BIGGER (SWAP PARTIES) CAN BE BETTER

How do you get a swap if you have a large family? Prolific parents are clamoring to find out. I took a break from this series for Halloween and broke my promise to tell you how to get a home exchange for your large swap party. The good news is I have come up with lots of ideas for you.

"Copyright N. Feist 2007. No reproduction of this article is allowed. If you are reading this anywhere but HomeExchanger.blogspot.com, that site is violating the law and may be prosecuted."

THE CAST OF CHARACTERS

Your first task is to introduce your swap party in a non-threatening way. Remember the mom with eight kids whose plea for help finding an exchange spurred this series? I have to admit, if someone wrote to me saying there were two parents and eight children in her swap party, my first response would be "no thanks."

Here's another way to describe your large family:

"My spouse and I are traveling with our twin daughters, age 6, and their brothers, who are nine and twelve. As parents of four youngsters, we run a tight ship! We have taught our children to be respectful of the property of others, at home and when traveling, since they were tiny. We will have plenty of help supervising the little ones, as their four young-adult siblings, ages 17 to 25, will be joining us on this trip."

Pointing out that the older siblings will help monitor the younger kids turns a possible home exchange liability -- lots of children -- into a benefit: there will be more responsible people to ensure the younger family members behave themselves. This works only if it is accurate. If your eight children are comprised of two sets of toddler quadruplets, good luck getting an exchange, and God bless you for your courage.

A similar technique can be used if your swap party is large because extended family is joining you. We select our domestic exchange partners with the goal of allowing our own children to see their grandparents who live 1,000 miles South of us. Someone who is not comfortable exchanging with the five of us and two additional grandparents is not a good swap partner for us, because our entire reason for swapping is to have all of us under one roof.

Instead of saying "there are seven people in our group", I point out that we are two parents and three grandparents, all of whom will be supervising the two toddlers to whom we are related.

NEXT TIME: How your large group can be more attractive by getting even larger.

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