Teaching Abroad: Move Abroad With Your Family

Moving abroad with family and starting a new life and teaching work that sounds very exciting as well as worrying. Especially for young family members, it is not easy to leave a familiar community and move to a completely unfamiliar place since most of them are not as adaptable as adults. Therefore, you need some methods/strategies to make your family accept the fact that you are about to move abroad and look forward to it.

Keep your children involved

Children tend to be much more sensitive than adults. When adults decide to move, they always easily feel helpless and anxious. Leaving familiar schools and friends will make them worry about whether they can integrate into the new environment. Explain to your children the specific reasons why you move abroad, take the time to talk to them and try to comfort them if they feel very upset. Be open-minded, patient and willing to answer all their questions to make sure they exactly know that everything will go well and you all will embark on an exciting new journey together.

Tell your children about the new country

Just like adults, children often feel scared and worried about the unknown. You can use the Internet with them to search for information related to the new country (positive information), or accompany them to the municipal library to find related books or materials. In addition, make a sightseeing/travelling plan after arrival with your children, such as visiting a local safari park or enjoying delicious food at a local restaurant.

(Tip: It is highly recommended that you provide children with books related to the fields they are interested in, which will make them look forward to living in a new country.)

Host a farewell party or gathering

Invite your relatives and friends (including your child's friends) to the party and let everyone formally say goodbye. You can ask your friends to bring photos to hang on the "memory wall", or bring cards with blessings or suggestions to remind them that even if you are separated by tens of thousands of miles, you will always care about them.

Keep in touch with family and friends before moving abroad

In the weeks before you move abroad, use social software such as Skype to video chat (or voice chat) with your relatives and friends or share your photos and videos with them, so as to help them get used to this kind of online contact and communication, and let them know that you care about them. If possible, you can even set up a blog for you and your family to share your experience and call your friends subscribe to it to keep up with your latest life.

After you have made a decision to move to china, you may check here what you should bring with you and here is the compelte guide to teach in China.