To say you've no choice?

[Fauxtatoes]

I need help Mumsnet.

DH has gotten a new job. It's an amazing opportunity for all of us, huge increase in salary and perks out the wazoo including private school for DD 16. This job will change all of our lives.

The issue is that DD is flat out refusing to move. She said she wants to stay where we are (really rural) despite us moving near a major city, with public transport, which would give her the independence and freedom she moans about not having.

I feel guilty about forcing her because she got very upset. Has anyone been through this and managed to change their minds? If she still refuses DH will have to go alone as this job is going to make him in his industry

How old is DD?

Will she need to change school and at what point?

She is 16.

Compromise? Stay until after GCSEs?

Yes she will have to move school. It's a move to the other side of the country. She's 16, it's in my OP.

Could she stay with frerods or erelatves

Shit phone

When will you need to move? Before or after GCSE?

I would move after GCSE, but not before.

It's a difficult age to move because of friendship groups and exams. Have you taken her to see the possible new school? Can you move to somewhere in between your current location and the new one so DD can stay at her school and your DH can commute to his new role?
I'm bemused why these issues are only being discussed now rather than before he applied for the job.

Is she mid GCSE?

This is an opportunity for the whole family and I wouldn't be allowing a 16 year old to railroad those plans. That's not the same as not taking on board her view point. I don't imagine the DDs decision is based on anything other than her own needs and wants so it's perhaps time she learned that it's not all about her.

Don't be bemused. She agreed to move before he applied but has changed her mind. No possibility of commuting it's the other end of the country.

She moves. End of. If needs be you drag her to the car.

I’d bet anything it’s tbe fact she doesn’t want to leave her friends yadda yadda. But she’ll have the Chance to make new ones.

I don’t think it should be a discussion with her- you’re the adults and her parents. You simply inform her that you will be moving

So let dh go alone and join him in 2 years when dd has finished school.

Compromise is too and her stay where you are until she has finished her GCSEs and then move her for A levels?

You

What SpiritedLondon said.
She's still a minor, she can't "refuse" to move. Tell her she's welcome to move where she likes when she's 18/paying her own way but right now this is a decision for the family, not for the social life of a teenager

If she agreed before, then you should be moving now. Sending your husband on his own could have a bad impact on your marriage. Does she have a new boyfriend perhaps?

I think that a move to a private school, with very different pupils, at 16, is too much to ask, tbh.

I'd discuss it with a view to where she wants to be in five years.

If you can afford a private school, could you afford for her to stay where you are now, for a couple of years?

At the least you should stay until her GCSE's are over.

I moved twice as a kid, from the north west to Edinburgh at 7 and then from Edinburgh to the west of Scotland at 13. I had no choice because I lived with my parents and that’s where they were going. Can you commiserate with your DD and say you understand she’s upset but the fact is that she doesn’t have a choice. She’s 16, she goes where you go.

She has to move. I’d let dh go ahead until the summer holidays though, mid year isn’t great timing but ultimately yeah, she has to move

Do not make a compromise! Unless it was something that affected her health or education, there's no good reason to even debate this

No boyfriend. I think the reality is hitting her now and she's scared.

I'm worried she'll hate me if I insist. She's possibly going to be missing out on amazing experiences I'm so torn.

"She's still a minor, she can't "refuse" to move."

She can, from the age of 14 a young person can live outside the family home.

Meh. People will say its a difficult time to move, friends, school etc, but the fact is life throws up opportunities you have to grab, stuff changes, people move, and upheavals you have, although difficult at the time, do forge who you go on to become, the kind of empathy and resilience you develop.

In short, it will be a wrench but she'll survive. I wouldnt be allowing a 16 year old to dictate where you live and what you do with your career particularly as theres a very good chance she'll be moving out in 2 years. I'd be supportive and sensitive towards her, and prepare myself for her being upset and things being a bit tricky post move for awhile, but come on. Shes a teenager and shouldnt have the final say by any means.
No offence to the rural world, but getting some experience of the city will also do good things for her knowledge of the wider world and different walks of life.

Experience: got moved when I was 17, didnt like it at the time but now realise how it shaped the path i went on to take for the better.