Children abroad

Start ' em young

Beyond pure enjoyment, some second-home owners are taking the opportunity to invest in their children' s future by installing them in local schools abroad. Catherine Moye explores the benefits

W

HETHER you head for the

Swiss Alps or the lavender- filled fields of Provence, the majority of people investing

in a second home abroad are also investing in the earliest years and memories of their children. Today, we have the first scientific evidence that a few months living in a foreign country enhances creativityÐ especially in children and young adults. The idea sounds intuitive enough, and

there' s plenty of anecdotal evidence to sup- port it. Painters and composers such as Picasso and Handel created some of their most celebrated works when living abroad. Now, social psychologist Prof William Maddux of the INSEAD Social Science Research Center (ISSRC) in Paris and his colleague Adam Galinsky have used an exhaustive series of studies and experi- ments to show how living abroad is asso- ciated with enhanced creativityÐ and the younger the children the better.

` Recent research revealed that merely travelling abroad had no association with children' s creativityÐ only living abroad did'

` The sooner you go abroad for the first time,

the more it is going to impact on subsequent creativity,' says Prof Maddux. ` It makes sense when you think about it, because the brain is constantly changing until you are eight to 12 years old, giving a window of oppor- tunity, especially with languages.' One of the experimental studies the pair

undertook was to ask 133 students to fix a candle to a wall, given a limited number of objects, without the wax spilling. It was found that those who had spent more time abroad were more likely to succeed in tasks that required a creative solution. Concretely, it was revealed that merely travelling abroad had no association with creativityÐ only living abroad did. ` Some 60% of those who lived abroad solved problems correctly, compared

56 Country Life International, Summer 2010

with only 42% of those who hadn' t,' explains Prof Maddux. He also believes that exposure to foreign languages and cultures, especially when young, can make us more open to experi- ences and more able to think innovatively. ` It may be that those critical months or

years of turning cultural bewilderment into concrete understanding may instil not only the ability to ª think outside the boxº , but also the capacity to realise that the box is more than a simple square or form, it' s a repository of many creative possibilities,' he explains. Addie and Bevil Granville from north

Norfolk rented an apartment in the French Alpine resort of Chamonix last year so that their children, Anna, seven, Ben, five, and Jamie, three, could spend a term in a French school. Mrs Granville reckons that it was more than simply a positive experience at the time, but that it was the making of her children and has changed the family, too. ` It was really just an adventure, an opportunity to show the kids a bigger world, but I can honestly say now that it was a massive turning point in their development,' she says. ` Anna got the most amazing inner confidence by throw- ing herself into a new language and a new school, Ben went back to colouring and jigsaws, which was right for him at that time, and Jamie did brilliantly on skis.' She believes that the experience has left

them allÐ adults includedÐ much more creat- ive and adaptable to change. ` The kids are so much more imaginative in their play now,' says Mrs Granville. ` They' re quick to make decisions, are physically stronger from the skiing and you get the feeling that it would take a lot more to throw them off their stroke.' Above all, Addie believes the whole family returned from Chamonix a stronger unit, partly because they had no television or after-school activities to distract them. Certainly, much of the market in second

homes abroad in the past decade has been driven by parents looking for resorts and set- tings in which their children can flourish in mind as much as in body. It was this demo- graphic that DPS Sporting Club Development Company (DPS) had in mind when it devised its sporting club communities at key loca- tions, including Jackson Hole, Wyoming,

First day at French school: living abroad when young can be hugely beneficial

and Ambergris Cay on the Turks & Caicos Islands. DPS specialises in what chief market- ing officer Robert Rippee terms ` enriching family experiences' . ` Families today are look- ing for much more for their children and themselves,' he says. ` What we do as a com- pany is provide the experts to make that possible.' For example, the programmes run by educationalists and experts at DPS Ambergris Cay, where properties cost from $525,000 to $6 million, include bone-fishing, biking and water sports, such as diving, sea kayaking, sailing and windsurfing. If the DPS Sporting Life philosophy is

about embracing the great outdoors, it also chimes with what many parents fear: that their children spend too much time in front of computers and less playing outdoors. Anxious parents have exacerbated the prob- lem by regarding the bedroom and the SUV as safe places for their offspring compared with the fearful world outside. A second

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