Moving in Childhood Contributes to Depression More Than Poverty

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has been studied and published before, it’s valid and reliable. I became aware of it about 20 yrs ago, and purposely never moved. It was a factor in my divorce, too, we both agreed kids needed to remain in stable home.

+1. I have heard this before. Of course we all know anecdotes of well adjusted military kids but these findings are not new and consistent.

+2 there is a large body of research on the importance of housing stability

[Anonymous]

Anecdotally we have a 5 yo with ASD. We have moved once during her life, when we bought our first home. I do think that move was hard for her. She was 2 when we moved and she still talks about the "old house" ( it was an apartment).

At the same time she was in the same child care center from when she was a baby until she started K this year. It was a small center with two classrooms and low teacher turnover. She is doing really well, better than some of her providers expected. I think that stability really helped her. I think she is vulnerable to big transitions and I am glad that we were able to buy a home we can stay in indefinitely.

I struggle with anxiety and depression and I moved many times as a young child including one international move from our home country to the US. I absolutely think it affected my mental health.

[Anonymous]

I would think military kids fare better than other kids that move frequently judging as how 1. the military has a support network set up precisely to facilitate moves and family adjustments 2. military kids tend to move to schools with substantial military populations and those schools both have a population of kids with similar circumstances and more support network and 3. military moves are not accompanied by as much instability as moves driven by job losses or job changes (parent keeps teh same job, just relocates and 4. military moves tend to be prepared for and less of a shock as parents know they'll be moving in a couple years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I assume it depends on the reason for moving. The military brats I know seem just fine. But I bet if a parent had to keep moving due to financial issues, that would be really stressful.

Yeah, military is different. The military system, particularly if you're moving between large bases, is set up to support families who move, and to help the family move with minimal disruption, financially or otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I assume it depends on the reason for moving. The military brats I know seem just fine. But I bet if a parent had to keep moving due to financial issues, that would be really stressful.

I'd think other stressful reasons for moving would be the ones I knew which happened due to divorce (This is a big one), deaths in the family, having to move to care for an ailing grandparent, that kind of thing.

[Anonymous]

I have heard that Scandinavians often have the same friend group since early childhood. I wonder how easy it may be to establish new connections

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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?

It is totally bizarre that you changed school plans based on one family that was so unhappy they moved to another school eight weeks in.

This. Op really buried the lead here. Op you sound insane and need help.

It’s buried the lede, not buried the lead.

[Anonymous]

My dad got laid off when I was in the 5th grade and we had to move an hour away. 18 months later he got laid off again and we moved several states away. It was traumatic for me, esp at that age, and my parents didn't help, just brushed it off. I remember 7th grade crying every Sun night b/c I didn't want to go to school. 30 years later I can see that I was depressed but didn't have the words to convey that or parents who would have been receptive to it and helped.

Had these moves happened at different ages, or if my parents would have paid greater attention to the fact that I was struggling, or, or, or....so many other factors could have made a difference and not impacted me at all. So, YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have heard that Scandinavians often have the same friend group since early childhood. I wonder how easy it may be to establish new connections

I'm not shocked by that at all. In fact, I'm surprised it doesn't happen in the states more often, except if kids move of course.

[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.

Most of the kids in the religious private school will have known each other since K. Your kid might fit in immediately or might always be on the outside. My DD switched to an insular private religious school in 7th grade (after spending her whole life in public) with 60 kids in the grade. She didn't fit in and was bullied but is thriving in public HS. My other DD switched to the private in 5th and immediately found a friend group. I would stay away from small privates unless you start in elementary and want your kid to be a lifer. If I had to do it all over again, I would have found a house with a better public middle school option.

[Anonymous]

My kids moved from the east coast to the west coast to the south to the Midwest while they were in ES and MS. They have done incredibly well as adults and I’m sure part of it was that from an early age they learned to deal with change. As parents we worked very hard to help acclimate but it was mostly on their own.