We left suburban America many years ago to explore a road less traveled and it has made all the difference. Here are a few of our most memorable stories.
Hi, I’m Meghan. Your resident tell-all Expat.
As our third year in Seoul is in full swing, I wanted to take the time to talk about raising teens in Seoul. Right now our kids are 11 and 15, so we are both on the cusp and in the full swing of teen years. I am so grateful that my t(w)eens get to experience a big city and a foreign country in a safe way; it’s the single most important factor for me. Seoul is one of the largest cities in the world and amazingly enough, I feel safe giving both my kids plenty of independence.
After transitioning abroad with older children, I knew the teenage years were fast approaching. I didn’t really know what to expect of our time here in Seoul, but it has exceeded my expectations and been such a positive experience. That is not to say that living abroad during teenage years doesn’t come with its own set of challenges, and I will be honest about those as well.
Then there is the uniqueness of Seoul and what makes it so ideal for this age group. From its ultra-modern entertainment districts to its deep cultural roots, the city offers countless safe, exciting, and teen-friendly experiences as well as the cultural respect and collective wellbeing that make it an ideal place to come of age.
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Table of Contents
Fostering Independence and Respect
I knew it from the moment we arrived, our time here would dramatically shape our kids in ways I wouldn’t ever be able to truly understand. I was never a foreign kid, I was never thrown into something so totally unknown at that critical age. They would have a very different teenage experience than either of us had, and while I didn’t know exactly how that would look, I was excited for them to explore thier world through this lens.
Our school is about a 30-45 minute drive from our apartment, so we started out dropping off and picking up for every after school practice, meeting and performance. It was time consuming, out of the way and limiting in our ability to always be available for every activity. We needed to adapt.
It wasn’t our kids who needed the push to become independent, it was our world view as American parents.
I saw middle schoolers all climbing into shared cabs to get home one day after tryouts and I couldn’t believe it. I saw elementary kids hopping off city buses later into the evening, coming home from swim lessons or tutoring sessions. I needed to trust that Seoul was going to take care of my kids and once we secured our son a Korean phone, we began giving him more and more opportunities for freedom.
2 years later and he rolls around all parts of Seoul with groups of friends, to gaming cafes, the movies, down to the basketball courts by the river where he plays pick up ball with just about every age group imaginable. He has plenty of Korean friends that help him communicate if he needs it, but his ability to exist in a community where he doesn’t speak the language has grown immensely.
What Makes Seoul Teen-Friendly
Seoul is a teen paradise in many ways. From its ease of getting around to endless recreational activities, entertainment is easy to come by. Korean Cinema’s, karaoke, gaming cafes, sporting events, food on every corner – there is no shortage of activities for teens in Seoul. What makes it wonderful for parents is that you can let them explore with ease, knowing they can easily get around and navigate a large city. Seoul has incredibly efficient and safe public transportation system:
Subways, Buses and Taxis: Clean, affordable, and easy to use — with English signage and app options for easy use. Teen travelers can easily use a T-money (transportation) cards to hop between neighborhoods like Hongdae, Gangnam, and Myeongdong.
Because Seoul’s infrastructure is designed for convenience and safety, teens can travel independently. Local culture places a high value on respect, order, and community, making Seoul one of the safest major cities in the world — even after dark.
Acquiring Unique Skills
I’m not sure our kids fully grasp the skills that they have acquired as expat kids, because to them it feels like normal life. Outside of navigating a city of 9.6 million people, we know they have built resilience, character and respect for a culture that isn’t their own. I read a parenting book recently that discusses the real life skills and traits of growing up overseas.
Complicated is an understatement. They face more integration than most of the adult expats I know.
“Because of all these wonderful qualities that include things like adaptability, a world view, tolerance, and having more than one language, I truly believe that these kids are the future of our world.”
Dr. Abraham is discussing how globally based teens carry with them a natural ability to connect with others, appreciate diversity, and communicate across cultural gaps—skills that make them incredibly well-equipped for a future where cross cultural collaboration is the norm.
There is no doubt that our children will have inherent and unique skillsets that stay with them throughout their lives – a deeper empathy and understanding for people (racially, culturally, etc..), a larger perspective of worldview, an appreciation of food, flavors and unique traditions. My hope is they can find beauty in all parts of the world, especially the places they never thought they would find themselves in.
While my son still doesn’t love Kimchi, he eats Ramen (Ramyeon) on the daily and knows how to bow to elders when it’s appropriate. I hope he takes many parts of Korean culture with him after we go.
Respect at the Center of Culture
There are many obvious cultural differences here, but many of them start and end with the basic showing of respect. Teens in America can get a bad rap for rebelling and resisting the advice of older generations. However, it is not that way in Korea. There is very little disrespect displayed among teens, at least not in the ways we are used to seeing it in American culture.
