Internationally mobile parents have additional parenting complexities that they must manage, including adjusting themselves to the new culture they enter, easing their children’s cross-cultural adjustments, nurturing cultural identity and roots for their children, and operating in new roles and under different rules than their parents did. The most successful international parents are often those who recognize, understand, and respond to their children’s individual reactions to moves, who listen to and selectively follow the advice of those who have been there, and who prepare thoroughly before embarking on any international endeavor, including the one that brings them home.
Parents can learn a lot by listening. Here are some tips from kids to kids:
- Eat the food from the country where you are moving to. If the wait staff is from that country, watch how they behave, and perhaps try out some of your language skills on them.
- Get a pen pal or student mentor that you can communicate with before arriving at your new school.
- Be careful because your parents go crazy, particularly during the move. They tend to get forgetful so try to help them with their keys, tickets, etc.
- Say goodbye to the kids at school, to relatives, to the babysitter, etc. Have your friends sign an autograph book.
As Rosalind Kalb and Penelope Welch state in Moving Your Family Overseas, “Children develop a sense of themselves and the world that is truly special. They feel a part of the places they have been and the places become a part of them.”
As the anchor in your child’s world, how can you help them understand themselves better? How can you keep alive some values and rituals that are important from your home country? How can you help them discover the treasures awaiting in your new country too?
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