How bad do i feel...... my eldest daughter brought home her Admission Form for Secondary School today. She is so excited about her next school because all of her friends are going and she feels so grown up and gets to wear a Blazer!!! Each time we mention Australia she bursts into tears. She has got a great bunch of friends and she is really popular. Oh God.

What do I do?

My daughter is exactly the same except shes still in primary school....when we talk about Oz she put her hands over her ears or burst out crying.

Its so hard for them right now but i am confident that give her a few weeks in Oz she wont want to go home, kids adapt so well to change...its us lot that find it hard.

I am sure you daughter will be just fine........and she will meet some great friends in Oz.

Karma sent and good luck

D x

Just remind her of all the fit blokes in Oz!!!!!! She will soon forget about school. I say fit coz thats what the wife calls them not me ?!?!

I know exactly how you feel my eldset she is 12and quite looking forward to it,my 10 yr old who is in yr 6 is not,nor my 8 yr old.
i think they change from day to day a bit like me really,well we all have our up and down days ,i am sure that they will love it when they get there.

I know I'm not in Oz but I did the move with my daughter just over 15 months ago, she was 12 at the time, just at the end of her first year of High School. She loved it there, had loads of friends and was very popular, she wasn't against moving abroad but was just sad about missing her friends.
Due to how she was in the Uk I think we expected her to make friends straight away but unfortunately it just didn't happen. 15 months on she has some friends but only a few, she still isn't very confident with them, doesn't like calling them etc but strangely enough she is very happy. She has accepted the difference in culture and realises that kids here just don't do the same things, she sees her friends at school but in the evenings she honestly gets enough homework to keep her occupied for hours and at weekends she sometimes sees her friends , we have them over, they go to the movies etc but we mainly do things as a family, which is what kids here seem to do.
My only advice is to prepare for the worse, I don't wish to alarm you, but if like us you expect her to fall right in with a bunch of girls and be happy within the first few weeks and it doesn't happen then like us, you'll be very disappointed. We planned a big pool party for her 13th birthday which was 3 weeks after she started school here but she didn't have anyone to invite when the time came I was so heartbroken watching her being so unhappy that we almost sent her home at one point to live with her grandparents.
Hopefully she will fit right in but even if she does she'll still be homesick and miss her friends dreadfully at first, be positive with her and don't let her see you upset no matter how homesick you become, I also made the mistake of letting my daughter see how miserable I was initially and that certainly didn't help. Before anyone criticises me for being negative I'm only telling you how it can be if things don't go as well as you'd hope because they certainly didn't for us but time and patience are a wonderful thing.
Good Luck.

I know exactly what you're going through, we are only in th early stages of applying, when we first started talking about emigrating my eldest (then 8) thought it was the pitts! - how could we go and leave his friends, our friends his cousins etc etc. We have since been to Australia twice since then and he loves the place. We have recently returned from a holiday in Perth and he can't wait to live there! some explaining to do about it may take time blah blah blah.

We are now looking at secondary schools as he is in year 6 and I'm finding it hard to get excited about them - as is my son until he visited one the other night and fell in love with it - he couldn't stop talking about it. Saying all this he is much better about going to Australia as a lot of his friends (in primary) won't be going to the same school as him and he is a lot more confident than he was at 8.

good luck

Thanks D - our 2 girls are in primary. youngest in Y1 and eldest Y6 so her last year. i hope youre right and in fact im sure you are but i just feel so bad! Cheers

J x

thanks for your honesty. i guess i do need to consider all possibilities!! im hoping the positives will outweigh the negatives and only time will tell. it feels really odd filing out the admissions form for a school she might not even go to but to make it worse its a bloody good school - i cant help thinking we must be mad!

i just hope i can wow the mums at school and break the ice

OI!!!!!! she's only 10!!!! :scared:

where are you headed????

exactly the same as grace - she is loads more confident now and im worried the move will take her right back again

think positive rooksie, think positive

Had the same sort of thing with Chloe she is 9 her school do a trip to the isle of white but its not until the end of June and we are hoping to be in Oz by then!All her friends are going and she feels left out!
I may pay the deposit so she can go if we are still here!
Im lucky really coz all our girls want to go to Oz although not really sure they understand the reality of it!

Heart goes out to you its hard I know

Kris xx

where are you headed in Oz mate? i only ask because im going to stalk anyone with daughters around the ages 9-11!!!

Perth ,I think if your heading anywhere else you should change ya mind and head to Perth where all us expats will all buy houses down the same road and live happily ever after!!All our kids will be best mates and the adults can take it in turns to light the Bar -b!!

What do ya reckon!!

Kris xx

Noooo!!!!!!!!!! i thought we were all going to brisbane/gold coast/sunshine coast!! (havent decided which one yet!!)