Moving to a new area can be tough on your teenagers regardless of whether it’s to the other side of town or to another part of the country. Consider how much stress that the move is causing you. It’s probably even worse for your teen because he or she is trying to deal with losing contact with friends and familiar places.

Teenagers spend a lot of time developing social skills with their peers. When their efforts are undermined by relocation, they may become angry and depressed. Some of the anxieties that your teen may experience will have to do with finding a new group of friends that he or she will fit in with and finding places that they can hang out in. While you may also be experiencing some anxiety about your new job and neighbors, consider that your teenager probably hasn’t had to deal with this before and so they might be frightened by the possibility of not being able to find a new social circle that they can be a part of.

Even if your teen is reluctant to move, there are several things that you can do that will make relocation easier on your teen. First, try to plan on moving at a time that’s most convenient for your teenager. This means that you may want to wait until the end of the school year before you move. While joining a new school can be difficult at any time, showing up in the middle can make it particularly difficult for your teen because many social circles might already be concretely decided by the time that he or she gets there. By moving in the middle of the year, you will also be disrupting the teen’s education. It will be much more difficult for the teen to prepare for end of term exams when they join a new school in the middle of the semester rather than the beginning. While it may not be possible for you to plan your move around the school year, if you can do so it might reduce the amount of stress that your teen goes through.

You should also schedule a time that your teen can revisit his or her friends after you’ve moved. If you give the teen something to look forward to, then the transition may not be too difficult. It is important, however, that the trips not be too frequent. While it’s important that your teen has the opportunity to maintain friendship at the old location, it is also important that he or she forge new relationships as well.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 2:34 pm and is filed under drug abuse, parenting, schools, teen help. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.