Do you ask or tell your children you're moving to a new area?

[Fattymcbatty]

Ok, I don't mean ask their permission but to what extent should their feelings be taken into account? My DCs are 9 and 8 and also have two babies. We live in a 3 bed semi but if we moved an hour away (which happens to be a lot closer to dh's work) we could, for the same price purchase a 5 bed with office and conservatory. I don't work, my best friend is about to move to another country and I really don't feel any ties to this area. Older DCs are however dead against moving as they love their school and friends. They cry when we mention it on any serious level! I don't know if I can do it to them.... What to do?

I think they are young so no. I discussed it with mine but ultimately they had no say. Now that they are older it is different and we would take their opinions into consideration. Although that is not to say they would simply get their own way.

You tell them. And be communicative about their fears and reservations with them.

Out of interest, does anyone have any thoughts on what is the worst age to move DC against their wishes?

Apologies for hijacking the thread

I reckon the teenage years because they are so much more stroppy about it

We moved a few times when I was a child. Including aged 8. That move was fine and tbh I think I was too young to be consulted.

Move at 13 was a disaster for me. I ended up going to 3 secondary schools, being really badly bullied etc. Slotting into primary isn't a biggie but slotting in at secondary is hard.

I would say move now before your older children get too big.

Too late then

We are moving outside London and have a 14 year old we didn't ask for permission as we are the adults but did speak to him he won't be moving schools as he's only got two more years dh works in London and can drop him.

However I do think if your going to move the younger the better don't wait if we could have afforded to buy years ago we would have it gets more difficult as they get older and I am very aware that if we didn't move by the time he was 16 we would possibly face leaving him behind which means we couldn't move

mothermirth In my view unless you can afford to live on your own live were your told

I agree you can't give them the choice about where to live, but are there smaller choices (what colour their new bedrooms will be?) that you could give them to help them feel more in control of some aspects of the situation?

We moved when I was 9. I didn't want to move, liked by school, my friends etc. But when we started looking round houses I couldn't help but get excited, choosing my room and so on. This would be the case particularly if you were moving to a bigger house.

Thefishewife the problem is, it would involve a school move (for A levels). We'd be moving to a livelier place, with more options for part-time jobs etc, but I find it difficult if not impossible to make the decision in the knowledge that the DC are so anti. We know or at least firmly believe that it would be a good move for all the family, but we face massive opposition.

We told ours. Older one was 9 and so had plenty of time to make new friends before moving up to senior school.

We moved 200 miles to the seaside. The kids are in beavers/cubs/scouts/guides and take part in lots of out of school activities which weren't really possible where we lived before.

We have been here four years now and we all love it :)

I would take the dc to view a few of the houses in the area so they can see for themselves how nice it will be x