EXPLORING INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
...The impact of mobility on children
It doesn’t have to be this way. Mobility across cultures can be one of the richest sources of learning and personal growth that life has to offer. But these benefits only occur when mobility’s massive challenges are managed well. This article shares ten tips that can help, phrased as if they’re coming directly from children. After all, they’re the ones who taught me these things.
1. HELP US PREPARE FOR THE TOUGH PART, TOO
Moving abroad has a glamour factor. The thrills involved blind many to a less-glamorous reality: moving is an experience of loss. Important people, places, and roles are left behind. After the ‘honeymoon phase’, many people, including children, can be caught off guard, and feel lost and bewildered. Third Culture Children, by Pollock and Van Reken, explains in depth the impact of this on children.
2. SHOW US HOW TO SAY ‘GOODBYE’ SO THAT WE’LL BE ABLE TO SAY ‘HELLO’ Plan goodbye parties and rituals for your child and for yourself. One school in the Netherlands invites students to put names and messages on a wooden clog to give to each departing student. By saying goodbye well, you’re doing a favour for all involved. Only if people have been helped to do something that we all find inherently difficult – like saying goodbye – will they be able to welcome new people into their lives.
This explains why a goodbye party for yourself is
essential: it’s good for you, which is good for your family, and it models a positive coping skill for your child. In my book Safe Passage: What Mobility Does to People and What International Schools Should Do About It, I refer to this tip as the First Law of Transitions.
3. LISTEN TO US The stress of moving unleashes powerful feelings. For
a successful mobility experience, these feelings need to come out. Do not underestimate the healing power of simply attending to whatever a child is saying. Try just looking, nodding, offering an occasional “oh?” or “OK”, and nothing else. Having you as an audience is often all a child needs.
4. HELP US BY STARTING EARLY According to David Pollock (who wrote Third Culture
Children), it takes six months to pack up your heart and six months to unpack it. Packing up your home is hard, but packing hearts and minds well is harder – and more important. Start discussing how your child is feeling about the move long before it actually occurs. And keep discussing it well after it’s happened. “How are you feeling about the move?” is all the prompting they might need. Then listen.
5. IF I’M AN INTROVERT, REMIND ME THAT I’M NOT TO BLAME FOR MY PERSONALITY Dealing with mobility successfully means processing all the associated emotions well. But personality is a bottleneck. How quickly one tends to process emotions has a great deal to do with personality factors.
The more extrovert a person is, and the more open they are to new experiences, the more quickly they will adapt through the challenges of mobility. Conversely, the more introvert, shy and cautious a person is, the longer they will require to process the feelings.
This can be an opportunity to educate a child about the kind of personality they’ve received in their genes, and explain to them that personality is like eye colour: it’s something you’re born with.
Introverted, shy and cautious children require help understanding that their personalities are needed in the world, and that they tend to thrive in certain settings (in nature, creative endeavours, and so on). However, such children need tricks to deal with a life on the road. For example, teach them to look for somebody else who’s probably feeling afraid, like somebody standing alone in the playground. Teach your child to take a big, deep breath, walk up to that person, introduce themself, and then find out where the person has come from and what their hobbies are. Before they know it, they may have a friend.
6. GIVE US SOME CHOICES
For many children, the experience of having to move is an exercise in ‘choicelessness’. The Big People seem to decide everything: whether a move is happening, where it’s going to occur, and when it’s going to happen.
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