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?

@gasgig

I wouldn’t do it until 6th form

I think that would be the worst time. I made great friends in secondary who remained friends in 6th form & still are to this day. I think making new friends in 6th form would be really hard.

It has generally been very positive for the many DC that I have known who have done it as a pretty common thing to do and lots in the same situation so they make new friends quickly, often pretty strong friendships as they have more in common (sweeping generalisation).

Haven’t read the full thread but I think I would-that may be because I believe that kids do better out of cities. If your place is near the beach or similar, she and the other dc will grow up with sports* and leisure and the associated social life that would just be available on a fortnightly holiday each year.
*And I say this as a lardy arsed 50+

Personally I’d say no. I grew up in the countryside in a hamlet and always thought I’d love to be back in the country. We moved from london to a village (on the outskirts of a small city, and with easy links to london), and miss london terribly.
Village life is very different as an adult compared to when you were growing up, and that’s an extreme change for children at an age when they are becoming adults. I’m not sure any of you would find it a positive move tbh.
Have you thought about your children’s job prospects there in comparison to london? What are public transport links like? Will it be easy for them to get around and be independent without learning to drive? Will the schools be happy to take on new students at that age? Think how isolated your kids will be if home schooling or social distancing continues. How can you expect them to make new friends?

@Hamnet

I’m also wondering whether DD could start year 10 again in Sept. She is a late August baby anyway so she wouldn’t be too out of place age wise.

Her current school is very pushy and high achieving. The stress to get amazing grades has caused her serious anxiety. She is very bright and doing well but she puts enormous pressure on herself so maybe a reset could be good for her. Although she doesn’t accept this.

I’m a secondary teacher and I’ve never know this happen when children move mid year 10. It’s a funding issue.

And I’m saying that as a nearly 50 year old, so hardly still desperate for a great night life and buzzing atmosphere! (When it’s allowed).

I wouldn't move until she has finished her GCSEs. Also If I couldn't time it to so we moved in time for her to start her A levels in the place we were moving to , I would put it off until.after A levels as well ( assuming she is doing then) . My sister used to work with children and students who.need.extra help and she said that her experience reflects the research, whicht shows that students who move during A levels generally do much worse in their exams and are more likely to experience problems including mental health ones.

Unless absolutely essential the sort of move being described is not one I'd make with teenagers in the middle of GCSEs or A Levels.

The lockdown is bad enough, but moving at this critical time in a child's education is not right. Everytime my parents moved, it was a new school, new teachings, as the teaching is not always similar to other schools. So I found many things I thought all kids my age had been taught was wrong. They did not even do same maths that I had previously done in last school. And how is she going to integrate in a lockdown

It has generally been very positive for the many DC that I have known who have done it as a pretty common thing to do and lots in the same situation so they make new friends quickly, often pretty strong friendships as they have more in common (sweeping generalisation).

Likewise moving for secondary school which is the norm in London.

My parents moved us to a different country at 12 and then back again at 15 so I was the age of year 11 but was coming from a completely different school system. It was fine, I did year 10 and 11 in one year so I didn’t have to be held back a year. Moving to Devon seems comparatively easy, she’ll make new friends and live in a nicer, healthier environment than London.

My children will move every three years as children of service personnel, they’ll be absolutely fine.

No right or wrong answer here, but if your heart is set on it, and you think its for the best for everyone, then do it.

You are the parent, you see the bigger picture - she will have tunnel vision and will only be thinking of the worst that will happen to her.

We often fear moving out of an area we know so well, but the world is a big place and there are places which are much nicer, cheaper and better than London.

Its understandable and she wont thank you for it at first but if everything goes well she may well end up having a better quality of life because of it.

Mine are grown up now but I certainly would not contemplate disrupting my year 10's education at such an important time.
Have you told her about your prospective plan to have her re-sit year 10 again??
Sometimes you just have to put your own plans on hold for the sake of your children's lives.

