Bonnie Russell hated the summer moves the most. They usually landed her and her siblings in what she calls the “nerd camps,” camps only attended by those kids who had absolutely nothing better to do for the summer.
Russell, who now lives in California where she works in public relations, also looks back not-so-fondly on her 11-month stay in Texas, if only because she attended Waco High School, which she refers to as “blighting my resume forever.”
Russell grew up on military bases, following her family around the country every time her Air Force father earned a promotion or job transfer. The frequent moves were tough on Russell as they are on any child who has to meet new friends, attend new schools and find new hangouts.But parents can take several steps to make career-related moves easier on the rest of their family. While these steps won’t entirely eliminate the stress and pain of what their spouse and children might consider an unwanted move, they will, at least, make the move less traumatic.
The experts say that advance planning is the key.
“We know that a move, even when taken for positive reasons, is going to be stressful,” said Dale Kaplan, vice president of clinical services with Maryland-based Employee Health Programs, a global provider of employee-assistance programs.
“Often, companies place a lot of focus on the employee who is moving, but leave the family hanging out there without a lot of support,” said Kaplan. “That’s why we work with the spouses and the children.
“How do you prepare children for a move? That’s what parents and companies have to think about if they want a career-related move to go well.”
The problem is, many employees don’t put enough thought into their job-related moves. This is understandable; getting an offer to work in another part of the country, especially in a city that is considered desirable, can be a thrill. It’s something many employees jump at, without first taking an unemotional look at both the pros and the cons of such a move.
But relocating often fails even when an employee loves her new job. The reason? The employee’s children don’t like their new neighborhood, school or classmates. If companies and employees set aside time to allow parents to conduct some research, though, a move will generally be easier on children.
“The success of any career-related relocation depends on how well it’s planned. The more planning you put into it, the less stressful the move becomes on you and the rest of your family,” said Patrick Sylvester, managing director of Banister International, an executive search firm based in Philadelphia.
Employees who have time to plan their moves can properly research the neighborhoods and schools of their new cities. Armed with information, they can then tell their children, for instance, that their new school features a state-of-the-art computer system, or that their new house is located just a two-block walk from the city’s biggest park.
Parents can also take video cameras with them during pre-move planning meetings to film the parks, schools and shopping centers that their children will encounter following the relocation. Children will then know, at least a little, what to expect. And this, career experts agree, is important, because the more children know about their new neighborhoods, the less anxious they will be about the move.
This is advice that John Heithaus took three years ago. That’s when he moved his family, including a 9-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter, from Connecticut to Washington, D.C., to take a senior vice president position at Monstermoving.com, a Web site devoted to, of all things, making the moving process easier.
Using the Internet, Heithaus found the home page of a soccer club and Boy Scouts troop active in the new community. He gave both Web addresses to his son, who was participating in both soccer and the scouts. This gave his son something about the move to which he could look forward. His son joined that soccer team, and is now enjoying his fourth season with the squad. He found many of his new friends on the team.
According to Heithaus, parents make a job-related move easier by listening to and respecting their children’s concerns.
“The first thing that’s important for parents to understand is that kids are far more empowered than they used to be. They are more engaged in the whole relocation process. Kids have a lot to say,” he said. “It all comes down to treating children and young adults in the house like they have a place at the table.”
This means that relocating employees should take their children along as they and their spouse search for a new house. It means they should take them to tour their new schools before the move. And it means sympathizing with them when they mourn the upcoming loss of their friends.
“The probability for a successful move is far greater when parents get their kids involved in it,” Heithaus said. “There’s less chance of it being a successful move if the parents simply say, `You’ll do as I say. I’m the parent.'”
Parents can also negotiate with companies about when their relocation will happen. It’s generally easier on children to move during the summer than it is during the middle of the school year. It’s also easier for children to move when they’d already be jumping into a new situation even without a job-related relocation; for instance, if a child is moving from elementary school to middle school, he or she would already have to adjust to a new school building and new classmates.
But there are times, even with careful planning, when parents won’t be able to do anything to lessen the pain their children experience from a job-related move. Patrick Lenahan, director of the career center at Roger Williams University knows this firsthand.
Five years ago, he moved his family, including his 17- and 14-year-old children, from upstate New York to Rhode Island to take his new position at the university. The move, he says, was terribly stressful. His children had lived their entire lives on one street in New York and had a difficult time adjusting to their new neighborhood.
“It took a year before the kids finally forgave me,” Lenahan said. “But they did.”
There are other times when the only way parents can prevent a job-related move from hurting their children is to not make the move at all. There are times when employees might have to sacrifice career advancement for the sake of their families.
Paul Coleman, a psychologist and author of the book “How to Say it to Your Kids” (Prentiss Hall, 2000, $14), said the older a child is, the harder a move will be on him. Parents should consider bypassing a career-related move if their daughter, for instance, is a junior in high school and a star on the school soccer team. Single parents should think twice about a move if the relocation will take their children away from the children’s grandparents. And those employees who are divorced should not accept a career-related move if it will take their children away from their father or mother.
“One of the things that parents are supposed to do is to make sacrifices for their children,” Coleman said. “Passing on a career move might be one of the sacrifices you have to make. When considering a move, be honest. Don’t skim over the problems the move will cause. It may not be a good idea if your son in high school has to leave all his friends, even if not moving will hurt your career.”
Today’s job market concerns Coleman because so many parents are hopping around the country to take new jobs or promotions.
“I think we’re becoming too efficient when it comes to making career-related moves. There’s a joke that people who work at IBM tell. They say `IBM’ stands for `I’ve Been Moved’,” Coleman said. “After awhile, you numb yourself to it. There are young people who’ve moved every year of their life. The problem is, the more moves a child takes, the less chance he has to make connections.”
