Helping them transition: moving from one house to another
An urbanMama recently emailed:
I noticed there are several topics on relocating your family, all the logistics of moving, how to help little ones adjust...Most of those are people moving across the country or at least to a new city. I am in no such boat. We have been trying to sell our house for nine months now. We finally did it. We are moving in with a friend for a few months while we look for the right house. Our new -temporary- house is really less than a mile away, but as far as my four year old is concerned it might as well be across the country.
"Mom, when we live at Patrick's house, how will we still get to the pumpkin patch?"
Four year olds are worriers, at least mine is. He is really stewing on this one and it shows in his behavior at home. Does anyone have any good books they have read with their kids about moving that helped. We don't watch much tv but a few carefully chosen things do make it home sometimes. Any movies or kids tv episodes that were helpful? Any other outside sources that helped other mama's kids out there make the adjustment more emotionally smooth?
The Kiss Goodbye, part of The Kissing Hand series by Audrey Penn, tells the story of Chester Raccoon who has to move from his tree with his family. Very cute and my three year old son loves it.
Posted by: Erin W | May 03, 2011 at 08:43 AM
We made a cross country move about 5 months ago. Our toddler still talks about our "old home" when comparing it to our "new home" (she does this less and less as the weeks pass). We look at photos of the "old home" when she asks questions. The book that helped us talk about it with her the most is "Molly Moves to Sesame Street : Featuring Jim Henson's Sesame Street Muppets".
Posted by: Lydia | May 03, 2011 at 08:43 AM
I like The Wing Shop by Elvira Woodruff.
We did the double move this year with a 2yo and 4yo. The middle, temporary, phase was the worst, but there is natural boundary testing that comes with any move or big change. Just keep acknowledging how he feels and reinforcing the things that are important to him that haven't changed. (You still love him exactly the same, you can still visit the same parks/stores, he still has all of the same friends, he still likes to eat broccoli, he's still really good at riding bikes and helping to clear the table.)
One other thing that helped for us was to arrange playdates for our 4yo when we went out to look at a lot of houses. We did take him to the house that we chose after we decided to make an offer on it so he felt like he was part of the process, but the _whole_ process of trying to imagine yourself living in all of those different places was incredibly stressful for him. We also listened to his most important criteria (he wanted to be able to paint his room blue and wanted a "lego room" as our playroom is now called) and did what we could to accommodate him.
Posted by: Kris | May 03, 2011 at 09:04 AM
There's a really old Berenstain Bears book about the family moving from their original bear cave to the tree house that's in all the later books. Brother Bear is pretty young, and the story focuses on his feelings and emotions. It's super sweet and positive.
Posted by: ahrt | May 03, 2011 at 01:34 PM
There's also a Berenstain Bears book about a friend of Sister Bear's who moves away. That one might be helpful too.
Posted by: Kate | May 03, 2011 at 01:37 PM
Having been through something similar when my son was this age the trick is to have him feel settled enough to be happy without becoming attached since you know this is temporary. We chose the " this is an adventure " route and since we were on a temporary ( six month) assigment we didn't do moving books, etc since it would be six months before we were in the new house and instead we focused more generally on stories that involved changes and overcoming fears, etc. He defintely felt loss over the move and so we made sure to create a safe place for him but other than that we approached the days and the months as a journey that would eventually take us to our new home and we collected experiences, and momentos and really treated it like a journey always looking forward and enjoying every day ( as not to get bogged down in life will start when we get the house) but also not to get so attached the move from the temp house seemed like such a huge loss. He's much older now and the whole thing turned out to be quite formative in a good way for him.
Posted by: Karen | May 03, 2011 at 01:57 PM
We moved from overseas. I went online to one of those sites where you can upload pictures into an actual book. The book I had made for my 3 yr old included pictures of our house, neighbors, nearby family's house, etc. We kept it in his bookcase and he took it out to look at it often. Its been almost a year now and he still likes to take it out and look at it and talk about how nice our old house was and how he misses it, etc. I could not have imagined how much this book would help him adjust, but it did.
Posted by: mama | May 04, 2011 at 11:00 AM
We moved across town the week after my son turned 3. It's hard because routines are so important. We took him house hunting but used a couple of teenage babysitters a lot that summer when we wanted to look at a house a second time or sign paperwork. Also, my mother-in-law came to visit during to move which was a great help to give him more attention. Also, we packed up his room last and it was the first thing we unpacked that night so his bed and sheets and toys were all there that first night in his new room. I also recommend the Bernstein Bears' Moving Day book. It's very simple but covers everything about the move. After the move, for probably the next year, he talked about the old house and missing it and the neighbors, wondering where the elderly man we bought the house from went to, etc. But really after a year he doesn't mention the move anymore.
Posted by: Bonnie | May 05, 2011 at 09:02 PM
Our new -temporary- house is really less than a mile away, but as far as my four year old is concerned it might as well be across the country.
Posted by: cycling apparel | May 10, 2011 at 10:56 PM