Moving back to Britain from Scandinavia

[heyhegs]

Hi,
As usual for Christmas (and other times of the year9 me (Norwegian) and my British husband are suffering severe homesickness. I call Britain 'my home' as well, as I moved there when I was only 18, had my degrees, established a career, got married, had a kid, then moved back to Norway with my English husband at the age of 30. We have now been in Norway for 9 years.(kids now 10 and 13 years) We have good jobs, the kids are thriving, we have a nice house, we live in Oslo. We have access to great nature, trips to mountain, skiing etc. but we do these things a couple times a year (as my British husband is not so familiar with this as me, and finds skiing daunting). But! there is a but...we are constantly homesick. Main reasons are that we never estabilshed close releationships here, especially my husband finds it hard to make good friends in the neighbourhood. We miss British food, people, ways of living, friendliness, more broadmindedness, humour we can relate to. We are also concerned that our kids are becoming too Norwegian, which makes it hard for them to have a close relationship with our English friends kids. And we are worried that they are missing out. We are very close to the British side of the family and we go back to the UK on regular bases. We do not have a lot of family in Norway as my dad lives abroad and my mother died when i was young. Sorry for posting such a long post, but i just dont know what to do. My main concern is, how will the kids cope with such a big move? Will my daughter be accepted by the other girls, moving to a new high school in the Uk? My worst nightmare would be that they would start feeling isolated!! Has anyone in here had any experience with moving back? Or, has anyone else have any thoughts about this?

I moved countries (from Iceland to UK) at 15 with family and it was the best thing that could have happened - in Iceland I was isolated, didnt have many friends, seen as a weirdo, studying all the time and no social skills - my class was tiny (40 people in my year group). I moved to a school with 200 kids in my year and found friends, a social life, activities, and started developing socially.

I was already fluent in English (bilingual) so that helped A LOT - I assume your kids speak both?

One thing to consider is to move before (Or after) GCSE - they take 2 years as far as I know (starting at 13?) and I think it would be tricky to join a school in the middle of that because the learning for the big exams for college will have already started. It might be different now, I moved 16 years ago! I joined after GCSE - started at A level - I was behind from my schooling in Iceland so had to catch up a bit but eventually I got good grades.

Kids are adaptable and resilient in my experience (I moved countries 4 times and I'm ok!), and a new country (for them) will expose them to new experiences, new culture and they will learn so much from it! I would talk to them and see what they think, what questions they have - in my opinion yours are old enough to have input in the decision.

Thank you for sharing. my daughter is a bit like that, we worry about her social skills amongst her friends here, where as our 9 year old son is outgoing. We have thought that it is not much room for developing social skills over here as our network is limited.