Moving with Teens - What to Consider before
Accepting an Overseas Relocation Assignment?

teenage-expat Moving with teens is a subject that we currently discuss a lot in our house. Our 3 boys are teenagers, and we are seriously considering a new assignment.

We read a lot about teenage expats, had tons of conversations with expats colleagues, social worker, and even psychologists.

We asked our teenage boys how they would feel about a new overseas relocation assignment. The 2 younger boys are very excited about the idea, but the eldest is strongly against.

This is why I was so happy when I stumbled across an article written by Liz Perelstein, the President of School Choice International: Relocating with Teenagers: When is the Best Time to Move? Her article verified what I was thinking about overseas relocation with teenagers and about teenage expat.

I thought that this article can assist every expatriate family who is considering an overseas relocation with teenagers. So I requested permission from Liz Perelstein to publish her article on expats moving and relocation guide website, and was happy when she agreed.

Relocating with Teenagers: When is the Best Time to Move?

There is no perfect time to move a child, or no specific age at which a child becomes too old to relocate. At each year, the decision of whether or not to move a child presents trade-offs. Sometimes parents of secondary school children are unwilling to move their children to another country. But for many families, the age cutoffs seem quite arbitrary, and can come as early as four years old or as late as 18. But in these economic times, when families are asked to move, they need to be clear about whether or not they are comfortable moving their children without making arbitrary decisions. The intent of this article is to spell out the pros and cons of moving children at various ages.

Costs and Benefits:

Younger children are more malleable, and therefore easier to move. Older children resist leaving friends more vocally and experience more complicated issues in terms of curriculum. But they understand a great deal more about different cultures, retain far more, and therefore gain much more from the experience.

Employees thinking about undertaking an expatriate posting always should think about how an international relocation will affect their children before agreeing to the assignment. Here are some factors to consider to help evaluate how easily a child will adapt to school in a new country. These are particularly important when a child is getting closer to the teenage years. Thinking about the unique qualities of an individual child is far more valuable than focusing on an age or year level.

Who is your child?

What kind of student has the child been academically? In what educational circumstances has s/he thrived and where has s/he struggled?
What kind of person is the child socially? Does s/he make friends easily or is it particularly difficult for him/her to do so? Does the child have special interests that can be continued in the new country that will make it easier to make new friends? Does s/he have interests that will have to be abandoned in the new country? Can you find a way to continue these on assignment?
Is the child doing well academically as well as socially at the present time? Ironically, it is easier to move a child doing well rather than when he or she may be running away from something.

What are the values of the employee and his/her spouse?

What kind of person do the parents want their youngster to become? Do they feel strongly that they want their child to be open to new cultures, to taking on new challenges and to confronting risks? Can they effectively support him or her during this difficult period? If the employee and the spouse's answers to all of these questions are yes, then age or timing may be less important than welcoming a move as an opportunity at any age.
On the other hand, if your employee moved a great deal as a child, he or she may have promised him/herself not to does this to his/her own children. If, for any reason, your employee (or spouse) has a strong commitment to having their children complete secondary school in one place, you may not want to move this family. No potential benefits may outweigh the disadvantages according to their value system, and the result may be a failed relocation.

What are the academic considerations for a child the age your employee will be relocating, those s/he will encounter when repatriating, and how do they fit the long-term plans of the family?

Timing

From the standpoint of the educational program alone, there clearly are certain times that are better to move a child than others. This is not only true of the teenage years. For example, a British child who has completed reception class is not at an ideal stage to embark on an American curriculum. Unless the child moves to a school where the reading program is individualized, children who already are reading will be taught phonics again. A British child educated in the United States who returns at the age of 14 or older, during study for the GCSE (General Certificates of Secondary Education) will be behind his or her peers in test preparation. The same issues come into play for a repatriating child.

Coordination of Curriculum

At any age, but particularly for a teenager, it is essential for a parent to consider the curriculum that the child is leaving and try to coordinate it with the curriculum he/she is going to, unless the family makes an informed decision that they wish for their child to experience the local education. It is wise, although not always possible, to anticipate the educational program that he/she will attend upon repatriation or the next move.

Parents moving abroad generally have three kinds of curricular choices in the destination country, all of which should be explored by your employees before making any decisions:

International schools;
National schools of the employee's culture;
Local schools.

Despite their importance, curriculum considerations never need be the reason for an employee to forgo an overseas assignment. International schools have been established all over the world to allow for continuity of program and coordination of schooling. As a byproduct, teenagers will find peers who are accustomed to moving regularly and faculty trained to understand and accommodate varied curricular backgrounds.

What HR Professionals Can Do To Help?

Understand your employees and what is important to them. Traditionally, relocation packages have focused on housing and moving of household goods, when education is of higher priority to many parents.
Maintain a list of other parents from your company who have had positive experiences moving school aged children to each destination country. Many welcome being contacted by new employees taking on overseas assignments. You may want to consider building a virtual community of parents and former parents. Nothing can be more reassuring than talking with other parents who have been through it successfully.
HR professionals may be able to put families in contact with international school personnel to have them reassure families directly. These teachers and administrators have a wealth of experience and can be extremely comforting.
Allow your employees time to visit a number of schools during their look/see trip to the new country. Try to time the look/see visit when school is in session to give the employee and the family the best sense of what the experiences of their children will be like.
Hire an educational consultant to walk your families through the process. It is extremely stressful and difficult for families to research and apply to schools from afar. This is particularly true when considering local schools where the rules, both written and unwritten, are culturally different from those your employee will understand, and the timetable is pressured.

The decision for an employee to move his/her family abroad during a child's teenage years forces parents to reconsider their definition of education.

Those who think of education simply as schooling are likely to have difficulty confronting their youngsters and encouraging them to embark on an overseas move. It certainly will require many adjustments, both of a social and academic nature. Particularly if local schools are under consideration, these are difficult to help children with unless your employees are entirely confident about the opportunity they are affording their offspring. If, on the other hand, your employees can be helped to view their children's education as the total experience rather than the hours in school alone, it is never the wrong age to expose them to new customs, to teach them to adapt to change and to seize an unanticipated opportunity. If your employee can be encouraged to think of education broadly, problems related to schooling, both on assignment and on repatriation always can be solved. Resolution of these issues in creative ways is part of the journey, part of the learning.

When we returned on home leave, from our first year of living in London, my daughter said to me "now I know, Mom, that there is nothing I can't do." If that isn't education, what can we teach our children?

The article
Relocating With Teenagers: When is the Best Time to Move?
was written by :
Liz Perelstein, President, School Choice International
www.SchoolChoiceIntl.com
and reprinted with permission.