agrams said:
I would also be taking my wife and 2 boys (5/7), so there is that to consider.
I'll start with your sons first. 5 and 7 are the ages my brother and I were when we moved from Alaska to Saudi Arabia.
I'll never forget landing in Dhahran, claiming our luggage and waiting outside for our Korean drivers to collect us in a Chevy Suburban to take us to our new home (Which was a 2 bedroom single-wide. In Alaska, at least we had a 3 bedroom double-wide).
There were all these folks running around in strange looking clothing so I innocently asked my mom, "How come all these people are dressed like they're from The Bible?". My mom told me to not say that.
Going to school overseas (Saudi Arabia in my case), it is most likely that your kids will be in an International School with an American curriculum. These days, there are some "IB" (International Baccalaureate) schools which have a slightly different curriculum (its origins are French). There will be International Schools for folks from other countries too - Indian, British, in some cases French, German or Japanese depending on the country.
The student body will be very diverse. Let me put it this way, since I went to school as a kid in Saudi Arabia, I know the difference between Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai, etc. whereas in the USA, it's all sort of just "Asian".
Your kids will have exposure to, and make friends with, kids from all over Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. To a lesser degree, South America and Africa.
Your kids will have the opportunity to play some American sports like Basketball or Baseball. And they will have an opportunity to learn more international sports like - Cricket, Rugby, Football (Soccer), etc.
In school, they will have the opportunity to learn a foreign language. In my school, we all had to take Arabic from Kindergarten through 5th Grade. From 6th Grade, we had the choice of taking French or Arabic so all the cool kids switched to French.
The teachers your kids have will be top notch but more importantly, the way I describe the overall community is like this.
Imagine growing up in a community where:
- Everybody's dad has a job (otherwise they don't live there)
- Nobody (with rare exceptions) has any extended family living in the same town (no grandparents, aunts/uncles/cousins)
- Everybody has at least one College Educated parent (some of the mom's are trophy wives, some of the dad's married up)
- There is essentially no crime
- World Travel is mandatory
To be fair - Even though it's really happening, it is an artificial existence. Which makes the next part difficult.
I left Saudi when I was 15 because my mom wouldn't let me go to Boarding School. Nowadays, the schools go up through 12th Grade so that wouldn't be a problem.
The adjustment back to the USA was difficult and many of my friends did not handle it well. The ones who managed that transition have done well. The ones who fell through the cracks have struggled. These days with Facebook, Twitter, etc., it's much easier to keep in touch with your old friends.
As a kid though, trying to explain where you're from, what you know, etc. is virtually impossible. Kids are more interested in whether you've been to Disney World than if you've been to The Louvre. Adults are more interested in whether you've been to Paris or Luxor in Las Vegas than if you've been to the real Eiffel Tower in France, or the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.
It's not an impossible adjustment back to the USA but, let's just say that if you stay too long, your sons will have to decide whether they're going to crawl back into themselves and try to fit in, or, if they're going to embrace that lonely existence of knowing more about the world than their peers, their teachers and most of their friends parents.
It's tough and there are risks but, I believe it's worth doing. I think it's a great experience for kids.
EDIT: I just reminded myself of when I was working "On the Lot" at Disney. One of my colleagues went over to Orlando for work and was able to go on the Disney Safari thing they have. He was describing how neat it was to see all the animals from Africa. I asked him - honestly - if he saw any Cheetah kills or anything exciting like that (because that was one of the neatest things I got to see in Kenya). He told me that no, the animals are all contained in cleverly enclosed habitats so that they don't actually interact with each other. I just didn't see the appeal. Conversely, he didn't understand why I thought seeing a Cheetah kill was so awesome.
