1. Make the family meeting fun and keep your poker face on
Talking to your children can be super intimidating, when you don’t know how they’ll react to big news. If you show that you’re nervous, they will pick up on that vibe and assume this move is a bad thing.
Instead, order some pizza and make a thing of it. Explain exactly why the move is taking place, how it will make their lives better, and promise them that they will have a say in their new home.
Bonus points for making a vision board so they can show you exactly what type of home they want to live in and how they want their new room to look. In my family, we like to make them for our iPads and put them as our home screen so we can see it every day and manifest it!
2. When Relocating with children, let them join you for the showings
Getting multiple people into a showing is a little difficult these days and some listings don’t allow children. But if they do, let them join in on the fun! If they don’t, call your kids on Facetime so they can see their room. They can tell you exactly what they like and don’t like and it makes it a lot less scary having seen it outside of pictures.
3. Do some research on the schools before you pick the area
Before moving to a new house with kids, make sure you know what the schools are like. There are some great websites to make sure you get the low-down on every school—after all, it’s where your children will be spending most of their time outside of the house.
GreatSchools has everything from test scores and college readiness rankings to student progress assessments. One of my favorite sites is Niche. It has academic ratings, teacher scores, lists of clubs, and how well the students are prepared for college. The site even breaks down diversity along with health and safety—which, of course, is a huge factor right now.
A broader assessment can be found on SchoolDigger which ranks the states based on education and the schools within them.