13 Hours Flight Alone. Trust your Children

Rise From Ashes with Carol Gockel

Key Points

• Kids flying on their own for the first time as Unaccompanied minors
• The journey time of 13 hours though long, but not their first time
• The preparation, temperature difference, buy new clothes, kids grow up too fast.
• The worry and assurance before departure
• The hiccup, son vomited
• The result, kids feeling accomplished. Parents need to give kids space to expand to become confident, independent individuals.

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Ep. 4 13 Hours Flight Alone. Trust your Children

Burned, crashed, reduced to dust then rise on the ashes. In this episode, we have a very special guest whose dream is to inspire and empower people around the World.

She is a confidence coach, speaker, author of the book Breakthrough with the legendary Les Brown, I’m a mum of two, a loving daughter and a devoted wife. A model woman can juggle life, work and have it all, you too can have it all.

Building a relationship with grandparents

Establishing a bond with grandparents is great for kids in many ways because grandparents can be positive role models and influences, and they can provide a sense of cultural heritage and family history. They provide their grandkids with love, have their best interests at heart, and can make them feel safe. Carol shared:

(01:43 - 2:39) So for us, my husband and I we decided that if, as long as they want to spend time with they grandparents, they should go and see them as often as possible because my in laws are a little bit high in age, travelling for them can be a bit of a chore, they are already in mid and late 70’s and for them to get from the village to the airport, it takes a few hours drive and then the entire distance of 13 hours flight, it’s a bit a lot to take for them especially for my father in law who has got a heart condition. So and of course, you know because my children are the only grandchildren they have, so we want to make it a point that they have a very good relationship with their grandparents so as long as they are still young and they are still willing to go back to visit their grandparents, we will make it a point to go back.

Productive Parenting

Parents have the best of intentions and really care about their kids and Carol wanted to do everything in her power to encourage and support her children especially during a long school break:

(2:52 - 3:23) In Singapore, the year end school holidays is actually a six week break, it will start from the middle of November all the way to the end of December and then the school term will start usually on the second or the third of January the following year. So it’s a six week break, and you know, for those of you who are parents I’m sure you understand that if you gonna have kids during the holidays, you need to really entertain them and there’s a lot of activities that you need to line up so that they have, they’re entertained and then can spend time with you.

(06:12 - 6:20) So when the kids requested that they wanted to go and travel to Germany on their own, we decided to look at this as an opportunity, as an option.

(6:51 - 7:26) So the entire preparation for us was a lot of paperwork, document, disclaimers, agreements and photo IDs and passport that we have to submit to the airlines, for verification of the identity of the person whose gonna pick them up which is my parents in-law and my in laws, my mother-in-law in particular so we had to get her ID, her passport and we fill out forms that you know, we agreed to allow the airlines to take care of our children and you know, and all this disclaimer about liabilities and so on.

Start of a Journey

Traveling by plane can be a scary experience for people of all ages, especially for kids. Being in a flight can get you feel anxious so here’s what Carol did:
(08:17 - 9:05) They were really, originally, very very excited, they were jumping up and down since morning, “We are flying over the Germany to see our grandparents, yeeeey! I’m so happy!” and then when they were at the airport suddenly, my daughter got a little scared and she said, “Are you sure this is safe for us” and she has always been the bold one, and she was worried and we of course we had to talk to her and say, ‘you know look, you wanted to do this and we know that you’re independent so you can definitely do that and because you’re the older sister, you have to take care of your little brother, you can, you can definitely’. And this is not the first time someone has done it, many many other children have done it before and they’re all safe, they have arrived safely, nothing happened to them, there’s nothing to worry about.

(9:29 - 9:50) So the preparation for me that I did with the kids was a lot of talks in terms of dos and don'ts especially bathroom breaks and also you know, not to fight because my greatest fear was that they will fight, because you know parents, you know kids when they are together, they get upset and then they fight.

Unaccompanied Arrival

Letting our children go to far places on their own is a very brave decision to do. Carol shared:

(9:59 - 10:13) The arrival was smooth, cause my parents, in-laws, they were ready at the airport the night before, they actually stayed at the airport hotel.

(10:21 - 11:08) So they were there waiting and very overjoyed to see the children, but that’s a little bit of a hiccup, from what I know once my mother-in-law picked up the kids she called me and she said, ‘Oh you know the kids are up with me right now and they’re happy, they’re fine and slight little hiccup, so the hiccup is that my son have vomited on the plane, it wasn’t during when he was sitting, it was upon, you know when they were waiting to disembark. So turns out he refused to eat and you know during the flight as you know, there’s a lot of movement so the stomach will produce quite a bit of gastric juice, then he ended up having to let everything out.

Roots And Wings

Before we give our kids every freedom imaginable, we need to think carefully about the limits. It can be scary to watch our children spread their wings to fly, but it will make all the difference in their life. Carol shared her experience:

(14:06 - 14:19) I think back to the experience that I’m putting my kids through on flying on their own. I realized that you know, we don’t give our children enough credit. We don’t give opportunity to spread their wings

(14:20 - 14:44) A lot of people look at me and say, ‘How do you do that, why do you want to put your kids up to this thing, you know flying on their own, that is too much for anyone to bear, but then if you think about it, if this is too much for a kid to bear, why would the airline be offering this kind of unaccompanied minor service for kids as young as six years old?

(15:04 - 15:14) A lot of parents, we tend to be a bit of overprotective and we should, we should protect our children as parents and especially with all these negative things going on.
(15:23 - 15:43) But end of the day, if there’s actually a proper protocol in place, and we should...