Would you move across the country against the will of your teenage children?

[Hamnet]

How much say should teenage children have when a family is considering a move?

We live in London. We have done all our childrens’ lives. In fact all our adult lives. But I am from Devon and in lockdown I have both missed the countryside and felt that cities are dangerous from a health point of view and won’t be fun again for many years. I also now have flexibility to continue my career with limited time in the London office so a move is possible. DH feels the same.

My dream home is on the market. I knew this house as a child and used to imagine one day owning it but it seemed an impossible dream. DH and I want to offer on it. Our 14 year old daughter is distraught. She can’t stand the idea of leaving her school and friends (who she hasn’t seen hardly at all this year due to lockdowns). She also points out she is in year 10 and it’s a bad time to move schools due to GCSE coursework. She is finding this stage of life quite hard anyway and I am scared to damage her mental health further.

I think London will be in tiers for years to come and all the things we love about London will struggle to return after the pandemic. I also think further mutations or other pandemics are likely. I am desperate to move. Our other children are slightly younger and more malleable.

How much would you take on board the very strong feelings and risk to the mental health of a 14 year old?

Change happens in life, its something we have to learn to deal with and if we are cosseted from change is this really healthy?

What is your dd distraught about? has she moved before and had a bad experience?

Can you tackle the issues together and get through them?

Please think about your children. My mum uprooted us across the country (to London, so this isn't about where you go) when I was 15. I never made friends properly and as an adult I still don't have confidence socialising and I struggle to make long-term friendships with people because in the back of my mind I always think one day I'll have to leave or they will. Also it fucked up my GCSEs royally. She couldn't get me into a school and I didn't get a place until January of year 11 so I was out of school for 8 months then expected to cover the entire 9-GCSE syllabus with new exam boards and different content, and content that had already been taught at my new school which I hadn't covered in my old school yet. I managed the GCSEs, but I'd had to paper over so many cracks in my understanding of things that my A-levels went down the toilet.

It's not about the fact you were fine in this town and loved it here. You had a sense of belonging here. You grew up knowing people. Imagine if your parents had uprooted you when you were 14 and taken you to London and expected you to just get on with things. How would you feel? Think about the post-16 education situation. Can your daughter now live at home to go to uni?

Can you see it from her point of view at all? You are literally throwing her future under a bus to satisfy your own childhood dream.

cant add much to debate about your daughter, but have you thought about what happens in future when we have covid under control. Might your company start insisting on people being in London a bit more than once a week? What will you do then? And what happens if you loose your job or want to change....there are very few well paid roles in the SW bar certain specialist professions

@Hamnet

Those saying teen life in Devon would be miserable. I spent my teen years in the town we are considering. It was great. Most of my friends in walking distance, lots of house parties etc. In London non of DDs close friends are in walking distance, all a tube ride away and I’m much less likely to let her ride a tube at night than walk down a local high street.

Yes, most of your friends may have been within walking distance. But most of HERS won't be, because her friends are in London!

Please don't do this to her. It's not fair. Teens need to feel safe and secure, and to be ripped away from everything she knows isn't going to make her feel that way, is it?

@merrymouse

What do 14 yr olds do in London that they can't do in Devon?

The main difference is lack of public transport.

I grew up in the countryside and agree with this. My parents were a taxi service or we used very unreliable public transport.

And dont forget to check broadband speeds, they can be very slow in some rural areas....so bad that you couldnt really work in them remotely

Can you buy the house and not move in straight away so that your daughter can finish her GCSEs?

Not sure how that would work but there could be a way of making that happen.

Ultimately it's up to you whether or not you move. A 14 year old is still a child and although you should consider their feelings I don't think that their vote carries as much weight as a parent, and nor should it. They aren't old enough to make these kinds of decisions competently.

Also - if it’s Totnes, Salcombe, Kingsbridge etc in South Hams - there are a lot of ex London people down there and you get loads of holidaying teens in the summer.

I'm going against the grain here and say yes I would move location location location and all that. I think at 14 you can just get there. If you don't go now you need to remain where you are for the next 4 years.

I definitely wouldn't move when you daughter is this age. She doesn't want to go and understandably so. The stress that would be placed upon her in living in a new house, an area she doesn't know, meeting new teachers who have already established relationships with pupils, trying to make new friends with people who will already been in friendship groups that were established in year 7. Not to mention, being completely sent up the creek and thrown into adapting to whatever stage that the teachers are at re teaching for GCSEs.

The time is not right now. IMO, it would be so selfish to do this. Wait until your youngest is going to start at college and they can start at a college in Devon, and presumably then your older children will be at university and so can come back to their new home in Devon in the holidays, or they may be working in London and in a position to rent/get a house.

Could you get a let-to-buy mortgage and buy the dream house and let it out in the short term? Would it be suitable for your retirement? Could you afford to buy it now and keep your London house or a small flat? What are the schools like? Starting the year again sounds like a good solution but have you checked that with the schools?

Hard to say whether a move would be good or not. We left London just before the first lockdown (but not so far), are living rurally and we are glad we have moved. Our DC are younger (10 and under) though and the oldest still talks about going back to London... it's very difficult.

Everyone saying 'children are resilient' -- maybe the OP should try being more resilient?

