Being posted to another military base can be an emotional roller coaster to even the heartiest of military families. My husband and I have been through two major postings in the last five years and with each one come pros and cons, sadness and joy.
Our current posting, which has our family moving back “home” to Winnipeg, Manitoba, is a welcome one. Unlike our move to the Trenton Air Force base, we are moving closer to family and friends and back into familiar territory. My husband is fine with the move, I’m overjoyed at the thought of moving back but it’s my girls that present a challenge when it comes to “getting on board” with this new chapter in our lives.
My three year old daughter, for the most part, is fairly neutral about the whole idea. She’s pretty much of the mind that as long as she’s with Mommy and Daddy the rest is just details. My five year old daughter is another story. Some days she’s thrilled, other days she’s near tears at the thought of leaving her friends and school.
We’ve tried to keep our attitudes as positive as possible, even while we were working our fingers to the bone to get our home ready to put on the market. Moving, no matter how welcome, is a stressful time for adults. There’s preparing the house, finding a reliable realtor at both ends, having people wander through your house during viewings, and trying to find a new home in a week in your new town or city. With all these new and sometimes scary situations, it only makes sense that our children will not only pick up on our stress but have challenges of their own to overcome.
The key, I believe, is to focus on all the great new experiences your child will be able to enjoy in their new home as well as being supportive of their feelings of loss at leaving their old home. We’ve been lucky this time around because our new home is really an old and familiar one to my husband and I. This allows me to remind my daughter about all the new and exciting places and activities she’ll be able to enjoy such as having a zoo only a few minutes from home, an amusement park only a half hour away, and not having to drive 40 minutes each way to get to dance class (OK…that one’s more for me than her but I threw it in anyway). So far this tactic has been working and her moments of sadness are becoming fewer and shorter in duration.
If you and your family are one of the many Canadian Military Families that will be uprooted this posting season I encourage you to check out this great article I found on how to help children deal with an upcoming move. I found it very informative and I hope you will as well.
The article can be found here.