While teens in Seoul go through all the typical growing pains—wanting more independence, figuring out who they are, and navigating friendships—they tend to do it with this built-in sense of harmony and awareness of the people around them. They’re generally polite, considerate, and genuinely helpful, and we’ve had such positive experiences with our kids’ friends. What’s even nicer is how easily foreign kids seem to settle into this rhythm of peaceful, respectful living across generations.
The Travel Opportunities
Seoul really is a traveler’s hub—a major jumping-off point for so many destinations across Asia. One of the main reasons we decided to raise our children abroad was to show them as much of the world as we possibly could and this location gives us a great opportunity to do so. There is a multitude of different countries and cultures you can reach in under a six-hour flight from Korea. The international schools take advantage of the proximity as well, organizing trips throughout the year so students can compete abroad and experience life outside the classroom.
It’s one of the things we’ve come to appreciate most about living here, many kids will forget the daily classroom lessons but will hold on to trip memories for life. Our son has participated in trips to Japan, Bangkok and Jeju Island through school, outside of the time given for families to travel. The ability to easily visit a multitude of other countries easily is a major perk of this location. Teens in Seoul are generally well traveled, which leads to them being cross culturally experienced.
The Challenges
There is a cost to every decision, and I knew some of ours right away. We so often say we pulled our kids from American experiences to give them something much more diverse and frankly, safe. While I am eternally grateful for the experiences my children are having, and I know they will form amazing perspectives about the world from their time abroad, it hasn’t been without thoughtful consideration for what we left behind.
The Loss of the American Experience
I’m not sure the “American experience” exists anymore in the way I remember it. I’m mostly referring to quintessential American teenage experiences: Friday night football games, Prom, getting your drivers license at 16, etc. They are the images you have of your children enjoying the same rites of passage that you had. That looks very different for our family than I thought it would. I always assumed we would be “home” for the high school years and when that all changed, I had to deal with my own lost parenting moments.
The fact that my children will have had the majority of their childhood and school life in multiple different countries around the world is something that feels difficult for me. It feels a bit rootless, like I can’t predict where this ship is heading. They won’t experience the same rights of passage that we did, their cultural references will come from very different places and they won’t be able to return “home” with the same feelings that I once did. While I don’t think they even know to mourn this, as their mother, I do.
Our next assignment will be to Australia come next year, and while I have spent time understanding the Korean teenage experience, I will soon have to start fresh helping them to navigate a whole new culture.
The Competitive Edge
We were warned. The competitiveness, the academic rigor, the fierceness with which our kids would compete with their peers would be ever present in their daily life. While I don’t necessarily believe our kids feel this cultural aspect the same as native Korean kids do, the pressure to excel is alive and well. Kids are competitive with grades, pushed to excel and achieve at the cost of their own well being. We hear stories of kids who barely sleep, push themselves into mental health issues and struggle with life balance.
It can feel like teens in Seoul are super human, as if they are excelling at everything. They don’t have a golden ticket, they simple never stop working towards that level of excellence. Many of the teachers at our international school understand this particular cultural pressure and work hard to create balance in our kids academic lives. I feel like many of the study habits and academic preparedness skills will stay with our children beyond our time in Korea. I don’t see us ever being in a more academically challenging environment than this one.
Language Barriers
It’s the obvious one, a challenge that isn’t really an issue until you want to communicate or participate on a deeper level. Most of our kids peers are either native English speakers or speak English at a very fluent level. It only becomes an issue when you want to participate outside the school environment with local organizations. For example, many athletic club teams don’t allow foreigners (who can’t speak Korean) simply because of the language barrier. So by the nature of not being bilingual in the host language, you can be excluded from many of the “normal” experiences. While it can be frustrating, I feel like most foreigners understand and accept it.
Final Thoughts: Teens in Seoul — The Perfect Playground
With its mix of culture, tech, and overall safety, Seoul really is a perfect playground for the teenage years. They can spend one afternoon checking out K-pop hotspots and the next wandering through centuries-old palaces that feel like stepping into a different world. What makes it even better is the freedom teens in Seoul can enjoy; hoping on the subway to meet friends across the city, and exploring the city under the glow of neon lights. It’s a kind of independence that’s hard to find elsewhere, and it makes growing up in Seoul feel both exciting and empowering.
Seoul was the destination I never saw coming, especially for our family during teenage years and I couldn’t be more thrilled that we all get to enjoy the many perks of the this city. If you enjoy reading about parenting abroad, check out my other posts about Growing Up Expat: 9 Ways to Build an Expat Support System Abroad.
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