Ever wondered what it’s like to parent in another country? Where your kids encounter a different way of life, new friendships with distinct cultural norms and the challenge of starting a new school? While you’ll still face the same everyday parenting challenges you would at home, expat families also have a few extra surprises thrown in!
Let’s take a look at what to expect if you’re looking to become an expat family. Whether it's awkward coffee mornings with other expats (until you find your people), language switches mid-playdate, a gnawing guilt of whether you’re doing the right thing, or navigating constant sibling fighting, hopefully your family bond will get you through!
Navigating Social Interactions with Other Parents
Interacting with parents from vastly different backgrounds can be a really rewarding experience. Often, it’s one of the big bonuses of moving overseas - making friends who can share insights and expose you to their local culture and customs…and their unique ways of parenting!
What’s normal for you will probably be strange for them, and vice versa. For example, some cultures expect parents to be heavily involved in playdates, so you’ll stay and try to communicate (which can be challenging depending on your and their fluency levels). In other situations, many parents drop their kids and run.
Another thing to consider is gifts. In many countries, particularly in Asia, it’s expected to bring a gift if you’re visiting someone’s home. Plus, there’s the question of how much is too much when organising catch-ups. Most of the time, you’ll just need to go with the flow and learn as you go.
The Unique Challenges Expat Kids Face
When you move away from your home country with kids, it can be isolating. Your family and friends back home don’t really get it. While they know your kids are growing up in a completely different world, they don’t really understand what that’s like on a day-to-day basis, juggling languages, customs, and a constant change of classmates and friends (particularly if you’re at a truly international school, where kids come and go more frequently).
Often, your kids learn to say goodbye to friends more than they’d probably like, and if you move around, their sense of home is constantly shifting. Sometimes your kids will love the adventure of living abroad, but other times they want to be just like their cousins back home, who’ve lived in the same house since birth and had the same friends since kindergarten.
Keeping Up with the Joneses’
International school tuition is expensive. And if you’re at a school with a large local student body (usually made up of the super elite), your kids are likely to make friends with kids whose parents have very different income levels to you!
If your kid’s friends are constantly doing expensive activities on the weekends and they’re trying to keep up, it can get expensive! You may also find that your teens (I’m seeing it now with my 13-year old) become obsessed with brands…expensive brands.
On the plus side, it’s a great chance to talk to your kids about the value of money - and how every family situation is unique.
Becoming a Tight-Knit Family
When you move around a lot, it usually means that your family becomes super tight. You tend to rely on one another more often than you probably would back home. That’s because, for the first few months of settling into a new place at least, they’re the only familiar faces around.
You kids will often figure things out together. Like new schools, new foods, new social norms, new routines, etc. Living overseas can be a weird mix of chaos and bonding, and as a parent, there are often lots of times you question whether you’re making the right choices for your kids in the long run.
The Doubts: Have You Done the Right Thing?
Every expat parent has that moment (or several) where they wonder if they’ve made the right choice. Would life have been easier if you’d just stayed in your home country? Are your kids missing out on a ‘normal’ childhood? For example, at home in Australia, we had a big house with a large backyard. The kids had plenty of room to run around and play. For the past five years though, we’ve lived primarily in apartments. And while our current apartment has some amenities (like a pool and a gym, and lots of other kids they can socialise with), my eldest constantly talks about having a backyard when she owns her own house one day…which makes me feel guilty.
But on the flip side, I see how open-minded my kids are, how quickly they embrace new cultures, and how fast they adapt. Which makes me realise that this lifestyle is the best thing for them - and us.
The Universality of Childhood Challenges
One thing I have grown to appreciate is that for kids managing friendship dramas, it really doesn’t matter where you live. Girls’ friendships especially are tricky, no matter what country you’re in (though obviously different dynamics), sibling squabbles still happen, and your kids will still throw giant tantrums over being given the wrong-coloured cup no matter where in the world you are!
The difference is, as an expat, your kids are probably dealing with these issues on top of adjusting to a brand-new school system or learning a new language. Which can often feel bigger and more overwhelming. But at the core, your kids are just kids, no matter where you live.
When (or If) You Should Go Home
This one is really the million-dollar question! If you left home when your kids were young, do you go back when they’re ready for secondary school? Do your ageing parents need you? Or do you go home when the adventure stops feeling fun?
Lots of families we’ve met move back when they think it’s the right time, but end up regretting it, while others have felt instant relief. There really is no perfect answer. It’s a combination of gut feelings, job opportunities, and where you think your kids will thrive the most.
The Best Times to Move Countries or Schools
Timing is everything, but sometimes you don’t get a choice. Moving mid-year can be hard, especially for older kids who have to break into established friend groups. Younger kids can adapt more easily, but once they hit their teens, every move is definitely a bigger deal.
Starting fresh at the beginning of a school year is obviously the easiest transition for everyone. But it’s also important to consider the important academic years for your kids - and making the move at the right time. For example, if your kids go to an international school that offers IGCSE’s, you’ll probably want to stay the duration (two years), or it could impact them academically.
Sibling Rivalry and Closeness
In my experience, expat siblings grow up super close. But that said, they can go from best friends (and only friends when arriving in a new country) to being at each other’s throats in no time.
Moving to a new country can make them inseparable - or it can bring out all the tension of constant change. And when they do find friends, they may want nothing to do with each other for a while, so they can establish themselves independently (especially if there’s only a small age difference between them). Either way, they’re the only ones who truly get what it’s like to live this life, and they’ll have that bond forever.
Final Thoughts on Being an Expat Family
Being an expat parent can be seriously challenging. It can be hard to navigate goodbyes, there will no doubt be awkward cultural moments and there’s a constant nagging feeling of whether you’re doing the right thing for your family. But on the flipside, there is also a real opportunity for growth for you as a parent (and a person!), and growth for your kids - that you wouldn’t have found if you’d stayed still in the one place.
My hope is that when my kids grow up, they won’t be worried that they didn’t have a backyard, or missed out on a more traditional upbringing of many kids back home. Instead, I hope they remember the travel adventures we had, the international friends they made, the resilience they built, and that through all of it, our family was the one steady thing they could rely on.
Please click the photo below for a collection of my International Teaching Families columns:
Kelly Quinn, the International Teaching Families Editor for Wandering Educators, is a writer and expat parent who has spent the last few years behind the scenes in international education. She recently founded International Teaching Families, a site dedicated to helping international teaching families and expat parents navigate the world of international schools. Kelly has spent the past five years living in Peru, South Korea, and Malaysia with her husband (an international school teacher) and their three kids. When she’s not navigating visa rules or the MANY school WhatsApp groups, she also writes about travel and expat life for her personal blog - My Expat Fam.
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