Max and Elle Pothier were skeptical when their parents announced plans to move their family of seven from Arizona to China for a semester. Max, 17, was entering his senior year of high school, and Elle, 16, was starting her junior year. Despite their lack of enthusiasm, on Aug. 26, 2014, they boarded a plane for Shanghai.
Their parents, Dave and Shawni Pothier, had always dreamed of taking their children abroad for a semester, and with Max’s graduation on the horizon and an option for Dave to work in China temporarily, they felt it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is just how fleeting the time together is,” Shawni said. “I just feel like my kids were barely born yesterday, and now my son is graduating in June, and I think I’ve just learned how huge that is. My family is creating these things that are going to last forever, these traditions and experiences.”
Dave and Shawni were sensitive to their children's concerns and knew it would be hard for them to leave. Shawni’s parents took her on a similar trip to London when she was in high school, and she remembers well how it felt to move at such a pivotal age.
“I hated it, but I look back on that, and I realize how much I learned and how much I grew," Shawni said. "I think you can only judge your life so much by how you were raised and because I had that experience and it was so positive, although it seemed so negative in the first place, I just felt like I really wanted my kids to have that and to see that. It turned out to be a wonderful experience for all of us.”
Looking back, Shawni recognizes the benefits of her time in London. Living overseas helped her become more outgoing and learn about different religions. It also opened her eyes to options in education, which ultimately led her to attend Boston University.
Despite knowing the benefits her children would reap, Shawni worried about them. She worried about her three youngest daughters, Grace, 13; Claire, 11; and Lucy, 8, but she worried even more about Max and Elle. She knew their homesickness would be compounded by watching their friends' lives on Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram.
“What I learned more than probably anything else is that that’s OK,” Shawni said. “And it’s OK for kids to do hard things. I think we get so worried in our day and age about coddling our kids and making sure that they’re safe and protected, and I did that for sure in this experience, but the more we went through it, the more I realized, ‘You know what? This is good for them. It’s OK to miss some things. It’s OK to have some hard trials. It’s going to make them stronger in the long run.’"
Four months later, the family returned to Arizona on Christmas Eve. They were grateful to see familiar food but have no regrets about the experience, which Shawni chronicled on her blog, 71toes.com.
“It was a good experience,” Max said. “It was cool to see the different culture and stuff, just how different it is. It is almost opposite.”
One of the biggest differences Max and Elle cited was the contrast in their academic experiences. While in China, they attended a private international school that was more difficult than any school they had attended in the United States. Many of their teachers were former college professors, and there were only 60 students in Max’s graduating class as opposed to the 800 in his graduating class at Highland High School. The international school focused more heavily on math and science, and the two would often return home and spend all night together doing homework.
As they tried to keep up in school, the Pothiers managed to explore neighboring countries, including Japan, Cambodia and Vietnam. As a result of the time the family spent together, they feel closer than ever, and they are grateful for that because as Elle points out, “I’m going to be with them for the rest of my life.”
“I learned how important it is to make time for families,” Shawni said. “Many people will never have an opportunity to go and live overseas, but whether it’s something big like that or whether it’s just putting your phone down for the afternoon and just not paying attention to any emails and really homing in on that one child, seeing them for who they are. The biggest thing I learned about family is to cherish those relationships.”
Max is preparing for graduation and will attend one semester at BYU before serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Elle has also considered serving a mission. Both feel their experience in China better prepared them for missions.
“It opened my eyes up to the rest of the world,” Max said. “If I get called somewhere crazy, I’ll kind of know what to expect. … It kind of opened me up to a lot of different opinions and a lot of different ideas and beliefs and stuff. It helped me stay strong.”
When asked what he would think if he got called to the China Hong Kong Mission, he responded without hesitation, “I would love it.”
Email: mjones@deseretdigital.com