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Moving to a new home can be traumatic for both parents and children.
I’m acutely aware of this since, during the first ten years
of my younger son’s life, we lived in Minnesota, Massachusetts,
New York, California and Switzerland!
Parents, who often feeling appropriately stressed-out themselves
with both the moving preparations and the prospects of many changes
in their jobs and lives, may miss or misinterpret some of the signs
of their children’s distress. In fact, the potential for problems
within both generations increases when the move is due to a death,
divorce, remarriage, or significant change in finances.
One family I spoke with when I was writing a column on moving for
the New York Times described their children’s behaviors like
this: Weeks before his family even started packing, the five-year-old
boy began running aimlessly around the house. When he was with adults,
he would try to capture all their attention. His twelve-year-old
sister, however, showed no obvious anxiety and even told her parents
that she looked forward to the move from Oklahoma to Illinois because
it was "a neat thing to do." She acted as if she had everything
under control. But as the moving day approached, she became more
obstinate when her parents or teachers asked her to do something.
She began overreacting to ordinary events. A sad song on the radio
or a curt word from her parents triggered her hears.
After the move, and despite his family’s patient and repeated
explanations that the family now lived in this new place, the boy
spent several months telling them that he wanted to go home, meaning
back to Oklahoma. The girl’s school grades dropped during the
next semester, as did her self-esteem. Within four months, however,
all those problems cleared up, and the family was back to normal.
The stress of moving to a new home, whether it is down the block
or across the country, is felt most acutely by those who did not
make the decision to move. Generally, the family members who have
the least control over where they live, and are therefore most likely
to react poorly to a move, are the children. Many parents worry
either too much or too little about the effects of a move on their
children. Studies have shown that a certain amount of emotional
turmoil or depression is normal and may even be beneficial.
The increased activity that the young boy showed before the move
may have been triggered as much by biology as by psychology. Studies
of preschoolers done by Dr. Tiffany Field, a psychologist with the
department of pediatrics at the University of Miami Medical School,
have found that those children who were about to move or change
schools typically went through a period of agitation and then depression.
They had a more difficult time falling sleep, woke up more during
the night, showed changes in their blood chemistries, and were more
likely to get upper respiratory infections. That pattern is very
telling, for it is similar to the responses of monkeys that are
separated from their mothers. Dr. Field and other researchers think
that the depression that usually follows the period of agitation
among both highly stressed monkeys and children may be adaptive
since it prevents them from becoming exhausted and, in the case
of the children, allows them to cope with the stress of the move.
For older children, the key issues appear to be how well and how
quickly they adjust to their new school. Studies show that most
children have relatively few problems making this transition. Those
who have the most difficulty are usually children who also had trouble
at their old school. In general, it appears that boys have more
trouble adjusting to a move than girls do. Junior high school students
have more difficulty than any other age group. Children who move
from small elementary schools to large junior high schools appear
particularly vulnerable to problems.
Usually a few weeks or even a few months of lowered grades or complaints
about not fitting in after a move are nothing to worry about. If
a child is still having difficulty adjusting to a new school after
six months, that’s probably a sign of a more serious problem
that requires professional help.
So what can you do if there’s a move in your future? Here are
some suggestions:
- As moving day approaches, reassure toddlers and even preschoolers
that they will be coming along with their parents on the move.
A surprising number of young children see their family’s
possessions being boxed, sold, or thrown out, and wonder they
will suffer the same fate.
- Put off redecorating your children’s new rooms for a few
months unless they ask you to. Having the old furniture arrangement
is like taking a security blanket. It eases the transition to
the many other new things they are facing.
- Pay attention to the ways the design of your new home influences
how you spend time with your children. The increased privacy of
a larger house can sometimes make it harder for children to adjust.
The new home may not have the same type of central family gathering
place, such as a combination kitchen and dining area, as the old
one. You may not realize you’re not spending as much time
together as a family as you used to.
This problem may be compounded if family members have different
schedules from those they had before, so that it’s more difficult
to eat dinner together. For the first few months after a move it’s
often useful to schedule family meetings or other all-family events
as a way of maintaining lines of communication.
- Ask the school to arrange for a "buddy" in the same
grade who can show each of your children around the school for
the first week or so. This gives your children a kind of temporary
membership in a social group and alleviates a lot of stress while
they try to figure out where they fit in.
- If it’s at all possible for one of the parents to delay
returning to work for a few weeks, do so. Knowing that Mom or
Dad will be at home if she or he is needed may make some of the
changes your children face appear less threatening.
- Following a divorce or the death of a spouse some parents move
for emotional rather than financial reasons. In those situations,
if you can at all keep from moving, don’t move. It’s
often too much for the children to cope with. The children may
need to keep some of the memories you’re trying to leave
behind.
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