Moving house is very important for your family, and even if you are moving a short distance, the process can be quite chaotic because you are packing everything up and physically transporting your family to your new location, and this is why it can be even harder for your children.
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Going to sleep in one place and then having to fall asleep in another can result in a lot of confusion, anger, and sadness resulting in regression. Throw into the mix parents who are tired, and it’s not a good combination! Let’s show you how you can make things easier for the children.
Help your child understand what is going to happen when moving house
Giving your child an understanding of everything is so important. If you can, visit the place, but you can also take your children to the playground, visit their new school and do the things that will be part of your new life. This is why you can benefit from offloading a lot of the stress so you can actually focus on helping your children get to grips with moving house and this place. A removals company will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, so on moving day itself, you can help your children understand where everything is and find a few things that they can feel an emotional connection to.
Look after yourself
You will be going through a multitude of emotions, and you have to remember that if your child is exhausted and stressed you are going to feel much worse, and you could say things you regret. Moving house is very stressful, but your children will need more patience from you. The cliche is that you should put on your own oxygen mask before you deal with anything else, but it is so important because if you can’t deal with your stress and try to put it off, it will come back and bite you eventually. So get enough sleep, eat well, and have some perspective, especially if you’re moving to your forever home.
Give your child some control over the moving house process
When we are moving to a new property we can all have ambitions about what colour the wall should be and how we can upgrade the property, but this is the ideal opportunity to give your child some control over some of the decisions that will impact them, for example, where they can put their toys or what colour to paint their room. With older children, you can give them a budget and let them do something that suits them.
Recognise Their Grief
Your children may feel very sad about saying goodbye to the things that they’ve known, and rather than papering over it, it’s important to address this because it will make their adjustment easier. Much like when they are starting school, a big change is going to have a visceral impact on them. But when you start to acknowledge and honour the grieving process, this is not just a lovely little way to say goodbye to your old home, but it’s also such a fantastic beginning. It’s not an easy thing to understand but with the right tone and tact, your children can get to grips with it.
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