Relocating With Teenagers.

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 do 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?

Minimizing Schooling Challenges

Scenario:

You moved a family with three children to London at the start of the academic year.  As a result of the recession, you are moving the assignee home next week.  The family of 5 was transferred on an expat package.  You are not prepared to continue paying the expat allowance until the school year is completed.  The parents are distressed because of their children.  The spouse, who was reluctant to move at the outset because she feared her children’s transitions, is at a loss.

Repatriation and Children: The Social Experience

It is commonly known that repatriation is difficult.  And, while not often recognized, repatriation for children may be as hard, if not harder than it is for adults.  Just as for their parents, children have changed as a result of their time abroad, and so have their friends back home, so fitting in with the old group isn’t easy, and, in fact, may not be possible.  Expectations of the return home are typically high.  For many children, the entire assignment has been spent waiting for this date.  Invariably, hopes are shattered, and the former community doesn’t meet a child’s expectations.

My own daughter wrote the following poem on the plane home anticipating her return:

As thoughts wander in and out of my head
I decide that the best thing to pass the time would be to sleep
Though these aren’t exactly first class seats
they’re good enough to view the clouds and the miniatures below me
Only two hours left here
In suspense
But at the same time knowing how this story would end
Or begin
Excitement circulates throughout my body
knowing that within time
I will be with my heart
Though I haven’t been for what seems like forever
questions
so many
but only for the lapse of time
But for myself too to answer
Have they changed?
Better yet,
have I?
Too much thinking
Taking my own advice
I decide to let
whatever happens happen
Nothing now could ruin my mood
as we descend
down, to the place I once knew
and hope to again
know as home
This piece too descends to its conclusion.   (Sarah Perelstein)

Imagine her disappointment when she found that she had nothing in common with her former friends, her former world felt provincial, and it was “not cool to be smart” in her old school.  My daughter’s experiences, unfortunately, were quite common among children who repatriate to their former home.

Repatriation and Children: The Academic Experience

Among children who repatriate, whether or not they return to their previous town or city, curriculum rarely matches, courses may be taught in a different sequence, and students may find that they lack prerequisites for classes they are about to take.  Other children find that they have already read the books on their reading list, or may be ahead in foreign language.  Teachers at home may be threatened by their advanced levels of knowledge or simply may not know how to teach a child who is out of step with his or her classmates.  For high school students, meeting exit requirements for graduation may not be possible, or may require significant negotiation or manipulation.

The Current Climate:

The present economic climate has caused companies to look carefully at every expenditure, and expatriate packages are easy targets.  Families are being moved home earlier than had been planned, or transferred to local status.

“In recent months, companies have begun recalling expats from multiyear assignments up to 12 months early….The CEO of a Pacific Northwest manufacturer who requested his publicly traded company’s name not be used
is pulling his European division manager home after only eight months of a two-year assignment because the business can’t continue to foot the $500,000 annual bill for his salary and living expenses.*

*Workforce.com, March 5, 2009

These corporate decisions have a huge impact on families with children who have expected to complete an academic year in one location, or had not applied to desired private schools within the necessary timetable.  In addition to the typical challenges that repatriating children face, children moved home abruptly may have even a more difficult time getting into private or specialized public schools that do not offer mid-year admissions.  They may not have the ability to participate on sports teams or in plays or musical groups because these roles already have been filled.  They may lack knowledge or prerequisites to thrive in classes in a different country where a different curriculum is studied.  Even able children who may succeed without a foundation in a given subject may not be allowed to enter a class mid-year if placement testing is required.
While changing curriculum is a challenge for any repatriating child, adequate time gives a family the opportunity to tutor and otherwise prepare children for their new academic program, as well as to seek out alternative school options where the discrepancies may not be as great.  And time is a luxury that sudden repatriations do not permit.

From an emotional standpoint, there are complications involved when repatriation is unexpected as well.  Children may experience shame that the story they told friends when they moved abroad is no longer true.  And, if not prepared carefully, they may feel responsible in some way for the departure.

Got to Go, What to Know:

If you must move a family on short notice mid-year, providing them with an education departure toolkit goes a long way towards relieving anxiety for them, and retaining their loyalty to you.  A toolkit should prepare parents and children with what to expect, and give them an approach for entering their new school environment.

Tips for Emotional Departure Success:

• Say goodbye well;
• Take lots of pictures;
• Revisit favorite places;
• Get all important email addresses;
• Have a party.

