Helping Your Children Prepare for the Big Move
Part 3 -
SETTLING IN AND SETTLING DOWN
As you’re moving into your new home and unpacking, try to make the setting up of your children’s special places a priority. Let them help make decisions about how to decorate their own rooms and make them as homey as possible as quickly as possible. Some of their old furniture and keepsakes will provide them with some security and continuity and help them settle in more quickly and easily. Don’t forget other spots that contribute to making your kids feel at home - such as a playroom or a sandbox, swingset, or picnic table in the yard, depending on your children’s ages and what they’re accustomed to.
In addition to this, make it as easy as you can for your children to make new friends; you might have a housewarming party and invite neighborhood kids, encourage your kids to invite new schoolmates over after school, and participate in local events at school, the public library, or a nearby community center. Let them join afterschool clubs, scout troops, the local band or choir, an amateur theater group - whatever interests them. You can also get yourself involved in things that affect your children’s lives: join the local carpool or the PTA, for instance. the sooner you all ease into daily routines, the more quickly you’ll all feel like you’re truly “home.”
CONCLUSIONS AND COOPERATION
If the entire family pitches in to handle preparations for the big move, your children will feel more like they are important members of the family. Let each of them have a part to play in learning about your new locale, preparing for the move, keeping ties to loved ones in the old locale, and settling into your new home. Your children’s attitudes should be improved, their excitement about the move heightened, and their fears diminished, if you make that extra effort and take that extra time to get them involved in every step of the process.
Good luck with your move, there’s no place like home - be it old or new !
The End