort zone, every so slightly, to play and live with the host culture, I think the value of the experience goes up a great deal.[/quote]

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