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Moving house can be challenging at the best of times, but when it comes to moving to another country it can seem all the more stressful. If you're about to embark on an international move with your family then you're probably feeling a mixture of emotions right now - scared, anxious, nervous and maybe even a little bit excited for your new life. But if you're not sure how to handle it all, then here are our top tips for teenagers moving house...
1) First things first, what do you know about the move so far? What else do you want or need to know? Why not write down your questions and interview your parents! There's probably loads you want to know about moving house - from the big things like what your new house will be like and where you'll be going to school, to all the little things like what kind of bedroom you'll have and the kind of stuff you can do in your spare time. Write down everything you want to know about and then sit down with your parents and ask them. Make sure you understand exactly what exciting things are going to happen as part of the move, but if they don’t have the answers yet that’s okay; ask them if they can try to find out for you and if they can’t don’t worry about it, you can do a little investigating when you get there!
2) Plan your bedroom – This is one of our top tips for teenagers moving house, and can really help you to focus on the positive changes ahead. Once you know what your new room is like, ask your parents if you can help design how you want it set up - particularly if you didn't get a whole lot of say in what your current room is like. Get some paper and cut out the shapes of your bed, chest of drawers, wardrobe and toys and then draw another diagram of the shape of the room. Lay out all the items and experiment with moving them around to see how you’ll like it. Maybe even go online and gather some inspiration for decorating your room, or find out where you can go to shop for things you might like to add to it when you get there.
3) Create an address book of all the people you want to keep in touch with if you’re moving far away. Get a notebook and make a list of email addresses, home addresses, mobile phone and landline phone numbers and things like web messengers (Bing, Yahoo, AOL, Skype..) sign on names so that you can keep in touch when you get to your new home.
4) Research your new area – moving to a new country means lots of changes. But that's part of the fun, and doing some research can help you to settle in quicker once you arrive. If you are allowed to go online then see if you can find out some stuff about the area you're moving to - what does your new neighbourhood look like? What is there to do in the area after school or at weekends? Are there good places you can visit as a family in your first few weeks? Who’s the local sports team? What’s your new school like? What clubs does it run? What’s the uniform like? Are you going to be learning a new language or eating new foods? What's the weather like? These are all things your parents might not have time to find out for you while they're organising the move, so you might even be able to impress them by finding out some stuff that they haven't had a chance to yet!
5) Say your goodbyes - make sure you get time to say goodbye to everyone important to you. Maybe your parents will let you have some friends over or you can get together with friends individually. Make sure you talk to your friends about how you’re going to stay in touch and that they have your contact details too.
We hope you've enjoyed reading our tips for teenagers moving house - and remember, if there's anything else you want to know about moving overseas then you can check out our International Removal page to find out all about how we get you from A to B.