Tips for Academic Departure Success:

• Identify key supporters at school and obtain contact details in case family needs anything after leaving:
• Take hard copies of transcripts and know how to obtain soft copies;
• Ask school to write up basis for grading if appropriate;
• Get teacher recommendations while still familiar to teachers;
• Talk to teachers about types of school where child would thrive in new home;
• Bring description of curriculum by subject;
• Gather awards, certificates, or physical evidence of qualifications achieved;
• Bring medical certificates in hand luggage.

Tips for Academic Success on Arrival:

• Have any documents translated;
• Find out health requirements for new school (more than one day before starting) and plan for medical exam in new home;
• Understand age/grade relationships as well as schoolwork/grade relationships;
• Discuss relative merits of age vs. schoolwork for grade placement with head of school;
• Understand curriculum;
• Learn application process and deadlines;
• Advocate for child about entering sports and other extracurricular programs mid-year.

Most of all, parents must understand and take the time to explain to their children that they have done nothing to cause the premature move.  Children have to be able to save face in front of their friends.  Families might develop a script, explaining that economic circumstances have affected everyone worldwide, and for different people, the consequences have played out in different ways.  In some cases, parents have lost jobs, others have moved to new houses, and their family has moved home early.

If a company recognizes the impact of its decisions and policies on families, and provides minimal support during this abrupt transition period, the impact on employee morale and productivity will have a significant impact for a long time to come.

Liz Perelstein is the President and Founder of School Choice International.  School Choice International delivers peace of mind to global corporations and the families they move with a team of 90 experienced consultants on the ground in 50 locations worldwide, including 9 special educators assisting families relocating or repatriating internationally or domestically choose the right schools for their children. School Choice International is recognized as the industry expert, bringing new initiatives to the educational arena.

by Liz Perelstein
President
School Choice International
www.SchoolChoiceIntl.com

International Relocation and School

Moving with children is always difficult, overwhelming parents with guilt. Parents have researched and moved mountains to give their offspring every possible advantage at home. When children have special needs, whether medical or educational, parents worry even more about relocating. Some have devoted their lives to finding the right school placement for their child.  Many have abandoned professional careers and replaced them by this as their life’s work. In all locations good educational options are too few and far between.

When a family of a child with special needs learns of a possible international relocation, the rug literally is pulled out from under them. Although research and treatment actually may be more advanced in the destination country, parents need to learn an entirely different system, understand the cultural context, and rethink best practice when considerable time, energy, and effort already have gone into the project. At the same time, waitlist spaces at schools back home will be lost forever, while obtaining a place in a new suitable educational establishment requires getting at the end of the queue again. This time finding the right school must be done in a country where the family lacks contacts or resources. There may be geographical complications and insurance implications. Sometimes, the move takes a family to a country where treatment of the disability is inferior to practices at home.  Moving to a society less informed about the child’s circumstances, where schools seem inadequate to meet the needs of the child is devastating. In these cases, home schooling, boarding in the home country, or forging an entirely uncharted path may be the only viable solutions.

Diagnosis Amidst a Move

The most complex cases occur when children actually are diagnosed with special needs in the process of an overseas relocation.  Typically this occurs when student experience difficulty in school, but obtain passing grades. Sometimes teachers are aware of a problem which is not recognized at home as long as the child is promoted from one year to the next. If the same child applied to the school s/he attends at his/her current age, s/he may not be admitted, but many moves occur before a learning or other disability causes a complete failure in the current educational placement.  Under the circumstances of relocation, such a student is applying for admission to a new school in a weaker position than the one in which s/he entered the educational system several years earlier.  However, in the new country, parents typically look for schools of the same caliber as the one their child is leaving. Prospective schools in the destination country may request further assessment information before admitting the child, and a diagnosis is made during an already emotional time.

When this happens, families need to come to terms with their child’s educational problem while finding a home, packing and saying good-bye. Mourning the loss of the image they have had of their child is difficult at any time, but amidst the turmoil of moving it is particularly unbearable. Struggling to learn what they can about their child’s learning issues and the new educational system simultaneously is enough to throw a family already under stress into panic.

How to Approach a Move With a Special Needs Child

To families who have children with special needs, whether or not to move is a decision of greater magnitude than for other families. Since the family faces additional stress, it is wise to keep other aspects of the move simple.  Education should be the first priority, allowing the family to figure out this essential aspect of the relocation with as few limitations as possible.  Housing decisions should be deferred, if possible, until after schooling, and other necessary therapies are explored.

