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My husband is retired and I have been offered early retirement. I cannot afford retirement & remain in our home. Costa Rica seems like the answer with one glaring exception…we are legal guardians to 2 high school aged boys, who struggle with their grades. Neither know Spanish. For those of you who made the move with teen-agers, what have been the challenges? How did the kids transition as teenagers? I realize that there are private schools but how did your teenagers react to the culture differences? Should we just wait four years until they graduate from U.S.A. high school?
You should probably let them finish their high school in the US. My son, 14 years old, has been living in Costa Rica since January. He has loved the school, private school….but affordable similar to parochial schools here. He has been immersed in the culture as he is living with his grandparents who are Ticos in a remote area of CR. However, the school is very challenging for him because of the language barrier. When he went to CR he did not speak any Spanish. He is able to understand and talk Spanish on a limited basis but not enough for him to do very well in school. The private school was happy to have him until we tried and get him a student visa because he would drag down the grades of the school. Also, since he is in a remote area the pressure from rising gas prices has been a burden. He is returning home in two weeks and is looking forward to his new school in the US. His time in CR has been time well spent and has been a great experience for him. I hope that he learned his lesson and will be a better person with this experience
klyonkers3 – I am not an expert in education but I would have thought that if they are struggling with their grades now it would be foolish to move them into any other school in your own English speaking country, never mind moving them to a school in a country where they do not speak English.
And jamesgoshen4 – please forgive me for asking this but did you not post in January 2008 that your son had just moved to Costa Rica and that he loved it here? What happened in six short months?
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comScott – It was not six short months for my family here in the states. I have visted CR 3 times since I brought my son in January. As I mentioned in my previous message the school that he was attending seemed apprehensive in granting him a student visa as he is not fluent in Spanish. The school that he attends has been all classes in Spanish. He has bonded well with many of the students and he has become friends with them. He has mentioned that he wants to come back next summer and go back to school (for the summer). If he was to stay in CR he probably would have set his education back a couple of years. He probably should have stay back in school several years ago because of his age/maturity level. He will come back to the states and start over from when he left in January. Where he is living it is a 20 – 30 minute drive (over very poor roads….5 mph) to drop him off to get the bus….this is pick-up and drop-off. With the price of gas it has been a burden on his uncle and grandparents…and me. When I visted him a month ago he was digging school and the friends that he has met. He has seemed to gain a confidence in himself and we are very proud of him. As soon as he found out that he was coming home…..he wanted to come home right away. It seems like the closer we get to him coming home the farther it seems to be. We miss him very much. I hope this answered your question. It’s not that any thing happened negatively….it is time for my son to come home and hopefully he willgrow from this experience.
Jamesgoshen4 and Scott: Thanks for your replys. I appreciate the advice. I was less than clear…My boys are not struggling with grades, they are average students, they struggle with all the pressures placed on teenagers in the US. I thought that perhaps in CR, life would be a little less hectic for them and perhaps their world would be a slower-paced, kinder gentler experience. Although Carson City Nevada is the state capital, it is not what I would call a big city experience. Not much crime, but the pressures put on kids to “succeed” is tremendous all over the USA. I am worried that they never have a chance to be kids and this must certainly affect the type of people they will grow up to be.
Moving to CR is not supposed to be a punishment for the boys, but perhaps a chance to experience contentment. I was looking to place them in English-speaking school. Are these schools snobbish? I suppose what I am really asking is will they be accepted both socially and academically?
I was intrigued about the possibility of bringing the schools academic level down. That point seems to speak volumes to me.Some kids adjust more easily and others don’t. One of the things you need to also consider is the cost of private high schools in CR which can be quite expensive (more expensive than going to college in a public university in CR). If you know that your grandchildren are average students, you have to know that although the experience may be positive in many ways, it will be an additional challenge they will face and that I have found CR private & even many public HS taxing on kids that are not used to the educational levels expected of. Not to mention the additional testing they would be required to undergo. In order to pass HS and go the university in CR, they must pass their HS classes and a special exam that is quite nerve racking even for the locals. Some private HS allow for just a HS diploma that would be useful to attend universities abroad, but if the idea is for them to be there, this needs to be considered also.
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