A move is an event filled with both excitement and stress--especially for children. To ease your children's worries and make moving an adventure rather than an ordeal, here are some tips to smooth the way.

Begin With Communication
Be open with your kids about the moving process. Kids, including teenagers, need complete, honest, simple explanations of the changes they will experience.

Tell your kids why you're moving, where you're going, where they'll go to school, and what the timeline is for these changes. Without this kind of information, children are likely to create their own version of the circumstances. Keeping them informed will also make them more understanding of the disruption in their lives. While you may not always have all the answers, promise to investigate your children's questions--and then follow up. Reassure them that you will be there to help them face new challenges.

Another important part of the communications' process is encouraging children to talk about their worries. Don't laugh at their concerns or belittle the importance of their questions.

While you may not understand why your kids need to know where the dog will sleep in your new home, your children should receive careful, sincere answers to all their questions.

Try not to take it personally if your child has trouble adjusting to the move and blames you for causing it. Explain that parents must make such big decisions for the good of the family.

Do focus on the positive aspects of the new home, neighbourhood, school, and community, but don't insist that everything will be wonderful. Even if the new home is better, it may take some time for your kids to let go of their attachment to the old place.

Parents should also allow their kids, especially teenagers, to grieve over leaving friends and places. This, too, shows that you take their concerns seriously. Encourage letter writing and keeping in touch with friends, rather than ignoring the importance of past relationships. You might help compile a video "memory book" of old friends, and take the kids to visit their favorite places one last time.

Consider What Your New Home Will Offer
Begin immediately giving your children information about the new community. What recreational opportunities exist? If your kids are interested in sports, tell them about the Little League or soccer program. Look into opportunities to continue their music, dance, or swimming lessons.

Depending on the location of your new home, you may even be able to find library books describing the area history and points of interest. Ask your children about the favorite things in their lives--the big backyard, the smell of brownies in the oven after school, taking the dog to the park--and discuss ways to duplicate those things in your new home.

Visit the new community with your children and take time to drive past places they will find interesting and important. If you can't take your children to the new town or home before you move, be sure to bring home photos for them. This will help them become more enthusiastic about the move and less fearful of the unknown.

To reduce stress and uncertainty, visit the new school with your children while classes are in session. Meet the teacher. Pay attention to the "in" styles of clothing, shoes, book bags, etc. With younger children, practice walking the route to school or riding the bus.

Involve the Kids
Involve your children in decision making as much as possible. Ask for ideas, opinions, and suggestions. Even if it's as simple as deciding how to arrange the furniture in their new bedrooms, being involved in the process will help your children feel less overwhelmed by all the changes taking place.

Parents may be tempted to send the kids to Grandma's or another caring relative during the hectic packing and moving process. Though removing the kids may seem like a great solution, it won't necessarily make the process easier for them.

Instead, include the children in the excitement of decorating and arranging their new rooms. Arrange children's rooms first--they'll feel more secure if surrounded by familiar things.

Do your best to maintain a few of your family's rituals even during the move. Every family has its own traditions or habits that give its members their unique family identity. It may be eating waffles on Saturday mornings, walking around the neighborhood, or enjoying a favorite TV program together. Whatever your family does to distinguish itself should be maintained as much as is practical to ease the stresses associated with moving.

Remember, the moving experience will affect younger and older children in different ways. The transition will be relatively easy for infants and young children, who are attached more to caregivers than to places.

School-age kids, particularly adolescents, are often quite attached to their friends, and sometimes even have their own lifestyles. A major change, like moving, threatens their feelings of control and independence and can trigger strong emotions, sometimes with behavioral problems.

Talking about uncomfortable feelings can help your child handle them and move through the transition more easily. Older children are capable of assuming a responsible role in the moving process, which helps them feel more in control, and offers the family some real support.

If You Have Young Children:
 

• Minimize changes to the child's routine or the addition of new expectations, such as toilet training, weaning, new foods, or a new pet until the child is settled in the new environment.

• Prepare for the move by using fantasy play with your child to act out the moving process with toys and stories.

• Expect some regressive behaviors, such as thumb-sucking, sleep disturbances, or bed-wetting to appear before, during, or after the move. These will disappear as your child adjusts to the new home.

• Involve your young child in the move by encouraging her to pack at least one box of her own things.

• Personalize your child's boxes by providing labels, stickers, rubber stamps, or colored pens to mark his own things.

• Avoid packing favorite toys, books, bedtime companions, and clothes in moving boxes. Keep those accessible, especially in a long-distance move.

• Create a "storybook" of your child's move by photographing him or her at various stages of the move and organizing the pictures in a special album or scrapbook. Be sure to include favorite play spots, along with friends and familiar people in the old neighborhood. If you have a video camera, make a special tape of your child or children and their move to a new home.

• Keep in mind that preschoolers think in the present. Don't be surprised if the concept of moving weeks from now or the anticipation of a new home has little meaning to them.

If You Have Older Children:
 

• Help your children say goodbye to friends by encouraging them to have a party or informal gathering. Collect photos and addresses, especially email addresses, and make a scrapbook, album, or video as a keepsake.

• Give your children specific jobs to help with the move. Let them know that their cooperation is essential and appreciated.

• Encourage your child to investigate your new community by visiting or writing for information, then sharing it with the rest of the family.

• Use any contacts you have in the new community through employment, real estate agents, professional organizations, and churches to gather information useful to your child.

• Make contact with club or sports-related organizations to encourage those interests in your family's new community.

• Contact your child's prospective school for information on registration, sports, clubs, extra-curricular activities, and any testing or health requirements for enrollment.

• Ask if copies of the most recent yearbook and school newspaper are available to help your child get an idea of the student population and what to expect on the first day of school.

• Try to time your family's move to coincides with the beginning of a new school year or term. Making new friends is easier when a new session is just starting.