How To Prepare Your Children For A Move?

While moving is a stressful adventure, it can also be inevitable. One way or another, you might feel it necessary to move your family. But that experience doesn’t always work well for kids. It gets frustrating for them, considering they have no part in the whole plan.

So, it’s crucial to prepare your kids beforehand, to help them deal with the distress involved. We will be sharing a few tips on how to go about it. Also, you can now visit Valet Moving Services – Round Rock Movers for more details if you wish to move. 

Tell Them What To Expect

Sure enough, your new home is going to have different features than your old home. The school and the church are bound to be different, let alone the house. So, you can help your kids visualize these areas before moving to build the right expectation. For example, if possible, you can take them on a tour of the new home beforehand. That prepares them for the move and makes the activity less frightening. Also, you can show them multiple photos of their new home, including pictures of their new school and ice cream shop.

Let Them Have A Say

Like adults, kids like being in charge. They also want to control the situation at hand. So, to fulfill this desire, you can allow them to make some choices of their own. For example, you can let young kids decide the wall color of the new home or the color of their new beddings. Also, they can decide which toys to keep before moving. 

For older kids, let them take part in realtors’ interviews or let them give their décor preferences for the new home. The essential questions you can ask them include: can I get your view on our contemporary home decor? Or what must-haves do you prefer in our new home? 

By letting your kids have a say, you spark their excitement for their new home. But if the decisions you make don’t conform to their wishes, maybe you have less than enough money to purchase their dream house, be honest by letting them know the reason.

Prepare Them Early

Don’t wait until the day of the move to unveil your plan to kids. That comes as a tougher surprise than they can handle. Nevertheless, if kids are left out of such a huge decision, they might feel powerless and not ready for life choices. But conversely, they will feel more competent in decision-making if you let them in on this one. So, unless there are other reasons not to reveal the plan, tell them the exact date you’ll be moving and the reason for the move. You can show them a printed timeline that includes the date you’ll be visiting the new home, the exact time you’ll be packing, and the time they’ll start schooling.

Throw A Go-Away Party

We love making connections with friends and neighbors, so do kids. You are more likely to frustrate your kids if they leave without saying goodbyes to friends and peers. To avoid this from happening, give them a chance to say proper goodbyes beforehand. For example, you can throw a see-you-later party and invite all their friends, but do so early to give them enough room to see their friends for the last time.

It’s also important to have a plan on how they’ll stay in touch with friends after the move. In that case, you can leverage technology, like video calls or social media. Furthermore, having a once-in-awhile visit to the old hometown is also going to help.

Acknowledge Their Grief

Various factors like our worship and workplaces often strongly associate us with our hometown, even our own houses. As a result, we tend to develop strong emotions and connections towards these things with time. Therefore, it feels sad to move and leave our old towns, which is true for kids and can even worsen, given that they don’t understand the move.  

So, before leaving, you’re better off helping your kids handle their grief rather than forcing them into the situation. The best way is to let them understand what they are feeling at the moment. These are often feelings of anger, self-denial, and depression. 

To help them transition from these feelings, you can bargain their wishes and help them through acceptance. For example, older kids might bargain to stay in the old home with close relatives during the move. You can help them transition from this state and accept reality by giving them emotional support.

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