I wouldn't move at this point but would consider finding a way to make it work with a move at the end of her Year 11. It all depends on:

• whether you've researched schools and think she'd get a place at one for A levels as suitable for her or more so than her current school in terms of academic approach and pastoral care,
• whether you'd be moving to a town or more rurally, where the lack of transport would be a shock to a London teenager,
• whether her interests fit with what's good about Devon (the outdoors, beaches, the sea), and whether she likes other activities like mainstream cinema, or whether she'd miss Tate Modern etc.

We've recently moved for work with DCs 12 and 9 from a place we liked to a 'crappy Midlands town' and the only saving grace is that the 12-year-old's school is much better for her than her old one.

I grew up in Devon, there's so little opportunity IMO compared to the SE that I'd never go back. Apart from work and pay opportunities which I think are much better I would hate to be so far from Heathrow and Gatwick, travel is much more of a hassle from Devon. That said I couldn't live in London either, i did for a few years and hated it mostly, I knew I wouldn't settle and have kids there (we live somewhere in the middle between the two now). I thikn it would be unfair to take your daughter out in the middle of her GCSE course as well.

It's very rare to find a state school that will accommodate that, springdale. And if you managed a condensed workload of 10 GCSEs in one, rather than two, years all by yourself: well done.

Your experience is to be as much commended as it is unusual.

As other posters have said, by far the usual experience extreme difficulty finding a school place and a reduced range of GCSEs, with poorer results.

@gasgig

I appreciate that Yr 10 is a difficult time but I moved to a new school in Yr 9 as secondary options in my borough were crap. Didn't know anyone, is that not normal? My dc will also be going to a secondary where they don't know anyone.

I moved my son to a new school in year 9. It worked out really well. But he started Sept of year 9.

I wouldn’t at that age. London won’t be in tiers for years to come, do people really believe all this scaremongering?

We are moving. Dc1 is 12 it’s not or never for us because I wouldn’t move during GCSEs.

DS is 17 and no, I wouldn't now, and I wouldn't have when he was 14. It wouldn't even occur to me to move when my child is at such a crucial stage of his development and his education. He's struggling enough with not seeing his friends during the pandemic as it is.

I'm from the country (now living in the city) and I've thought from time to time I'd like to move back but it's not an option right now. The possibility is there once DS finishes school if I really wanted to. I don't think your kid would forgive you easily for moving her away from everything and everyone she knows to a rural area. If your dream home is at stake I would buy the house and rent it out until my child was finished school, and then move back there.

Move- life is too short. London is dreadful at the moment.

Promise her that her friends can come down for long weekends in your country home. That you’ll let her visit friends in London and ultimately she will be fine.

What are her hobbies?

Good luck! I too am wanting to leave London. Devon isn’t all that bad- very different to London but still!

@gasgig

I wouldn’t do it until 6th form

I think that would be the worst time. I made great friends in secondary who remained friends in 6th form & still are to this day. I think making new friends in 6th form would be really hard.

It’s incredibly common in many areas to move for 6th form, especially areas like Exeter that have large, highly regarded 6th form colleges. Students go to wherever offers their subjects at this point.

@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.

But you'd grown up there/with them and knew nothing different?

You're not listening...

I’ve just had an idea. If your able to send her to private school then they would probably except her into year 10 - if that’s possible then I would seriously consider it.

It's tough. My cousins parents moved when he was a teen. He choose to stay behind with his grandparents, is there a similar option for your dd? Maybe a family friend she can stay with?

It was fine, I did year 10 and 11 in one year so I didn’t have to be held back a year.

In the UK?

This seems odd as it has always been the case (even during O-levels) that most of the exam syllabus is covered in the first year.

Also you wouldn't have done this under current pandemic conditions.

I am childfree and not terribly sentimental about children or teens.

Even my heart is breaking at the idea of a 14 year old in lockdown, being told that on top of that, she has to leave her home town and go quite far away. And be a stranger trying to make friends from scratch in a place that is likely still in a form of lockdown.

Actually, why would she bother! I'm not sure I would bother.

Also, being held back a year isn't really a thing in the UK. You just carry on with worse exam results.