Relocating with my teenage daughter (child care, weight, boy, son)

[Radek]

Originally Posted by Dave1215

Reasonable option in my mind. I would give the counselor a heads up since you don't know what other issues might arise with this arrangement. The counselor can keep an objective open eye. Keep good communication with both the counselor and the family she will be living with.

yeap.

(apparently I need to type 10 characters)

[KevK]

If that were my daughter I would not move unless I absolutely had too. It is very hard to move kids in high school. Especially if they are where they have spent their lives and developed friendships and realtionships over a long period of time. If you have to move, you have to move and she will just have to live with it unless she has a friend she can stay with for the next 3 years during school. When I was in high school I too would have been very resistive to such a move. Nobody wants to start all over after years of building relationships with friends. You go from being "somebody" to being "nobody" in the new place and often times teenagers subjected to it have falling grades and even lose interest in school altogether. It is really risky to force a teen that age to move. If she has a friend or other relative she can stay with and finish school, I would really consider allowing it if it were me. If you have to, you need to make her as comfortable as you can. If she does not have a cell phone and computer, get her one so she can keep up with the friends she left behind while she begins the process of making friends in the new place. Since it is only 2.5 hours, you might consider letting her have some weekends back with her friends if the parents say it is OK. Evetually she will make some new friends but the process will be painful to say the least. With little kids this is easier but once they get to high school, not easy. I would not even think about doing with mine who is a senior now.

[KevK]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

Just send her on a vacation trip with your parents and move while she is away. Then she cannot refuse to move and cause added stress or problems during the moving process. She can just return to the new house. That way you can avoid telling her at all. In fact, since you replicated everything at the new place, just bring her home from vacation to the new house and see if she notices. Maybe she will not be able to tell the difference.


When we moved, one of our daughters took more than two years to get over it completely. (It has only been two years so far). She was really mad at first, but as she got more and more involved in things at school and in the community, she became less and less angry. She will always be mad at us despite the fact that we believe that it is better for her here. It is mostly better for her siblings, she gave up a lot when we moved, but she recovered. Kids are very resilient. Teenagers have gotten through much more severe issues than moving (loss of one or both parents, death of a friend, rape, etc) and turned out ok.

Yes kids are resilient but teenagers are not. They are pretty set in their ways and two years is the rest of this girls high school! I am not saying she will not be OK, I am sure she will be but you find yourself with an Honour Roll student here that all the sudden a "C" student and that just does not wish to be involved in school the way she used to be. She may become quite depressed and stay to herself most of the time. You really have to watch her and be supportive.

[KevK]

Originally Posted by jtjmom

There did come an 11th hour offer from the one person I'd trust to leave her with to let her stay the remainder of the school year. I went to meet with them Monday evening, and we came to an agreement. I'll be letting her stay with a friend, and coming to see her on a weekly basis with her brothers.

She is still understandably in a funk, as she will be losing all of her precious privacy, her room, all of her alone time, and her 24/7 taxi service (aka mom... lol). I have offered to set up her room for her down there, and told her that she can bring friends with her for the first trip down.

The people she will be staying with run a much tighter ship than I do. Perhaps this will be good for her. I think she's having a "grass is greener" moment, and maybe she'll learn that it's brown over there, too.

In the mean time, should I maybe give the counselor at school a heads up? She is already tired and depressed, and I know her school will be starting to suffer as well. She doesn't really believe in counselors, does anyone have any suggestions? Or should I trust that she will talk to her friends?

Thanks again to all who have weighed in!

~Danielle

You really made the right decision here. And you might bring her to the new place on a few weekends or this summer for some time and let her stay in "her" room and she might decide that "hey this is not so bad after all" and move with you for her Senior year. As for counselors, she has them already. They are called "friends".

[jtjmom]

Hello, all!

Well, we've been moved for about two weeks now. Daughter is still "back home" staying with her friend. I'm trying to stay busy on this end, and just giving her some space. She doesn't call unless she needs something. I call her about every other day, just to get my "fix." I miss her terribly.

We've been back twice (every Saturday) so far to see her. Things seem ok to this point.

On the phone last night, I was hearing her say things in the background like "We don't do that at my house," and she told me that her roommate "needs less sleep than I do." She's getting tired, and while I actually do believe in "makeup days" to let her catch up on her sleep when she has a lot of activities going on, the people she's staying with do not. (The parents and I talked about that specifically, so I kind of set her up on that one.) It's just a radically different lifestyle than she's used to. I extended an open invitation again for her to come down for a weekend. It was met with a firm NO. We will see. From what I heard last night, she may/may not make it to semester's end before she cracks... She's stubborn enough that I think she'll stay just to prove a point. The friend's dad, who knows her pretty well (she calls him Daddy) said at the outset that she'll only last three weeks. The mom and I both said she'd make the whole time. We shall see who was right.

Next week will be tough for me. I'll be putting together her room, which has to this point been sitting vacantly full of boxes with the door closed. I've been hyperfocused on unpacking and helping my littlest one settle into school. Next, I'll be looking for a job.

I know I've made the right decision in letting her finish the school year. It just upsets me (in a satisfying way) to know that I was right about her ability to assimilate into this other family. She's kind of a hermit crab, but she's chosen to live in the middle of a beach party!

Thanks for letting my vent, sorry for rambling on!

~Danielle

[stargazer]

Maybe being away will make her want to come HOME. That way she won't feel forced later. The summer then will give her a chance to trasition and make friends in her new town. I have enjoyed reading this thread. I think your a great mom!

[Brooklyn_QueenBee]

As parents we have to do things for our benefit, which does not include the children. I moved 7 months ago with a 15 year old--believe me its not easy. It was happy for me, but awful for her. She was so miserable that I sent her to live with her father; she came back after a week. Later that month she tried to commit suicide. Although I got her the help she needed, I'm still the mother and we are not moving back. It's 3 months later and she's adjusting better. Teens have a high rate of suicide and so much pressure from to fit in. Get her someone to speak to on a weekly basis and they should be able to make the transition smoother.

[Dave1215]

Originally Posted by arussell

As parents we have to do things for our benefit, which does not include the children. I moved 7 months ago with a 15 year old--believe me its not easy. It was happy for me, but awful for her. She was so miserable that I sent her to live with her father; she came back after a week. Later that month she tried to . Although I got her the help she needed, I'm still the mother and we are not moving back. It's 3 months later and she's adjusting better. Teens have a high rate of and so much pressure from to fit in. Get her someone to speak to on a weekly basis and they should be able to make the transition smoother.

Thanks for the advice - just what I want to do - go do something just for my benefit that will put my kid into a suicide situation...

[soontob]

Originally Posted by Dave1215

Thanks for the advice - just what I want to do - go do something just for my benefit that will put my kid into a suicide situation...

Dave 1215
I'm with you. I understand sometimes as parents, we need to be the PARENT and stick to our guns but never would I force my child to move if it was causing her/him so much distress.
Arussell:: You are SOOOOOO lucky that you didn't lose your child. Would the move and standing your ground at that point really have mattered so much?

[Dave1215]

Originally Posted by soontob

Dave 1215
I'm with you. I understand sometimes as parents, we need to be the PARENT and stick to our guns but never would I force my child to move if it was causing her/him so much distress.
Arussell:: You are SOOOOOO lucky that you didn't lose your child. Would the move and standing your ground at that point really have mattered so much?

Thanks for that note... I have made several career decisions to not locate for the sake of family. Now that they are about out of the house I don't regret those decisions at all.