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NO MATTER HOW far you’re headed, everyone in your family has adjusting to do when you move house.
Your kids will be starting new school or childcare routines, and you’ll need to work on building a new support system and making new friends. Thinking ahead to these adjustments, both for kids and adults, can help you all settle into your home more quickly.
Four months ago we moved our family back from Houston, Texas, where we’d spent three years and gained two children.
With the gift of hindsight, I’ve realised that while I spent a tonne of time thinking and planning for the logistics of the 4,000 mile move, I should have begun to prepare our whole family for adjusting once we actually walked in the door of our new home.
I’ve learned a thing or two about how I’d prepare myself and our family if I had the move to do over again, but since we’re staying put for a while, I’ll share them with you in the hopes that someone else can benefit from the lessons I’ve learned.
If you have a move on the horizon, these tips will help you all settle more quickly into your new home.
1. Bring comfort items/sheets
Whether you’re moving 40 minutes down the road, or 4,000 miles away, one of the best ways to help a child get settled in a new space is to replicate their sleeping situation in the new home. Bring their sheets and pillows and get them set up as soon as possible so they have a sense of calm and familiarity in the new space.
2. Find similar new routines
Do you go to the same chipper every Wednesday night? The same coffee shop as a family on Saturday mornings? Scout out a few new traditions in your new home that can fill the gap that you all might be feeling in your new life. A new coffee shop for hot chocolate can be a lovely new routine that functions as positive reinforcement for your kids.
3. New school? Make a visit there early on
Your kids may be adjusting to a new school or childcare, so if you can set up a time for them to visit before you move, that can help them picture what would otherwise be a big unknown. Introducing them to their new teachers and a few students, and then talking about those people by name can help them start to feel like they actually know people in this new place.
4. Get paperwork sorted as soon as you can
Our kids were born abroad, so we had the task of getting PPS numbers for them and sorting out their citizenship when we first arrived here. If you have those sorts of tasks to do, block out time as soon as possible to cross those off your list. You’re bound to need those details in order to check off other parts of your list, like getting a GP card or sorting child benefit.
5. Get help minding kids so you can adjust
Book a babysitter or bring the grandparents with you for a few days when you first move. It seems tricky to spend time away from your kids during such upheaval, but in the end, having your house unpacked more quickly will help everyone settle more quickly. If you aren’t moving very far, you can go ahead and set up house before you bring your kids over.
6. Remember that you need to make new friends too
Making friends as an adult is no small task, and it takes time. The best advice you can take is to put yourself out there in the school drop-off line, at the playground or even at a coffee shop. I met my best friend in Houston simply because we sat next to each other in a cafe and I said hello because thought she looked friendly. It wasn’t the easiest conversation to start, but it was well worth it!
7. Mine local Facebook groups for insider knowledge
Since I had children in the States, I had to find new resources for all those parenting questions I had. Where can I buy a nappy bin? How do I find a good GP? Have a look on Facebook for groups that might be able to help you answer those questions. An acquaintance added me to a childminder-finder group and I’ve been able to ask the mums in that group other questions as well.
8. Take breaks from unpacking
If you’re undertaking a large move, you will burn out quickly if you don’t take breaks. I’d prefer to plough through the to-do list before stopping, but staying up until midnight to get everything put away or painted or organised for weeks on end isn’t sustainable. You’ll need to take breaks and walk away from the pile of boxes in order to make it to the end of this part of the journey!
9. Remember that it takes a while to feel like home
Having made a few intercontinental moves in the last decade, I always remind myself that it tends to take a full year for a new place to feel like home. If, in six months, you still feel unsettled, remind yourself (and your kids) that adjusting to a new home is a slow process.
10. Talk about your old home with love, not sadness
When we left Houston last summer, a friend said she hoped we would soon be able to think of Houston fondly rather than sadly. One of the ways we’ve achieved that is to talk about our old home lovingly with our kids. If they express that they miss something, we talk about what they miss and how it made them feel. We try not to shy away from feelings of homesickness and instead help them remember their old home and the memories we made there.
11. Plan fun activities in your new area
Everyone in the family needs time to enjoy their new neighborhood or city. Plan adventures to explore your new home outside of your house. Check out museums or playgrounds, and begin the process of making new memories in your new home.
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The more I read and research, the more I think the EU is a scam, and our boys have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
what did you find in your research?
