6 Tips on Preparing Your Kids for a Move
Leaving a home is never easy. You poured your heart and soul into a place and made it your own. You cherished happy memories here, maybe some sad ones, too. But the only constant thing in life is change. So, when an opportunity arises, you take your chance and pack up because you know it’s the best thing for you and your family.
Sometimes we forget to acknowledge how kids feel about this. They might be too young to understand why mom and dad are making them leave their school, friends, and the home they grew up in. The powerlessness they feel can result in temper tantrums and other changes in behavior, making the move more stressful than it should be. It’s never easy saying goodbye, after all.
That’s why today we’ll discuss a few tips on Preparing Your Kids for a Move and help them ease into the transition, making the move successful for the whole family. So, let’s get started.
Here are 6 Tips on Preparing Your Kids for a Move
1. Early Communication
The best thing you can do to prepare your children for a big move is to start an open communication line with them. Kids like to feel involved and informed, and if you keep things from them, even to avoid any emotional outbursts, it can feel like a betrayal. When you tell them about the move in the early stages, they’ll have ample time to process it and familiarize themselves with all the next steps.
If you plan on hiring a moving company, discuss this with your children too. There will often be strangers in the house, which can be a bit unsettling for children. A family-owned business like the Solomon & Sons Relocation Company will provide professional movers who know how to interact with your kids and make them feel involved.
Make sure to answer all their questions and be patient and calm with them. They’re little and don’t know how to react. They’ll feel more secure once their worries are addressed, and they will start accepting the change.
2. Involve Them in the Process
Involving the children actively in the moving process makes them feel like they have a little more control. It makes them feel like they’re active participants rather than just observers, watching everyone else make decisions for them and take their lives apart. It reminds them that the whole family is in this together, and they’re not being left out.
You can start by assigning age-appropriate tasks to each child. For toddlers and smaller kids, there’s not much they can help with. But they can still help pack their toys and clothes, so they can see everything is safe. You can even let them draw on the boxes to keep them busy. Older kids can be asked to help run errands and arrange things to be packed like books and clothes.
3. Maintain Your Routine
Children are creatures of consistency. They thrive in a stable environment. But with the chaos of moving, the environment at home can become much less than stable. Everything’s taken down or taken out, things are sprawled over where they usually aren’t, and it’s all a mess.
But with everything going on, try to stick to their usual routines as much as possible. This includes still eating together at dinner time as a family, having the same bedtime routine, and continuing all their daily activities. This predictable routine will keep them feeling secure and not make them feel as if everything is changing and is out of control. Having this sense of normalcy can be a comfort to the kids and parents too.
4. Move at the Perfect Time
When planning a big move, timing can change the entire game for your family. And when deciding on a moving date, keep your children in consideration. For example, if you’re going to be moving in the middle of the school year, make sure they get to be part of the important events happening close to that date. This could mean a birthday, a school fair, or anything that means something to them.
Ideally, moving between school years would be the best option because it would allow the children to properly say goodbye and start fresh at their new school. Even then, it would be smart to plan a move in the middle of summer instead of right at the beginning, so they have a little more time to bid farewell to their old life and have enough to settle into their new one.
5. Make Memories
It’s only natural that your kids will miss their old house and life once they move. This means you need to make the best of your last few days here and make more positive memories for them to revisit later. It’s easy for the last moments to be associated negatively with all the packing and stress of the move but try not to let that happen.
Take as many pictures as possible. This means clicking pictures and videos of their friends and favorite teachers at the kids’ school. Take family pictures at the house before it’s all packed up. Also, try making a list of things to do in your hometown that you didn’t get to do yet, and do as many things as possible from the list. This way, your kids won’t feel like they missed out on anything.
6. Say a Proper Goodbye
When moving day starts to near, things can get a little hectic. But in all the hustle and bustle, don’t forget to say your goodbyes. These goodbyes may be hard, but they are necessary for closure and a nice way to honor your old home and life there. And this tip isn’t only important for the children, but the parents can benefit from this too.
You can plan a farewell party at home or somewhere else and invite all your kids’ friends, friends, family members, neighbors, and others your family is close to. Make sure not to plan it too close to moving day, as it can make the experience sadder.
Have the kids write goodbye notes to their loved ones to let them express their thoughts and feelings. To keep the mood positive, remind your kids that this isn’t the end of their relationships with everyone they’re leaving behind. They’ll still be in contact through video calls and emails, or text messages.
Conclusion – Preparing Your Kids for a Move
To sum it up, a little preparation can go a long way in making a big move easier for your kids. Children are adaptable creatures, and even though things will seem difficult at first, they will adjust to their new life sooner than you realize.
The most important part of this process is to stay positive, even when it seems impossible. This will create a sense of excitement instead of anxiety. And your kids will benefit from your attitude and even mirror it. The move might not be easy, but you’ll get through it as a family, and your kids will be just fine.
