Moving Home: Break the News to the Kids

Posted on 10/09/2016

Moving house is a busy and exciting new chapter that you are opening in your life. When children are involved in the moving process, this can inevitably add to the stress levels that you are going to experience. When children are part of your family home, they have to be involved in the moving process in some way. While you may want to take the easy way out and send the kids off to a babysitter for the day, there are ways that you can involve the kids in the moving process and make them feel important and useful throughout. You might even be surprised at how your chaotic kids can turn into busy beavers when given the right task. Help prepare your children for the entire process by following this guide.

Explain what is happening

Moving house is an emotionally draining experience and children often don’t understand what is happening. The concept of leaving one house and moving to another doesn’t quite make sense for young children. It is important that you explain exactly what is happening and give your kids a solid understanding of why you are relocating. Explain that it is ok to feel sad to leave one house behind, but encourage them to see the positives of relocating to a new location.

Provide your children with emotional support

Children aren’t as emotionally developed as adults and therefore can’t process the emotions associated with house moving. Children form strong attachments to their physical environment and it can take a toll on them when they have to leave it behind. As children process the emotions of moving house, they can often withdraw and act out. It is important to be patient with your children, give them the space and understanding to filter through their emotions. Also let your children see that you too feel emotional about moving home and that this is a normal part of the process.

Give your kids tasks to complete

To help your kids feel involved in the moving process, give them simple tasks. These can involve packing DVDs into boxes or sorting through their toys and deciding what they want to take. Make a visual checklist of things that you child needs to complete in a small timeframe so that they can work through these tasks independently. Remember that children have a shorter attention span, so they might only be able to focus on packing for half hour blocks.

Make sure your children have ownership of their part of the move

Your children are essentially seeing their childhood packed into boxes when moving home for the first time. It is important that your kids have a say in what is being packed and how it is being packed. Allow them to help you pack up their room so that they can acknowledge where things are being packed and process this happening.

Let them ask questions

When the removal van or man with a van team shows up at your doorstep, your kids are going to have a million questions for the removalist team members. Most removal companies have dealt with children before during a move so they will be expecting some questions from your kids. Allow a five or ten minute period for your kids to fire away questions and get the answers they need to satisfy their curiosity. This will help settle your children down for the moving process when all the boxes are being loaded up in the van.