Tips for Moving Overseas With Children
For most people, moving to a new country is an exciting proposition. Usually you are moving because of an exciting new job opportunity, or to live out a dream of living in a foreign land. If this is the case, you will probably be looking forward to it. However, your children might be a different story. Often times it is difficult for a child to get used to new things, so to completely change everything that they know and have grown up with and love, may terrify them. There are some things that you can do, however, to help smooth your children’s transition to moving to a new land.
Before relocating internationally, you will want to do research on the place you could be moving to. By including your children in this process, you can learn together. This will help both of you, because you will not have to experience it alone. One thing you and your child can research together is learning about the cuisine of your potential destination. The food that people normally eat varies from place to place. You can learn what is unique to the region, and try it out beforehand at home. This way your children will know what to expect. You can also visit message boards and forums that deal with the region directly. You can learn what it is like to live there day to day, and what kinds of activities are offered to your children. By taking in all of these things together, your children will not feel like they are alone, and might be more willing to try new things.
The next thing you will want to look at are the schools that are in the area. This is the place where your children will spend a lot of their time, and will be the people that they are interacting with, so it is vitally important that you find a school that meets your criteria and is suitable for your children. Again, use the internet as a research tool and find out as much as you can about a school’s curriculum, how they handle foreign students, and how safe the school is as a whole.
To go along with finding a good school for your children, you may have to help them make friends. It is usually difficult for a child to change schools and have to meet a whole new group of people. This is especially true when changing countries, where the children may have a completely different life experience from your own. Encourage your children to be themselves, and help by enrolling them in group activities, especially ones that other children in your new neighborhood attend, so they can interact with other children that they will start to see every day.
Do Not Forget What You Left Behind
However, you will not want to forget the loved ones that you and your children are leaving behind. It is important to maintain contact with friends and family through emails or video chat, because there is a good chance that you and your children could become a little homesick. You might even want to plan a return trip home at some time, if it is feasible financially, just to help with your homesickness. Your children will not want to forget their friends, so make sure they can still contact them.
Possibly the most important thing you can do for your children, is to keep a positive attitude about the whole situation. Children can sense when their parents are angry, sad, or happy, and will often reflect those feelings back. If you are enthusiastic and positive, it will help your children share that attitude, and help them assimilate. As a parent, you probably already know what interests your children have, and how to relate to them. You will need to do this even more both during and after your move, so your children can realize their full potential at your new home, and not turn inwards and bottle up their feelings and stress. Enthusiasm can go a long way.
