Moving in Childhood Contributes to Depression More Than Poverty

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe it. My parents were middle class and we didn’t struggle on income like some of my peers. But they were unstable and unhappy and I changed schools frequently - K-2 in Catholic school, 3rd at public, moved in 4th to a different public, 5th/6th Catholic, 7th public, moved in 8th to the district where I finished HS in public. Every school and district is different with a different vibe and set of kids, and in a lot of places - maybe not the DC area which is more transient but a lot of other places - the new kid is always the outsider. Remember that in a lot of places in the US, families have lived there or near there for generations. You won’t get social capital or connections in a new place when the Jones family has their name on half the businesses in town and has lived there since the 1880s.

NP and it sounds like we had a similar childhood. My parents grew up poor and we moved a lot for more economic stability. FWIW they did manage to go from MC to UMC. But I went to 7 schools in between K-12 (many of them 4th grade onward).

It was so hard making friends and getting attached then leaving again. I felt like there was nothing connecting one time in my life to another. I tried so hard to fit in to my new environment that I sort of lost track of my actual identity (which is an issue for kids during puberty anyway, but amplified with multiple schools). I had to quit sports teams and eventually gave up on most extracurriculars. I ended up falling in with a crowd that did a lot of drinking and drugs because they took me in and I had no real sense of self. I was depressed and isolated at times and self harmed.

I’m fine now. I figured out my identity and values. I still love my parents and recognize they did what they thought was best. But I told DH I feel strongly about not moving once our kids hit middle school. The tween/teen years are bumpy enough without a bunch of upheaval. I think having ongoing community connections, friends who have known you since childhood, and belonging to sports teams can be stabilizing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"A study of more than a million Danes found that frequent moves in childhood had a bigger effect than poverty on adult mental health risk."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/health/moving-childhood-depression.html

What do you think? Also, do you think changing schools several times without moving has the same affect?

My family lived in six different houses in six different areas of three different states when I was between the ages of five and twelve. I also attended nine different schools (as in six different school districts and two private schools plus a period of six months where my mom homeschooled me and my siblings). It was incredibly disruptive and traumatic.

I don’t think changing schools without moving would have the same effect if there is continuity in friendships and/or if the child left because they had reached the terminal grade at the school. I do think whether a child wants to leave would also play a big role. Children have such little agency already, moving and changing schools really crystallize how little choice you have as a child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe it. My parents were middle class and we didn’t struggle on income like some of my peers. But they were unstable and unhappy and I changed schools frequently - K-2 in Catholic school, 3rd at public, moved in 4th to a different public, 5th/6th Catholic, 7th public, moved in 8th to the district where I finished HS in public. Every school and district is different with a different vibe and set of kids, and in a lot of places - maybe not the DC area which is more transient but a lot of other places - the new kid is always the outsider. Remember that in a lot of places in the US, families have lived there or near there for generations. You won’t get social capital or connections in a new place when the Jones family has their name on half the businesses in town and has lived there since the 1880s.

OP again. Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you think my plan for my own kids is a bad idea? Preschool-K at a Montessori school; 1st-6th in public school; 7th-8th at a religious private school (about 60-80 kids per grade); public high school. All the schools are local to me. I worry about the transitions right before and after middle school, which is a vulnerable time for many kids.

Their friends from elementary school will have forgotten about them by the time they return in high school. It will be difficult for them. I’d almost thing it would be easier to go to a brand new high school in another town then leave for 2 years for private and then slink back to public with the same cohort of kids.

Why not do preschool at Montessori and then public all the way through? What are two years at the religious private going to do? Do those years align with your local middle school? Most middle schools are 5-8 or 6-8. And the religious school is K-8 and they will be entering in the last two years. It sounds like you are going to willfully put your kids in multiple difficult situations for absolutely no justifiable reason. I wouldn’t ever plan to do this to my children. And why not have them start public K with everyone else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe it. My parents were middle class and we didn’t struggle on income like some of my peers. But they were unstable and unhappy and I changed schools frequently - K-2 in Catholic school, 3rd at public, moved in 4th to a different public, 5th/6th Catholic, 7th public, moved in 8th to the district where I finished HS in public. Every school and district is different with a different vibe and set of kids, and in a lot of places - maybe not the DC area which is more transient but a lot of other places - the new kid is always the outsider. Remember that in a lot of places in the US, families have lived there or near there for generations. You won’t get social capital or connections in a new place when the Jones family has their name on half the businesses in town and has lived there since the 1880s.

