How to Prepare Your Child For a Last Minute Move/Change of School Due To Covid:

9/3/20

1. Share with them early- It can be scary as a parent to share plans with your children when the plans are still being formed and are in the”maybe” stage. While I typically wouldn’t do this, and typically wouldn’t advise others to do this, it was necessary for our family because things had to happen quickly and we ALL needed that time to process, including our daughter. Knowing early on allowed her to feel part of the process. Of course we also said that we, her parents, would be making the final decisions but we let her know that we appreciated her ideas and we genuinely listened. Know your child, if they can handle a bit of ambiguity, clue them in early. If not, pick your time to share the possibility that you’ll be moving later in the decision making process.

2. Honor their feelings- There will be excitement, sadness, grief, and confusion. Do not push the feelings to the side in the interest of moving through the process faster. Moving is hard under normal circumstances and certainly harder during Covid. We talked about how it’s normal to feel two very different feelings at the same time and we were having the same experience, feeling both excited and sad all at once.

3. Let your children help and give them some power in the process- What would they like to bring? For our move we had to fit a years worth of stuff into two cars; therefore a lot of our things were being put in storage. Talk with them about what you imagine they might want and then leave it to them to decide (age depending.) Give them one or two boxes and let them know they can bring whichever toys can fit into these two boxes. (Then I had another secret box for things I knew they wanted that they missed, a little surprise for when we got there.)

4. Pictures- Use the power of pictures! Normally I would make a photo book to help her process the experience and to help her say goodbye to her home and friends but we didn’t have time for anything like that. So we used photo slideshows to reminisce and looked at photos online of her new school and the house we would be moving to.

5. Goodbyes- Say Some Goodbyes- Find a way to say at least some goodbyes in person. This was hard during Covid but I knew it needed to happen. A couple distant/masked goodbyes were helpful in getting her to understand that this wasn’t just a vacation.

6. Visit-When you get to where you are going or if you are just switching schools, visit your new school if you can or have your child meet their teacher in person (from a safe distance) if you can. If neither are possible do a drive by and stop outside the school to do a little visualization walk through (“So, I’ll drop you there at that gate, and then you’ll walk through those doors…) of the first day and to point out something nice about the school itself.

7. Sleep- Everyone should get as much sleep as they can. Moving is physically and emotionally draining stuff so rest up where you can!

8. Games and Separation Supports- for younger kids you can help them by playing games about “going away and coming back” like hide and seek, peek-a-boo, or even playing a game where their dolly/teddy packs a bag and moves to a new house. While they themselves won’t be coming back, these games about separation will strengthen their understanding about their own permanence and secure attachment to their grown-ups, despite environmental changes like a new house.