How does moving house effect your kids?

[CharlotteACavatica]

They are 6, 4, and 1 they have not moved house before, but we have our house on the market now and a few people have said recently that moving house can be very hard for children, how badly do they react?

we moved when my son was 5 and there were no problems at all, he loved it, it was a big adventure! and as he was quite young settled into his new school with hardly any problems.

Mine (4 & 2 at time) were a bit unsettled for a couple of weeks, especially the 2 yr old but the extra space & garden more than made up for it!

We moved to Oz in June last year (from UK) and dd was 2 at the time.

It took her a while to adjust to the diff time zone with her sleep & eating habits. But now she is fine, much as she was before.

Worse for her was leaving her dog & little friends, she'd ask for them all the time. Less so now tho, which is a little sad in itself.

I think you just have to make it into a big adventure for them.

Good Luck, am sure they will be fine.

We've moved countless times and I don't think any of our children have been adversely affected by it. Staying matter-of-fact but also presenting it as fun and an adventure helps. Imo, a positive aspect is that children learn to be more adaptable and flexible.

when i moved a friend said that children can often focus on the small things so i made sure i packed all my ds favourtie toys etc separate from rest and got them ready for his first time in the house (we moved during day while he was at nursery at age 2) - he had his comforting things while all around was chaos.

When we moved dd stayed at granny's overnight so she missed the move and (most of) unpacking. Her new bedroom was ready for her when she came. She was only 3 and spent the first six months asking if we could go back to the old house (at least once a week). But she can't even remember it now.

We moved when half way through reception. He was quite excited but on he flip side had to change schools so that took him a month or so to adapt to new friends and routines. He was more worried because he thought it would be like when you go on holiday and only take a few things with you. He thought he'd have to leave all his things behind. So we had to explain to him that everything in the house would be comming with us as well. Which was fine until he said - even the fireplace? even the doors? etc. lol

We moved last summer so my dd was just coming up to 3. I was expecting our 2nd baby in the august so i know that didnt help much either.
DD has found things very hard. Shes struggled to settle in this house. She has been quite scared of her bedroom and we purposefully went on a shopping trip together to buy things she liked. She started to wet herself in the day alot. Generally her whole behaviour was really sad.
I did'nt really think that it would have effected her the way it has and i think i took the whole situation too lightly.
However, she is on the mend now and is settling down alot better.

How far are you planning to move? tbh if it doesn't affect much else in their lives they'll probably take it in their stride. Just involve them as and when in choosing rooms, decor etc.

Oh dear, I am an expert on moving house with children as we are in our sixth house since having the children.

The good news for you is that at the age they are, your children should not be too badly affected. I would say that the 4 and 1 yos would not be affected badly at all. The 6 yo might be, it depends on his/her personality/friendships groups at the moment/etc.

At our last move, my children were 8, 7, nearly 5 and 2. The youngest was unaffected and the oldest quickly adapted and actually has never looked back as, at his old school he was not really accepted by the other children and had only one (sort of) friend, whereas where we are now, he found instant acceptance and has loads of friends. So for him, the affect was positive.

The 5 yo was a bit sad for a while but is very popular in her class and cannot really be said to have been affected longterm. She now (2 years on) hardly remembers anything about her old home and friends.

The worst affected in my family was my 7 year old who was very popular at his last school but has found making new friends very hard. He would cry on and off for months after the move and was always wanting to go back "home". He also had medical problems which I am sure were exacerbated by the move. He is better now, but I am sure he would still say all in all, he would rather our last move had not taken place.

Hi Charlotte (that's my name too!)

I'm glad you started this thread as I'm moving next weekend with my dd (2.75). It will be very hard for her, because my dh has to stay here for another four months due to work, so not only will she be moving AND starting nursery, she'll be missing papa too.

However, we've been telling her all about it, as often as possible for the past couple of months, so she's well award of what's going to happen and I'm just focusing on making it as pain free as possible for her and expecting her to be unsettled for a while. I think there is some really good advice here, I will be following some of the suggestions too.

Good luck with selling your house and with the move!

Main effect on DS (3 at the time) was that he wanted to be a "moving man" . He did spend the weeks/months leading up to the move asking "are we going to take X?" - it took a while to get the message that we were going to take everything, but when I overheard him reassuring the cat that we were going to take her I figured he had it sussed. It helped that he had seen the people who were buying our house when they came for 2nd viewing - he did ask about the "old house" a few times, but once reminded that there were other people there now he was fine. He also got to ride in the van with Daddy, but we made sure that Granny was on hand to whisk him off to her house and feed him pasta when he got bored of the whole process. We moved over the summer between nursery and reception, so the excitement of "big school" overcame the nerves - and he would have been moving anyway.

we moved at the end of October last year, ds was 3 and 1/2 there was nothing that stood out as a problem when we moved but he did get a bit confused for a few weeks, he would ask where everyone was and didn't understand that we couldn't just nip out and see everyone like we used to, we moved 40 miles away. If he woke in the night he got a bit disorientated and sometimes he would ask when we were going home, he thought we were on holiday or something.

The first thing we did when we moved in, my mum took him to her caravan til the next day, we made sure his room was sorted and all his toys were there, I really would have liked to paint his room but we didn't have the time, I can still remember them coming down the street I went out to meet them and his little face was so confused, it took him a few seconds to recognise me.

We moved just over a year ago, at first the children were a bit worried as they thought they they were not only leaving the house behind but all their toys. We soon put their minds to rest and took them to view the houses that we were serious about and they absolutely were brilliant when it came to moving especially when it came to choosing who was having which room and how they were going to paint it. I had a friend who had a young baby when they moved and to to keep the baby settled she painted it exactly the same as her own room in the old house- not sure if it helped but the baby didnt seem to notice the move!