Genuinely shocked anyone would think making a teenager repeat an entire year of school and lose the only home/friends they've ever known is preferable to just sucking up a few months of lockdown.

My mum regrets our move to the shitty Midlands village. It was for my dad's job, I can't imagine what a culture shock it must have been for her growing up and living in London until mid 30s. I have struggled to forgive my parents and still when I'm walking through London when visiting think "why the hell did you put us all through that when we could have been here!"....

My friend who doesn't have kids moved from Bristol to a tiny Hamlet in Cornwall and I can already see the change in her. She literally just goes for dog walks and works from home pre pandemic as well. No friends locally as the culture doesn't lend itself to making friends, very few activities unless you're into surfing! She's already said I couldn't live there as I'd find the Brexit/Tory/racism thing intolerable. She won't even let you talk about it if you are out and about in case some local overhears!

As a kid my family moved every 3/4 years, but tbh it's best to move while they're under 12. After that it's super hard.

I know you moved at 16, and thought it was great in the end, but did you move abroad somewhere exciting or interesting?

If I were a London teenager now I think moving to the countryside would seem like a hellish boring nightmare.

My parents are from countryside areas, so I understand your whole 'fun houseparty' vibes, but you have to understand how rubbish that sounds to a teen who has no experience of that

Have you posted about this before?

No I haven't and wouldn't.

And I have compromised on my location.

It's a delicate age.

Hamnet

I think my stance is also influenced by the fact I was moved a long distance against my will at 16 and was furious but it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me.

I was 12 when I was moved to a completely different continent and culture very much against my will.

It didn't help that my geography was bad and I thought the place my parents named was in the Outer Hebrides. Bad enough, I thought.
Turned out to be South America

At the time, my parents would have found it hard to afford to turn the opportunity down and the difference from your situation is that I knew that initially it was just for two years.

But at that age two years = for ever.

I would never have been so happy and successful, and would never have met DH if I hadn't gone. I also kept my old friends.

Having said that, it could have turned out badly.
However, teens are flexible and their priorities change.

Things that seem incredibly important one month just aren't by the next.
I know this because I have my own children who are now grown up
Obviously, I didn't have that sort of insight at twelve. Or twenty-one, if it comes to that.

Looking back, all I can say is: I was very scared and resentful of being taken across the world by my parents. Luckily I adapted but I might not have.

However, deep down, I would have been even more scared of my parents making this important decision and turning down something they felt was a good move based solely on my wishes.

Difficult with the span of ages of your children to pick a right time.
My parents moved me to the other end of the country when I was 15. Hated it at first but actually the friends I made at that school are still my two best friends now.
Ultimately you have to weigh up the pro's and con's for everyone and make a choice.

No o absolutely wouldn’t

My dream house wouldn’t be my dream house if it meant making my children very unhappy

@ivykaty44

Change happens in life, its something we have to learn to deal with and if we are cosseted from change is this really healthy?

What is your dd distraught about? has she moved before and had a bad experience?

Can you tackle the issues together and get through them?

By the time they moves she will have finished year 10. She will go to a new school. Each department might follow a different exam board to the ones she has done in year 10. All the content could very easily be different. The exam styles could very very different. In fact this is most likely. It would be very unlikely for the new school to be following all the same exam boards, and have taught the content in the same order, as her current school.

This will massively impact her gcse grades, which of course impacts her choices going forward.

We lived in London and waited until our youngest finished GCSE's to move 12 miles to Surrey. We were careful to ensure both dc were able to continue their social lives. It was a compromise. We got a detached, characterful house and large garden within an easy commute to London in a quieter, greener environment and they got to keep nights out within uber range. DD was able to continue at her school with a longer commute.

Just do it.

I moved at that age and made a whole set of new friends whom I'm far closer to.

Don't forget they make a whole set of new friends in their A level years and at uni etc so she'll be fine

are exams happening this year?

We moved a lot as my dad was in the army. Final move was at 13 to Cornwall to settle into civilian life. It was awful. I struggled to make friends and didn't do as well as I could of academically as with hind sight I think I was depressed. I got in to drink and drugs at 16 as this was a way of being socially accepted. I scraped into an ex poly and turned things around but regret my teenage years in many ways. In my experience from Uni friends my access to drugs was much, much easier than for friends from London because in a smaller community someone always knows someone.

I now live in Devon and love it but actually made the move years before having DC as there is no way I would uproot them as children. As for walks on Dartmoor and the coast path we are also in lockdown and not supposed to be driving to beauty spots. People are though and I hear that Dartmoor car parks are rammed. Our local parks are all full as well so I don't think you will find Covid life miraculously better here. Although the Summer was amazing when are cases were rock bottom and the weather was good.

Are you thinking about Totnes? It's a grammar area and the comp didn't used to be very good. Not sure what it's like now though.

I would do it. There will never be a better time with the ages of your children, and the move to Devon will benefit the whole family. Some things in life are tough but you can't bend to the will of one to the detriment of all. We also considered a move at a similar age with 3 . Oldest child was against and said they would stay behind with family but we pushed on. Move did not happen for other reasons, and they later said that it would have been the right thing for the family and they would have joined us.
Only you know your family and what would be best for you all. Definitely check subjects offered are suitable but I would strongly seek a reset to remove the pressure on achievement she is currently feeling.