OP again. Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you think my plan for my own kids is a bad idea? Preschool-K at a Montessori school; 1st-6th in public school; 7th-8th at a religious private school (about 60-80 kids per grade); public high school. All the schools are local to me. I worry about the transitions right before and after middle school, which is a vulnerable time for many kids.

That sounds very strange - why two years of private school at some of the hardest years to make friends? And is that for each kid - so the private years won’t overlap?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe this but it's really important to note that the study only looked at "frequent moves." This doesn't hold for a family that moves once or even twice fur a job relocation or to be closer to family or to gain a higher quality of life.

And when you understand that, the finding becomes both obvious and kind of useless. Frequent moves with kids indicates some kind of instability-- poor finances, job instability, divorce and/or other relationship instability, potentially mental or physical health issues. The one exception might be military families, but I'd be interested to see a study in the US comparing kids in military families to those who had frequent moves for other reasons. I bet you anything the military families fare better because those families are more likely to be otherwise stable with the exception of moving a lot.

So when you realize this study is really just looking at kids from unstable families with likely financial, relationship, and other issues, it's obvious the moves themselves aren't really the issue.

This is not a study that is useful if you are contemplating a single move with kids for a job opportunity. There's nothing in the study that would tell you moving will be worse for your kids than staying. Sometimes a move is the best possible thing for a family.

+1

[Anonymous]

Why not keep them in the private for high school?

[Anonymous]

Maybe it’s a Dane thing. Military brat here. Moved every 3-4 years. It was fun! I think I do well in new situations now as a forty something because of it. I think the key is a strong family because if you are moving with that as a solid core, it can be a positive experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was a military brat. I am also an introvert. Yet I loved moving. This might work as a generalization but obviously everyone is different.

Same here!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe it. My parents were middle class and we didn’t struggle on income like some of my peers. But they were unstable and unhappy and I changed schools frequently - K-2 in Catholic school, 3rd at public, moved in 4th to a different public, 5th/6th Catholic, 7th public, moved in 8th to the district where I finished HS in public. Every school and district is different with a different vibe and set of kids, and in a lot of places - maybe not the DC area which is more transient but a lot of other places - the new kid is always the outsider. Remember that in a lot of places in the US, families have lived there or near there for generations. You won’t get social capital or connections in a new place when the Jones family has their name on half the businesses in town and has lived there since the 1880s.

OP again. Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you think my plan for my own kids is a bad idea? Preschool-K at a Montessori school; 1st-6th in public school; 7th-8th at a religious private school (about 60-80 kids per grade); public high school. All the schools are local to me. I worry about the transitions right before and after middle school, which is a vulnerable time for many kids.

Their friends from elementary school will have forgotten about them by the time they return in high school. It will be difficult for them. I’d almost thing it would be easier to go to a brand new high school in another town then leave for 2 years for private and then slink back to public with the same cohort of kids.

Why not do preschool at Montessori and then public all the way through? What are two years at the religious private going to do? Do those years align with your local middle school? Most middle schools are 5-8 or 6-8. And the religious school is K-8 and they will be entering in the last two years. It sounds like you are going to willfully put your kids in multiple difficult situations for absolutely no justifiable reason. I wouldn’t ever plan to do this to my children. And why not have them start public K with everyone else?

OP again. We were going to put our oldest DC in public K, but a neighboring family went through it a year ahead of us and complained about the program to us. They switched their child to private school 2 months into the school year. Thus, we enrolled DC in the Montessori school for K. DC is a complete night owl and hates early mornings (like the rest of the family), so I wanted to try the public school for the rest of elementary because it has the latest start time. However, the public middle school is the furthest away from us and has the earliest start time. Meanwhile, there's a nice religious school nearby. Ultimately, we want our kids to go to public school for HS because the large size means more class offerings. I guess this is a bad plan, so we should pick either public or private and stick with it.

What about the kids who go to magnet high schools? Do they find the transition disruptive and upsetting?

[Anonymous]

I believe this. I moved 30 times as a child and three times in HS. While as an adult, I’ve learned how to meet people, I always feel unmoored. We just moved again recently after being somewhere for 10 years and it’s hit me really hard. I hate that we did it to DD. What I am glad for is we are in a location where many of her “old” friends travel to, and that there are things like messenger kids.

