The huge upheaval that is moving home can cause a lot of stress for the whole of your family; because of this, even though they might not show signs of distress or sadness at moving, you should always make sure that your children are comfortable and coping with the move. This means that you should stop focusing on the practical problems of moving for a moment, and start focusing on the impact it has having on your child.
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For instance, you can’t let the fact that your child is probably feeling a great sense of loss slip your mind. Because of this, you should seek to target the two areas of loss that they’re likely to feel the most: the loss of a safe environment and the loss of their friends. In order to combat the former, you should talk to your child about the big move as early as is possibly convenient to you in order to give them time to come to terms with it all. You could also pay a few visits to the new location with your child so that they understand a bit more about where they are going to be living and make it all seem a bit more real. This will also help it all to be a bit more familiar to them when the big day finally comes and you make the move. And as well as all of this, once you’ve actually moved in, you should allow your child to be involved in as much as possible in certain aspects in order to combat any feelings of powerlessness they may be experiencing. This could involve letting them choose colour schemes for their bedroom, or even for other rooms (although this should be exercised with caution: unless you want a bright pink living room). You should also seek to protect them from seeing their familiar world being broken up and moved. For instance, when the moving companies are getting to work in moving all of your worldly belongings to your new location, you should try to refrain from letting your child see their things being moved about. You should also allow them to have things, such as stuffed animals, accompany them on the journey. For more information on how to make the loss of a familiar and safe environment as less stressful as possible for your child, be sure to head on over here.
And as well as this, you have to be prepared to combat the loss of friends, or the fear of a loss of friends, that your children may be experiencing. As much as your child may not want to hear it, you have to reassure them that this is a chance to make new friends and experience new things and that it will benefit them in the long run. However, you have to be tentative to the fact that they still want to keep in contact with old friends. If they are of an age where providing them with a mobile phone, or allowing them to use social media, is appropriate, then if you haven’t done beforehand this might be a good time to allow them to use them; they will help destroy the distance between them and their friends with just one click; be sure to check up on how to make sure your child is using the internet safely before you allow them to access it, however. And to help combat any sadness you should give them something to look forward to, maybe in the form of an exciting party for kids.
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