Moving is always one of the most stressful events in a person’s life, but when you are moving with teenagers, and when you are relocating to a completely new place where they will not know anyone… well let’s just say stress does not even cover it.
If you are planning to relocate with your teens soon, however, you should not panic! It will always be tough, but if you know how to handle it right, it doesn’t have to be as awful as you might imagine.
With that in mind, here are my top tips for relocating with teens:
Tell them ASAP
The WORST thing you can do when you are planning to relocate your teens is to keep them out of the loop. Your teens need time to process the fact that they will be moving and what that means for them and they will not be happy if they find out you knew about it long before they did!
Yes, you may be busy clicking here to find out what you need to do to get your Canadian citizenship in place before the move, or worrying about how your treens are going to react to being taken away from everything they have known, but it really is one of those situations where you need to rip the band-aid off immediately for the best possible outcome to come to fruition.
Tell them everything
Okay, so you might not want to tell them every little detail, as a parent, depending on the reasons for your move and how sensitive they are, but you should aim to tell your teens as much as you can about the move, why you are going what will happen when you are all there and so on.
Why? Because knowledge is power and the more they know, the better they can adjust and come to terms with the situation, Not only that, but if they know why the move has to happen, whether it’s due to a job, caring for a family member or something else, they will be much more understanding once they ave worked through their issues.
Listen to them
What may seem like a pretty normal event for you could feel cataclysmic for your teens. It may feel like their world is ending if they have to leave their friends and family behind, start attending a new school, and learn all about a new culture maybe even a new language, so it is understanding they may be distressed.
The worst thing you can do is to dismiss those concerns because although you may have the wisdom to know it won’t be nearly as bad as they think, they do not and they deserve to be heard snd supported through what is sure to be a difficult time for them.
Let them say goodbye
It’s also a good idea to let your kids do what they need to in order to say goodbye. Let them spend a little more time than usual with friends so that they can get closure on the relationship and how it is going to change. You may even want to invite them over for a farewell party. Try to make it as positive as you possibly can.
Ge them excited about the new place
Trying to get your teenager to be excited about anything may seem like a mammoth task, but if you can get them involved in researching all the fun things that you can do in the location from nature hikes to amusement parks, then you might just be able to get them a little bit excited about the prospect of relocating.
Visit the new place
This may not always be possible, but if you can visit your new location with the teens in advance of moving there, so they can look around and familiarize themselves with the ways things are done there, it will undoubtedly make their transition to a new place a little simpler, especially if you make the visit as much fun as possible.
Remind them they can keep in touch
Reminding your teens that they can keep in touch via social media and video chats is a nice way to show them that, although they may be far away, their friends are just at the end of the phone, That is one of the best things about being young in the 21st Century and it doesn’t hurt to remind them of that.
With these tips, you can make relocating with your teens as low stress as possible, so what are you waiting for?
