Steerpike

Pulaski gave his honest opinion, based on actual experience; an opinion shared by at least two others in this thread: "FWIW, given the age of your children, I would not move them to the US." and "... given a choice even for significantly more money I would not do it to them, especially once they become teenagers and form proper friendships.". If you ask for input on a public forum, expect to get a variety of opinions. Here on BE, you'll typically get some good, honest input.

Mic1

Most people on here are realists and appreciate that life is rarely a bed of roses, regardless of whether they decide to stay or go., However, it's a shame and also in my opinion, not particularly helpful when someone asks a question when they clearly have concerns over the repercussions of their decision only to be told about the terrible situations that could arise as opposed to being given a level headed and balanced reply. At the risk of sounding like too much of an optimist, i am sure that for every life of a teenager that have been turned into a train wreck because of a relocation, or they have turned to narcotic abuse (not my words), there are 50 others where it has worked out just fine. Maybe the 'good news' stories are worth just a little bit of air time as well?

But maybe it's me, i'd be interested to hear from the OP as to how useful this thread has been.

petitefrancaise

Pulaski and I have had discussions over the years about this....
9 years ago, I moved my kids from France at 10,14 and 16 years old. There were issues of course, but they worked out and all of my kids said that moving them to the USA was a good choice. They are now mostly through university and have dual nationality (UK/USA) and have lots of opportunities available to them either in the USA or UK.
However, it's not the same experience for everyone and personally I believe the kids take their attitudes towards the move from the parents. If the parents are OK with it and will work to iron out the problems then it will probably be ok.

lizzyq

Eight years ago we moved with our 16 and 14 year old sons. Would it have been easier had we done the move when they were younger? No doubt yes. Was it hard on them? Yes in someways, but in others it has been very positive. Do I have advice for others in the same situation? You bet I do!!

Look for the best school district that you can to move into, we moved to a university town with an excellent high school with a range of options within the system and also very used to dealing with kids coming in from elsewhere in the USA and the world. Let them do some research on what is available at the new school. For your elder child get copies of the syllabuses followed for the GSCEs also get a written statement from their UK school for number of hours per week spent in non-exam courses such as PE as some US high schools have requirements for a certain amount of such things in order to graduate high school and get the high school diploma. We did not get the non-academic stuff written down and our elder son had to get in quite a few hours of phys ed late in his final school year to meet the requirements!

The visa you come over on is all important too, a non-immigrant visa would mean your children being treated as foreign students when it comes to applying to US universities which usually means higher tuition and sometimes payment up front for the whole year. However a non-immigrant visa with an expiry date also leaves a grey area for your elder child going back to the UK for university as they could claim not to be "normally resident" in the USA. If you have Permanent Residency aka green cards by the time university applications are underway the opposite is true - they become "home" students in the USA and foreign students back in the UK. All stuff to consider.

I would say our move was hardest on our elder son, compounded by his final year of uni in the UK being heavily impacted by covid, but he now has a good job as a QC chemist in Pittsburgh. Our younger son did all 4 years of US high school here which made things more straightforward for him and although covid did affect his US university experience he has now wrapped up his master's and is off to start his first job as a professional civil engineer in Seattle later this month.,

So yes it is doable, yes there are both pitfalls and advantages. Is it the right thing to do? That really depends on you, the job you are heading to, how much support you and your spouse can give to your children as they navigate a completely different education style, and ultimately how much effort your kids are willing to put in to make it all work.

jammiie

I don't believe OP has stated yet, but the visa type makes a huge difference to the potential scenario here. If the children would "age out" of the visa at 21, I wouldn't consider moving them.

tht

this is probably the most important point in this thread… moving once is already a big deal for kids, then if they make new friends and have to move again it’s even worse, at least they have the option of a F student visa if they want to go to University in the US and the visa times out, but then have to pay higher fees.

Pulaski

And that may critically depend on if there is a path to a green card, and whether the employer is onboard with/ committed to getting an application underway within a year or two of arrival in the US.

Hrjrw

thank you so much for yr reply. Very useful. We should know.more abt our visa type this week.
May I ask if you had to pay national or international fees for your eldest when he went to uni in the Uk. Children are British. Thanks a lot for great info.

PetrifiedExPat

PetiteF will defend her ill advised actions to the death, Pulaski is more on the money. Give them a chance, leave behind in the UK. Feel free to trawl through previous posts about this subject.

christmasoompa

PetiteF has actually moved a child to another country though.

I'm shortly going to be doing the same 'ill advised actions'. I have an enthusiastic soon to be 16 year old child whose schooling adjustment will be minimised as he'll be going to the British School (paid for by the company - we couldn't afford private school in the UK, so that's a huge advantage). If we stayed in the UK we'd be moving elsewhere and he'd be changing schools anyway (his doesn't go past Yr 11). He's up for the adventure and can't wait, he's a very confident kid that isn't particularly close to a group of friends and his hobbies are all those which he'll be able to do more easily in the US. He would be utterly miserable if we suggested leaving him behind in the UK. Our 18 year old is also looking forward to a gap year with us doing some travelling, volunteering, and working in her chosen field before heading to uni. She could stay here but has chosen not to.

Yep, this. ^^^^ I think it's very child dependent, I'm sure lots of kids would hate it, but there are others that will embrace the opportunity and be very happy with it. A parent will know their child best and well meaning advice about their child from an internet forum full of strangers should perhaps not be taken as blanket advice for all kids. I'm not sure we'd have considered it if we couldn't have put our child in a British school though, that would have been a step too far for us and in fact we only looked at places in the US with a British school for that reason (hubby was given the choice of various locations). But again, that's just us, and other parents may be happy with their child joining a local school and switching curriculum.

I think the visa thing is very pertinent and needs to be looked at. Green cards would be needed, not just to avoid ageing out but also because most teenagers would want to be able to find a part-time job, which isn't possible on temp dependent visas.

Best of luck to the OP.

christmasoompa

If it's any consolation, I don't know a single person that has settled where they went to uni.

You may find it will depend on the uni. We've asked a lot of uni's about it (see my post above, our eldest has just applied to uni and will be going in 2024), and their answers vary enormously. It seems that the more competitive uni's (Russell Group etc) will want you to pay international fees if your child hasn't had the full 3 years in the UK, whereas other less competitive ones are happier to relax the rules. I'm sure there are lots of exceptions to those, but that's been our experience from the responses we've had. So you may want to negotiate it with your company if that may be a factor in deciding whether to move or not.

Best of luck to you.

PetrifiedExPat

Ooof, very confident but no close group of friends. Devil in the details. Good luck.

christmasoompa

Charming. Not sure why I'm defending my child to you, but put simply, he's got lots of friends from school and hobbies, but no specific 'best friends'. I think that's an advantage over somebody with a handful of best friends that they're super close to and would be distraught to leave behind. His weekends are spent with various kids in different groups, none of whom he's closer to than the others. He's confident and will happily make friends anywhere he goes, in fact he's FaceTiming two of his new classmates again tonight after a day at his US school recently.

I'll let you know how he gets on, I'm sure you'll be rooting for him.

PetrifiedExPat

I most certainly will. And, I took my driving test by that school.

Jerseygirl

In the UK…yes I agree. Quite a number of my daughter’s US school friends didn’t return to the area they left.