Impact of frequent change of childcare, and how to minimise

Question

We are a family with parents from two different countries living in a third. For family reasons, we want to move to my native country. The little one is two and a bit.

For my wife, lengthy (1+ year) residency permit processes are required before we can move. She now has the opportunity to transfer with her company to a neighbouring EU country, which would work great for us from the perspective of my family situation. Had it been only us two, we would have jumped at the opportunity to be a few hundred kilometres from my family.

It is, however, a different country. We worry about another transition for the little one: new daycare, new language and new friends, especially when we know that within a year or so, there will be another new daycare situation when we finally do move to my native country.

Assuming a loving family situation with its concomitant stable child-carer bonds, what impacts could frequent childcare rearrangements have? If the only stability we can provide is that we both will be there, what can be done to ameliorate the situation?

Answer 1

My son is three and a half and we have already moved 7 times since he was born. He has had many different caregivers and daycare/school situations, as well as many different "families," since we've lived with friends a few times. He is absolutely 100% fine, and is actually more flexible, adaptable and resilient than his peers. I will say that I have been present as his primary caregiver the whole time, though, so there has been at least that stability. The one BIG downside is that he hasn't been able to develop any significant friendships with other children, and this is something we see as a problem and we've decided not to move again (at least not out of the city we're living in, so he can start to form more lasting relationships with other children through school etc).

Anyway, I don't know how old your little one is, but a year will feel like a long time to him/her, and if you plan to stop moving after the subsequent move, I don't think you have anything to worry about (especially if he/she is still preschool age or younger). If you guys are excited about moving and exploring a new place, your little one will probably be excited too. At least that's been my experience. Of course you don't want to keep moving around forever, but I think in general kids are way more adaptable than we give them credit for. And I will add that one of the schools my son went to was a French language school (no English) and he was also fine with that.

Answer 2

Children are very adaptable but you need to consider that besides going to a new daycare, children in these situations have to adapt with living in a new house which can also cause anxiety in itself.

Drawing from personal experience, due to my wife's job we move every 1-2 years to a new country. What really helps is putting our children in a school of our native language. My wife's employer arranged for our children to be enlisted in a German private school and it helped the children tremendously.

Children form new relationships easily - so I wouldn't worry about the friendships bit that much. Since I have two children, these moves actually forced them to bond greatly - they have become best friends.