Help your child cope with moving house

If you thought being pregnant and becoming a parent was stressful, wait until you decide you need to move to a larger house! Research suggests that moving house is one of the most stressful experiences we go through, almost as anxiety-ridden as family bereavement, illness and divorce. And moving house with children makes it even harder! 

If your child is a baby or very young toddler they may not yet have formed a deep attachment to your home and won’t have any special friends they don’t want to leave. Preschoolers can be harder hit because they like familiarity and may not want to leave their friends and home. But whatever their age, the tensions that inevitably arise when organizing a house move will likely interfere with your child’s routine and may result in feelings of insecurity. It’s very important that they know you’re there for them and that their needs are being met, so you can best help them through by making the effort to spend special time with them even if you’re busy with organizing your house move and packing up your possessions.

It’s best not to simply spring your house move on your child – as young as she is she still needs to understand what’s going on. Keep it brief, and don’t over-explain matters. Keep reassuring her about where she’ll be sleeping and that all her clothes and toys, and her bed, will be going with her to her new home. It can help to use playtime and stories to act out your house move – if she has a doll’s house that can be the perfect prop for her to pack her dolls’ things and all the furniture and then move it all back in!

Visiting your new home or showing her photographs of your new home (the realtor’s website may have pictures if the house is far away) will help her get a feel for it before you move in and you also might want to include her in the process by letting her choose paint colors for her new bedroom. Talk up your new home – tell her about how it’ll be bigger, she’ll have a bigger room, maybe even a pool or a pet if there’s additional yard space. Selling your new home to her in this way will give her good feelings about it ahead of the move. Involve her in the move itself too. Give her a couple of boxes she can pack her things into, with a box of special things to take in your car for the journey to her new home so she’ll have them at her disposal the moment you arrive.

Your child will likely be sad about leaving her old home even if she’s excited about going to the new one. Help her deal with any emotions by making a memory book together: fill it up with pictures and souvenirs of your old home and neighborhood – include pictures of her friends and her favorite places, such as the playground. And on the day of the move, walk through your old home together so she can say goodbye properly.

Once you arrive at your new home, treat it like an adventure. Explore all the rooms together, count the rooms, spend a half hour or so playing hide-and-seek. Then unpack your child’s things first if you can, so that her bedroom is all made up with all of her familiar possessions and furniture in situ, to start rebuilding her sense of security and reinforcing the idea that her life will carry on as normal but just in a new house. You might have some problems with her at bedtime but stick to your usual routine. If she’s getting out of bed and coming to find you, calmly take her back and get her into bed, reminding her that this is her new bedroom.

As soon as you’re settled in your new home, go out exploring – and tracking down new playmates! Toys and trikes in yards are giveaway signs that other children live nearby and it’s worth making the effort to knock on a few doors and introduce yourself and your child, and perhaps arrange a playdate. Get out into the community to make friends too – the library will likely run story and craft sessions for preschoolers and the local playground is always a great place to chat to other moms and find out about local kid-friendly facilities.

Read all about it…

• Moving House By Anne Civardi (Usborne First Experiences)
• Goodbye House By Frank Asch (Aladdin/Simon & Schuster)
• Big Ernie’s New Home (Magination Press)
• Moving with Kids (Harvard Common Press, $9.95)
  

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