When I was a lad the best you could hope for in the way of a foreign trip from school was an exchange trip with a French student who, it turned out, led a life just as ordinary as you, just they did so speaking a different language. Still, it was fun, testing and taught us a lot. These days it seems that our children regularly come home with details of rugby tours to Australia, skiing in Aspen, white water rafting in Thailand. Perhaps the most tantalising offer of all is the three or four week challenge trip to the third world where not only will your little darling discover themselves but they will also benefit the underprivileged.
These trips have proliferated in the last few years, their organisers having become experts in the soft sell. It all starts with a big meeting in the school hall designed to exert maximum pressure on parents who don’t want to be seen denying their children, especially when everyone else seems to signing up. Now I’m sure there’s good and bad out there but as a parent it takes a strong will to resist being swept up in the tide, so here’s some tests for the big marketing messages you’ll be sold to help you challenge the challenge.
Marketing Message Number 1 – that your child will gain valuable CV or UCAS ‘brownie points’. Notwithstanding the observation that if your child has nothing special to say about themselves by the time they are 16 or 17 it’s a pretty sad state of affairs, the reality is that universities and employers have cottoned on to the organisers’ sales pitch – look for hard evidence that it makes a difference.
Marketing Message Number 2 – that your child will do ‘good works’ on the trip. Get this to be defined up-front, how long it will last and what exactly is involved? Check that it isn’t just window dressing. Do the organisers know from the outset exactly what this will be or is it simply an aspiration?
Marketing Message Number 3 – that your child will earn most of the money for the trip themselves, learning financial skills along the way. Sure there will be race nights, sponsorships, quizzes and discos, but just how much can you wring out of Auntie Hilda? How often is it the parents who really pick up the tab after a token effort? Ask to see a detailed breakdown from the previous year.
Marketing Message Number 4 is more implicit – that the trip represents excellent value for money. Costs can range from £2,000 to £5,000, the latter for four weeks in China: serious money, you could take a whole family there for that! While you’re on the subject of money see if you can view the organisers’ accounts.
Marketing Message Number 5 kind of sums it all up – that your child will gather valuable life skills. Possibly, but no more than attending scouts or guides would have done, and that costs only around £25 a term. Perhaps the hardest and most powerful challenge is to the belief that getting Mum and Dad to get their cheque book out is always the answer to life’s problems. Sometimes having the bravery not to follow the herd is more likely to make your independent and socially resilient.
Now there’s a real challenge.