They all genuinely believed in it.
Most external economists pointed out the inherent flaws and problems it would cause, famous noble economist Milton Friedman, wrote a prescient article in the late 90′s outlining why.
It reads like a summary of the last 15 years.
Germany, France, Italy, Holland are all locked in to sub-par or zero growth as far as the eye can see.
The continent will be long burst before the current strategy delivers.
The project itself is flawed, not just the regulation.
And the scam continues
The EU is a disaster. It’s only a matter of time until ‘the rules’ don’t suit the big guys anymore and then BANG little old Ireland having taken the hit for so long will be back in the mire due to ‘unforeseen crisis’ watch this space. It’s shagged.
Certainly the larger states have a habit of ignoring EU directives or having laws fudged for them.
However the Euro has destroyed their growth as well.
Germany, Holland, France, Italy all have had sub par growth or decline for 15 years.
All have seen trade with each other decline in since Euro came in.
Think that’s bad, check out EU’s own growth predications for the next 10 years… Then look at Youth unemployment figures across the med and here right now. EU bang on about tough decisions etc etc, the real tough decision that needs to be made is for somebody to admit this is a failure sooner rather than later.
Yet no one will talk about them.
The Eurozone is an economic disaster for internal trade, jobs, growth, etc etc.
It is destroying the North of Europe as surely as the South, just at a slower pace and their exports are hiding it.
We are going to have to wait a few more years, the Eurozone and EU have a cult following and loyalty.
They can’t fix it, the devaluations to bring the disparate forces in to line would destroy demand and employment in most of the continent for decades to come.
If I ever meet anyone who admits to voting for Brian Hayes I will slap them. The cost of this monster has been €8000 per head. This elephant can’t be fed and we are killing ourselves and starving our children trying.
Where do you get the €8000 per head figure from?
Ireland has paid 42% of the total cost of the European banking crisis, at a cost of close to €9,000 per person, according to Eurostat.
That’s were I got figure
“Ireland has paid 42% of the total cost of the European banking crisis, at a cost of close to €9,000 per person, according to Eurostat.”
Germany’s bank bailout cost her ~€300 billion.
Ireland’s cost her ~€65 billion.
65 billion isn’t even 25% of 300 billion.
If we didn’t even pay for a quarter of Germany’s bank bailout, how could we have paid for 42% of the whole of Europe’s.
The 42% figure is propagated by people who either can’t interpret figures correctly or more deviously, people with an agenda for whom fact does not matter.
Every single Eastern European capital has mover closer to the Viennese standard of living except Slovenia’s. Key difference, it is in the Euro.
For 15 years the Eurozone has had problems with growth, half of it has been chronic.
The ECB itself does not predict any decent growth this decade, especially in the well run North of it.
There is something far deeper wrong here than just the banking regulation.
no matter how fast you spin it this is bad news and further ties us into Euro and EU, no accountability, it means things like MARP can’t happen in response to national crises and this model is untested. It means a regulator is unaccountable and not appointed by elected government. The ECB is also not accountable and the name is as miss leading. The Emperor has no clothes.
Jobs for the boys on a European scale! All looking out for themselves!
Job for which boys? Banking regulators? Oh gawd…
An Irish politician educating us on how banks work….isn’t that a contradiction!
Most of Europe’s banks at the time were broke as well, including German ones.
They just let us take the hit and later on flooded their own ones with cheap LTRO trillions.
You have Germans telling us they are an economic miracle with 2% growth. Holland is a stable success story with bare growth for 10 years.
Sick parody.
He’s educating us about banking supervision – not how banks work.
@ Seanie: With aging populations and shrinking workforces, where exactly is the new growth going to come from?
” new pan-eurozone Single Supervisory Mechanism. ” – & so, the plot thickens…
“Staff working on the Supervisory Mechanism will not be entitled to regulate banks in their home country.”
Imagine if this had been the case in Celtic Tiger Ireland…
“Let’s remember that the financial crisis was truly European in nature and to eradicate potential future contagion, we need to develop a unified European approach.” Really????
So when people spoke out about the EU not being fit for purpose Brian, you told us it was a global issue/crisis starting with Lehman Brothers…No???
I for one certainly agree that most of our current problems are “truly European in nature”, but not exclusively. Cowards in FF, FG and LB also share that accolade.
have your say