A new school year can mean a lot of changes for children, even for little ones. Mum might be going back to work, they might be changing class, nanny, school, house, town or all of the above. It has now been a few months since I moved my 3 young children from France to New-Zealand and I think we did pretty well, especially when you consider they didn’t even speak English when we left- apart from Happy Meal, Planes, Cars and Toy Story. Which is great if you are speaking to a Disney fan over a McDonalds, but not so useful when you want to tell the nanny you are thirsty. We did some things brilliantly, and failed numerous times. Here is my advice, based on our experience, to helping your child go through a period of change.
1. Give as much information as possible about the changes: Who is the new nanny, what the class/ school is like, what the new activities are, what is the time frame… Children are often worried about the unknown.
2. Your change is not their change: I use to run my business from home when my eldest were at school until 5.30pm and my youngest with a nanny. I could do all the school runs and nanny pick up. My husband was either working weeks at a time away from home, or would be a full-time stay at home dad. We expected the biggest change would be changing language and friends. It wasn’t. The biggest change was having 2 parents working full-time outside the house, not doing pick-ups anymore and spending more time with the nanny than with us since school finishes so early. We did not anticipate this and it made the .
3. Explain the change: That was one of our biggest mistake. We explained the How, Where and When of the change, but never really discussed the Why to our 2 years old. We thought that as long as he had us he’d be fine. Turns out number 3 is ungrateful and that we are not his whole world. His older brothers settled much quicker as we explained, and they were able to understand, the process a whole lot better.
4. Acknowledge their feelings: When they are feeling sad or worried, acknowledge their feelings and let them know that it is ok to be worried or miss your old nanny/house/ friends/ teacher, that it is normal to be sad sometimes. Then make them focus on the positive and talk about what they will gain from the change.
5. Maintain a connection: Whatever the nature of the change your child is going through, try to maintain a connection with the past situation. It can be inviting friends that are not in his class anymore, visit or skype the former nanny, walk past the old house. Anything that reminds them of it, but not too much. It is about finding the balance between remembering and moving on to new things.
Change is difficult but your child will amaze you with how quickly she will adjust. Change for the parents is an entire new topic! I don’t ever think I’ll ever get used to the lack of varied, yummy and affordable cheese.
Helene Girard
1. Give as much information as possible about the changes: Who is the new nanny, what the class/ school is like, what the new activities are, what is the time frame… Children are often worried about the unknown.
2. Your change is not their change: I use to run my business from home when my eldest were at school until 5.30pm and my youngest with a nanny. I could do all the school runs and nanny pick up. My husband was either working weeks at a time away from home, or would be a full-time stay at home dad. We expected the biggest change would be changing language and friends. It wasn’t. The biggest change was having 2 parents working full-time outside the house, not doing pick-ups anymore and spending more time with the nanny than with us since school finishes so early. We did not anticipate this and it made the .
3. Explain the change: That was one of our biggest mistake. We explained the How, Where and When of the change, but never really discussed the Why to our 2 years old. We thought that as long as he had us he’d be fine. Turns out number 3 is ungrateful and that we are not his whole world. His older brothers settled much quicker as we explained, and they were able to understand, the process a whole lot better.
4. Acknowledge their feelings: When they are feeling sad or worried, acknowledge their feelings and let them know that it is ok to be worried or miss your old nanny/house/ friends/ teacher, that it is normal to be sad sometimes. Then make them focus on the positive and talk about what they will gain from the change.
5. Maintain a connection: Whatever the nature of the change your child is going through, try to maintain a connection with the past situation. It can be inviting friends that are not in his class anymore, visit or skype the former nanny, walk past the old house. Anything that reminds them of it, but not too much. It is about finding the balance between remembering and moving on to new things.
Change is difficult but your child will amaze you with how quickly she will adjust. Change for the parents is an entire new topic! I don’t ever think I’ll ever get used to the lack of varied, yummy and affordable cheese.
Helene Girard
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