Ex-pats with young kids
 

Hello! My husband and I live in Portland, Or. We are planning on moving to Brasov, Romania next year. My husband has a US based remote tech job so we will not have any issues with employment and my husband has Romanian citizenship (moved to US at the age of 6) and so do my two children. They will be two and a half and almost 6 when we move.

I'm just wondering if anyone has advice or experience with moving with young kids? How did the experience go? I'm currently learning Romanian and my husband and I are both teaching my 4.5 year old words here and there, but we will be putting him in the Romanian language school initially. How have other kids adjusted to a non-native language school?

Any advice or wisdome would be appreciated :)

When I went to work in the Netherlands, I investigated enrolling my kids in the American or British schools in the Hague, where I was working. However, I ended up actually living in Rotterdam, so I enrolled the kids in local Dutch schools. My kids were older; the oldest would have been middle school age. In order to keep them together, and to minimize their difficulty with the subject matter, I put them both back a year, so that at least they'd be studying things they already knew fairly well.

It was a great experience for both kids. Within a month, they were speaking Dutch, and were perfectly fluent by the time we returned to the US almost a year later. Unfortunately, there were few opportunities to keep their Dutch up to date, so they forgot most of it. However, I do believe it made it easier for them to learn other languages in the future, because both were excellent students in foreign languages.

Little kids learn a language very easily. I wouldn't worry at all. I also tried to expose my kids to Dutch before the move, with the help of a Dutch woman who lived in our town, but in the end it was probably not necessary.

I oved to the Netherlands when my sons were 7, 5 and just .
The older tow went straight into Dutch school, the younger one went one or two days a week to a child care facility provided by the place where I was learning Dutch.
The two at school picked it up really quickly. The youngest one started school at four as is normal here, and again was soon fluent in in Dutch Having young kids picking up the language so fast is a great incentive to learn it yourself!
The school they attended had never had non Dutch children before so it was a step learning curve for the school too. A surprising number of the teachers didn't speak English either (this is over thirty years ago now).
My sons had an advantage in the English lessons later on and often corrected the teacher!

The oldest one suffered the most from the transition and was bullied a bit, but he found some friends, and settled in eventually. He did return to the UK to study when he was older, but came back to the Netherlands in the end.

The hardest for me was not understanding the customs and traditions at the school, and not bing able to help them much with learning to read. our husband will be able to help them a lot. My husband is also British and still struggles with the language at times since his work was largely conducted in English. The grandsons call it Opa speak.

My sons are all completely bi lingual, the oldest one is also fluent in German, the youngest fluent in French.


My middle son chose not to raise his sons bilingually, but they hear English all the tie and understand a lot. They constantly tell us to speak Dutch to each other, and yet could add a comment in Dutch to our English conversation, long before they had English lessons! The older one has been learning English at school now for two years, the younger one starts after the summer holiday.

Your move "to" Romania should be just fine. They are still young enough to make a great adjustment.

My question. Is this a permanent or temporary move? If it is permanent, that is fine. If it is temporary, the children will face some serious issues when they return to the States and most likely as adults. Most kids under those circumstances seem fine at the time. They appear to adapt, going out on dates, dances, movies, etc., but usually are no longer making real connections, and suffer long term psychological problems, difficulty forming good relationships, deep depression, etc. Sometimes it gets worse as the person gets older. Right now, there seems to be little you can do to mitigate it.

Much research has been done and much has been written about it. The most research has been done on Military kids, but it also applies to children of diplomats and people who move a lot for their work. Research "psychological issues in Military Brats."

I have seen a lot of these problems myself, in kids from all three situations, and they are more serious than you can imagine.

These kids do see the world in a larger sense than most, speak more than one language, etc. but often at great cost emotionally.

Not to be a downer, but something to be aware of if you are not making this a permanent move.

Sort of jumps out that the life of children whose parents' work is focused on regimentation with the ultimate aim of killing other people, or who live bunkered behind security walls, might end up with psychological issues later in life. Even the term "military brats" is so pejorative, not surprised the kids viewed that way by adults might have difficulty forming good relationships, suffer deep depression.

Tend to think the majority of people now living in America have been there all their lives. Hard to look at the country today and see it as the picture of mental health.

Friends of mine, and of my sons, moved to French speaking Belgium, then to the Czech republic and then to Argentina for his work, starting when the boys were 11 and 9. The boys returned to the Netherlands eventually to study and I have never met a more stable happy well adjusted pair of young men. Fluent in Dutch, French, Czech, Spanish and English and making full use of their fluency for their work. Frequent moves and their parents getting divorced have not left them devastated wrecks. Their parents did a great job with them, even after the divorce.
They were not living on a military base, or in a diplomatic compound, and always attended the local schools.

I think the studies relate to a rather unnatural situation for growing up, rather than to the effects moving abroad and then returning to your home country.

Thank you for the responses. We are intending to move to Romania as a long term move. I want them to learn the language and experience the European way of life. My main concern was how they'll adapt and it seems like they'll do great :0

Thank you for the responses. We are intending to move to Romania as a long term move. I want them to learn the language and experience the European way of life. My main concern was how they'll adapt and it seems like they'll do great :)