Helping a Child Adjust to Moving

Let me put this out there, I firmly believe that moving to a new house, and subsequently a new school, is good for kids. They learn that the world doesn’t end when they don’t see the same people every day. It teaches them to maintain relationships from a distance through phone calls and Instagram, and it helps prepare them for when they do actually move out on their own. There are a lot of good things that come out of it; however, that doesn’t make it any easier on kids.

My husband’s job put us in that position when our daughter was in eighth grade. I know in some areas, eighth grade isn’t much different than any other grade but around our area, eighth grade graduation is a right of passage. It means so much to the class to be able to celebrate together. The kids get dressed up and have a big party. It’s almost a mini prom. So, when we moved, she was devastated. No matter what we said, it was never going to be good. It would never be right. And we were ruining her life by moving. It was hard to see her like that.

We moved to an area filled with small towns. The closest mall is over an hour away. All the kids had known each other from birth. Well, not literally, at least not in all cases, but some had. It made it very hard for our daughter to connect with them. Not that she doesn’t have a wonderful personality or has a hard time making friends, but they all had that connection from having known each other for years. The type of connection where you can mention a word and your friends burst into laughter while any outsiders look around wondering what the joke was. Being the only new kid in her class, it was hard to break into that. We often heard that she wanted to move back home.

Then one day while we were out checking out one of the towns near us, we spotted a Martial Arts School. This particular school offers many types of Martial Arts to its members giving students a chance to try a variety of classes and decide which one, or which ones, they want to keep doing. My daughter had tried a form of Kung-Fu before and not been overly enticed by it. We talked about it and she decided to try the boxing/kickboxing class. Once she got a little more comfortable with the people and the way the class was run, she expanded into Kung-Fu. This one is a different form of Kung-Fu then what she had tried before, and she took to it right away. She has since added Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) to the list as well.

Meeting people who share the same interests as her and the same devotion to those interests has helped her adjust to the new area. She has come completely around from wanting to move back to our previous area to wanting to stay here and settle down here after she finishes her post secondary education. I know that Martial Arts isn’t for everyone by any means but taking the time to find something that your child connects with and thoroughly enjoys will help make the transition much easier. It gives them something to hold onto and helps them create the understanding that through change, good things can happen. Without this connection early on in life, it can become very difficult to accept change. Moving out to pursue school or other ventures can become a scary thing. In some cases, scary enough that it doesn’t happen. You don’t have to move four hours away like we did to give them that, but if you do, finding something the kids can connect to can turn what seems like the end of the word into a beautiful new beginning.