[Anonymous]

No way. Millions of kids move all around the world in miliary families. They are fine. Ask me how I know!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe this but it's really important to note that the study only looked at "frequent moves." This doesn't hold for a family that moves once or even twice fur a job relocation or to be closer to family or to gain a higher quality of life.

And when you understand that, the finding becomes both obvious and kind of useless. Frequent moves with kids indicates some kind of instability-- poor finances, job instability, divorce and/or other relationship instability, potentially mental or physical health issues. The one exception might be military families, but I'd be interested to see a study in the US comparing kids in military families to those who had frequent moves for other reasons. I bet you anything the military families fare better because those families are more likely to be otherwise stable with the exception of moving a lot.

So when you realize this study is really just looking at kids from unstable families with likely financial, relationship, and other issues, it's obvious the moves themselves aren't really the issue.

This is not a study that is useful if you are contemplating a single move with kids for a job opportunity. There's nothing in the study that would tell you moving will be worse for your kids than staying. Sometimes a move is the best possible thing for a family.

This is a common problem with these kind of studies - the factors that supposedly negatively affect kids’ mental health in the future are also a strong indicator that the parents of these kids themselves have mental health issues, and that has a strong genetic component.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe it. My parents were middle class and we didn’t struggle on income like some of my peers. But they were unstable and unhappy and I changed schools frequently - K-2 in Catholic school, 3rd at public, moved in 4th to a different public, 5th/6th Catholic, 7th public, moved in 8th to the district where I finished HS in public. Every school and district is different with a different vibe and set of kids, and in a lot of places - maybe not the DC area which is more transient but a lot of other places - the new kid is always the outsider. Remember that in a lot of places in the US, families have lived there or near there for generations. You won’t get social capital or connections in a new place when the Jones family has their name on half the businesses in town and has lived there since the 1880s.

OP again. Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you think my plan for my own kids is a bad idea? Preschool-K at a Montessori school; 1st-6th in public school; 7th-8th at a religious private school (about 60-80 kids per grade); public high school. All the schools are local to me. I worry about the transitions right before and after middle school, which is a vulnerable time for many kids.

Their friends from elementary school will have forgotten about them by the time they return in high school. It will be difficult for them. I’d almost thing it would be easier to go to a brand new high school in another town then leave for 2 years for private and then slink back to public with the same cohort of kids.

Why not do preschool at Montessori and then public all the way through? What are two years at the religious private going to do? Do those years align with your local middle school? Most middle schools are 5-8 or 6-8. And the religious school is K-8 and they will be entering in the last two years. It sounds like you are going to willfully put your kids in multiple difficult situations for absolutely no justifiable reason. I wouldn’t ever plan to do this to my children. And why not have them start public K with everyone else?

OP again. We were going to put our oldest DC in public K, but a neighboring family went through it a year ahead of us and complained about the program to us. They switched their child to private school 2 months into the school year. Thus, we enrolled DC in the Montessori school for K. DC is a complete night owl and hates early mornings (like the rest of the family), so I wanted to try the public school for the rest of elementary because it has the latest start time. However, the public middle school is the furthest away from us and has the earliest start time. Meanwhile, there's a nice religious school nearby. Ultimately, we want our kids to go to public school for HS because the large size means more class offerings. I guess this is a bad plan, so we should pick either public or private and stick with it.

What about the kids who go to magnet high schools? Do they find the transition disruptive and upsetting?

I don't think your kids will be happy with this plan. I'm dealing with this now. We never planned on private school and had a good experience with our local elementary k-5, but have not been thrilled with the academics or some aspects of the environment in middle school so far (6-8). We considered looking for a private starting in 7th but my daughter has a great, close-knit group of friends and ultimately we decided that at this age, it's more important that she be happy and have friends than that we maximize the academics. Maybe it would be different if we were planning to go private all the way through, but ultimately the plan is public for high school so switching to private for two years was just going to be too big a disruption.

[Anonymous]

Depends. I lived in one place, one house, and one private school from k-12. Couldn't wait to get out of there asap, and really wish my parents had been willing to move to a better school district so I could have attended public school.

[Anonymous]

I think it's likely correlation, not causation. My horribly selfish and mentally ill mother moved us from one part of the country to another one month into the school year (3rd grade for me, 1st for my sister). Away from our grandparents and everything we knew. There were subsequent moves due to new husbands that were awful. Yes, moving was hard -- but it was part of a big picture of a hard life.