Sometimes resources in the public sector are superior to those in the private domain.  However, for families moving from another location, this may present a chicken and egg situation.  In many countries a family cannot register for state schools until a house has been purchased or leased. In addition, the process of obtaining paperwork which allows children to qualify for services, takes significant time anywhere in the world.  Families may need an interim and a long-run solution if they plan to use state or public schools.

Navigating educational systems in a new country is daunting. When immersed in the details of a transfer, it is recommended that the family work with an educational advisor or someone qualified to spearhead the effort, pulling together help that may be available from disparate sources.  With one point person to steer the effort, sources of useful information include:

• Former school–specialists in one country may be familiar with experts in another;
• Research universities & hospitals;
• Advocacy groups;
• Legal documents, check which schools or systems have faced fewest law suits;
• Parent support networks;
• Newcomer organizations;
• Internet searches.

Conclusion

After all information is gathered, parents should make every effort to be realistic about their child and the alternatives.  The best choice for a new school may not mirror the school that their child now attends. If a child currently goes to school in the independent sector, but the new country does a better job with children of similar profiles in the state system, it would be wise to explore both alternatives rather than focusing only on a single possibility.

Moving to a new country may allow a family a fresh, new perspective.  Although replicating the services a family had at home may not be possible, considering all available resources may shed new light on a treatment, therapy or approach that may turn out to be the most valuable aspect of a family’s overseas move.

by Liz Perelstein
President
School Choice International
www.SchoolChoiceIntl.com

Since the late 1960s, the program has:

• Provided a package of education that balances subject breadth and depth, and considers the nature of knowledge across the disciplines through the unique theory of knowledge course
• Encouraged international-mindedness in IB students, starting with a foundation in their own language and culture
• Developed a positive attitude to learning which prepares students for university education
• Gained a reputation for its rigorous external assessment with published global standards, making this a qualification welcomed by universities worldwide
• Emphasized the development of the whole student- physically, intellectually, emotionally and ethically.

The International Baccalaureate program aims to develop global citizens who are internationally-minded. The content of its courses are international in scope and second language acquisition and development is emphasized. The curriculum also emphasizes study across disciplines. The IB stresses the importance of creating life-long learners, and seeks to develop critical thinking skills so that students "learn how to learn."

For detailed information about the three IB programs, please follow the links below to the official IB website:

• The Three Programs at a Glance:  http://www.ibo.org/programmes/
• The Primary Years Program:  http://www.ibo.org/pyp/
• The Middle Years Program:  http://www.ibo.org/pyp/
• The Diploma Program:  http://www.ibo.org/diploma/

2. Consider all possible options - public/private, local, national and international. Don't narrow your options by approaching the situation with preconceived notions.

4. There is not just 'one' school that is right for your child. There will be many good options; each choice will have pros & cons.  Do your homework. When visiting schools, ask a lot of questions and get as much information as you can.

5. There is no substitute for a visit. Make sure to visit a range of schools which include those you think you want to see as well as those that seem somewhat less obvious.

6. Don't be fooled by scores. Numbers don't tell the whole story. Statistics can be manipulated to make any case.  Test scores often reflect teaching to the test rather than teaching critical thinking skills. Test material, may not challenge the top learners.

7. Facilities matter more to parents than they do to children. Think about what your children really need to have a successful educational experience. In most cases, relationships with teachers and the peer group make a much greater difference.

8. Children in transition have difficulties. What are the support systems when things break down? Is the school proactive along these lines? What kind of communication is built in between faculty and parents?

9. Families who have never moved and are not planning to move have very different needs than children in transition.  Focus on the needs of your child.

10. Be open minded - sometimes a school that you don't think you want is the one in which your child will thrive.

• whether it is feasible to expect children to attend local schools in another country
• assessing competition for school places in destination countries
• the politics of the waitlist
• the difficulty of moving families at non-entry point times and grades
• evaluating the need for funding the high costs of private education
• balancing the needs of schooling and housing
• juggling the tight timetable of relocation with lengthy admissions cycles
• accommodating the learning needs of each child, including special needs
• making the choice between private, public (state) and boarding
• the differences in curricula between countries

As an employer, you cannot afford to ignore your relocating employees’ concerns about their children’s education.  The statistics make it clear:

• 84% of assignees cite worries about their children's education as a reason for not accepting an overseas assignment.
• 71% of assignees cite difficult family adjustment as a reason for an early return.
• 51% of assignees have children accompanying them.*

*(Figures: Cendant Mobility 2004, Cartus 2007 Policy and Practices Survey and GMAC Global Relocation Trends 2008)