Everything in Boxes

For the adults, a move is a project: dates, boxes, solicitors, broadband. For a child it is something else entirely — the simultaneous removal of the bedroom ceiling they know by heart, the walk to school, the shop where the man knows their name, and the friend whose house they could reach without asking permission.

None of that appears on the checklist, which is why so many families are blindsided when a settled child comes apart two months into a move that everyone agreed was a good idea.

The settling curve

Most children follow a recognisable shape. There is often an initial period of excitement and cooperation — new room, novelty, adults being unusually cheerful. Then, once the boxes are gone and the household returns to normal demands, the loss arrives. Six to ten weeks post-move is the most common point at which sleep, mood and school behaviour deteriorate. Parents frequently conclude something new is wrong. Usually the move has simply caught up.

Before the move

1. 01
   Tell them early, and honestly

   Children who find out late learn that big things happen without warning — a belief that costs far more than a few weeks of anticipatory worry.

2. 02
   Give them real decisions

   Small, genuine choices: wall colour, which box their things travel in, where the bed goes. Agency reduces the sense of things being done to them.

3. 03
   Visit the ordinary places

   Not just the house. The route to school, the corner shop, the park. Familiarity with the everyday geography matters more than the property.

4. 04
   Let the goodbye be real

   A last visit, photographs, addresses exchanged. Rushed goodbyes tend to resurface later as unfinished feeling.

After the move

• Set up their bedroom first and keep the same bedding — sensory continuity is powerful.
• Protect three daily rituals exactly as they were, however inconvenient.
• Repeat the same short walk regularly; belonging is built by repetition, not events.
• Get one friend to the new house within the first fortnight if you possibly can.
• Keep contact with the old place concrete: a scheduled video call, a letter, a visit with a date on the calendar.

Let them miss it out loud

The instinct is to reassure — to point out the bigger garden, the better school, how much they will love it by Christmas. It is well meant, and it usually lands as a request to stop feeling what they feel. Try instead: 'You really miss it. It was a good home. Tell me the bit you miss most today.' Grief that is allowed a witness moves through. Grief that is corrected settles in.