thpinkpussycat

Hi we have an 8 year old daughter, who although was looking forward to coming out here got upset when we talked about it, said she would miss family and friends too much.

But now we are here she hardly mentions them! ( we have been here 10 weeks) She likes to talk to grandma and granddad on the web cam, but gets bored after 10 min and she is email contact with a couple of friends.

We got her enrolled in school as soon as we found a rental and she started the next day, she made friends easily, there is a good mix of English and Aussies in her class. Most of the aussie think her accent is cute!! although after the first week she was coming home from school with the aussie drawl!!

All in all so far she has settled in really well and all the worries we had about her being homesick where unfounded.

Nearly everyone on here will tell you that the kids settle better that the parents

here are some pictures of Maryann enjoying her new life:

philian4

Hi,

A few weeks before we left my son (then 9) dissolved into floods of tears and was down until we arrived. Suggest to him now after a year that we will go back to the UK for a holiday and he looks at us as if we're mad!!!! Our then 7 year old daughter wasn't too bad before we left, but did have a brief period of feeling homesick after we arrived. They both have access to the internet, notepads and envelopes and the phone and are not the slightest bit interested in any of them. They are too busy having a ball over here. The two youngest (4 and 5) occasionally mention the UK but not often. It is painful watching them leave/worry until they leave, as it is too much for their little heads when they don't really know what their new life is going to be like. amazing how quick they adapt and start to enjoy the new life once here!!

Stick with it, you will get thru it!!

Phil x

h2oskineil

Hi
I know all kids are different, but this is our experience....

We arrived in Perth on Friday night. Very emotional day Thursday saying goodbye and especially seeing our 7 year old friends crying as they left for school having said goodbye. As for our son, he was very sad, but the thrill of the adventure ahead meant he never cried.

We have constantly talked about his 'new' friends and how we'll email and telephone his old friends. He's got an email account and the messages have started to arrive.

We had 3 leaving parties for him, OK spoilt I know and cost a small fortune, but for us, it was the best way he would deal with the move, knowing that he had said goodbye to his friends.

He hardly slept during the 29 hours of travelling, though paid for it over the weekend. Now he's arrived and yes I know it's early days, but he's fine and loving the weather and the beach where we've been today.... remember the factor 50 sun screen! :-)
In the next day or two we're off to meet new friends I have met on this forum and introduce our son to their daughter, who goes to the new school his enrolled into. (Hello Carole if you read this!)

Get Google Earth! Our son saw his school before leaving the UK, his new house, we plotted the route to the beach (at the end of the road!) and even looked at the footpath we would walk down onto the beach. All part of the preparation to ease the transition.

Hope this helps.
Neil.

ElshaUK

I cannot believe they have changed the name to 'Guides'!!

I loved being a 'Brownie'! It doesn't sound the same to be a guide! Like calling a Cub (scout) a Scout before they are even one.

Small thing to vent over - but I totally 'dug' being a Brownie! Still have both the British & Aussie uniform and badge.

Ohhh well, all good things come to an end!

Susan

flip

if someone's already answered this apologies. In Victoria the cut off date for Prep is 30 April. My son will be 5 a few days before this and is therefore eligible to start in February. There is a lot of local opposition to this from kindergartens and other mums. The preferred system seems to be to keep them back a year so that they're older, cleverer, more confident and more athletic than the ones starting on the right date. Our school's been lovely and is perfectly happy for him to redo the year if he isn't keeping up but he already has plenty of friends aged 6 and 7 and he had already started infants in England before we came and was getting on fine.

If you don't decide to flout popular behaviour then kindergarten is available for two mornings a week for aged3 (4 year olds go to this) and 3 mornings a week for aged 4 (5 year olds go to this) for which you pay (a lot!) - oh and you have to go in as a volunteer.

Sorry for those who wish to keep their kids at home longer - it's an ideal spot for those of you who do but it is a little confusing that children in any one year can vary by up to 2 years age difference.

Also the kids from England will be likely to be more confident because they'll probably have covered some of the work before because they've been at English schools longer.

Hope I haven't offended anybody. This is just how it's seemed to us.

flip

Like others our 8 year old was terribly upset and couldn't understand why we could want to leave our lovely home, our wonderful friends, her much loved family, etc. It became quite difficult to explain and we, sort of, said that if any of us were terribly unhappy after 3 years (citizenship) we'd rethink.

Then we organised plenty of things for her to look forward to there and here, we moved in with friends when our stuff was being shipped, we had her birthday and leaving parties before we actually left so that a couple of days later leaving school on a normal school day wasn't so traumatic, we stayed with family before the flight and went to show her old haunts (which bored her a bit) and went shopping for a few trendy clothes (courtesy of grandma), then we were flying off to see Daddy who was already here, were looking forward to seeing new relatives, were looking forward to the new house and school, to seeing Dirty Dancing (she'd been given tickets for her birthday), to meeting new friends who we'd spoken to on here (hi Ruth) ..... and generally one event led to another until we've been here 6 months and she has no desire whatsoever to go back to England.

She even coped with her best friend's visit at Christmas and didn't cry when she left - I was stunned!! She's looking forward to family visiting in April but is just so well adjusted we're amazed.

She's joined judo, gymnastics (and will never be great) but here it's all about trying and having fun and her co-ordination and confidence are improving by the minute. She's loving swimming in her friend's pool and learning lots of new tricks and ways to stop my breath!

Sorry I'm going on like a show-off - it hasn't all been easy, we had trouble getting our permanent visas, my husband's job wasn't good and he's currently not working, we've struggled to sell our house (it should go through this week fingers crossed) and yes it is more expensive to live out here if you want to live exactly the same way as you did in the UK.

Do encourage her with things she can look forward to, when you find out where you're living in Melbourne post it on here and see if anyone wants to catch up - Al would love to meet your daughter if you're moving anywhere near us but unfortunately she's a lousy correspondent so we can't expect her to actually write much.

Anyway good luck - bribery often works.

Flip

nicanjoe

Your not showing off, your a mum, that's what we do when our kids do well tell everyone because we're so proud of them, besides when things go wrong the first person people blame is the mum (been there way too many times) so we might as well get a little pat on the back when things go well. It's great to see your daughter doing so well, it gives us all hope that our will also settle in happily and easily. Sorry to hear about your difficulties, but sometimes a struggle makes the final success even sweeter.

Nicanjoe