
To raise children in Belize was my biggest concern when I was moving here because I didn’t know how they were going to fit into the community. I was pleasantly surprised when they started school that they actually enjoyed the whole experience. They wore uniforms with their skirts down to their knees, which was a completely different kind of scenario for them. My kids enjoy the actual community when they are in school, that the kids are really tight-knit. It is just a whole different kind of way of being.
With that said, my daughter, for her senior year wanted to do homeschooling. So I wondered why. My daughter told me that there is so much of Belize that she wanted to study. She wanted to know more about the culture, plants and the different things that we have here. Her experience was so incredibly enriched because she got to have the opportunity to actually take time. Families sit on their porches, they visit, they gather, they get together. Kids here do not hang out with little machines and play games, or sit on the phone. You don’t sit on the phone and talk in Belize because it costs money per minute.
So when raising children in Belize, I was surprised by how quickly they acclimated. I had made a commitment with my children that if after 18 months they were miserable and wanted to go home, we would go home. I was pleasantly surprised that after ten days of being here, my daughter said, “I don’t even want to go back.” That never changed for her.
If you are considering bringing children to Belize, the most important key factor, unless you are homeschooling, is to figure out the correct area for the right school for your child. The way to find that out is to know what special needs your child has as far as their willingness to immerse into a small school, and if they want to be in a private school level.
Many people prefer to do homeschooling, and then they revert their thought process after being here for a year, and they decide that they want their children immersed in a culture and be part of the school system.