My Preteen's Move to New Orleans
by Jeff
(New Orleans, Louisana, USA)
Catchin Beads
We moved from New Orleans to Philadelphia when my son was two years old.
For the next ten years, he grew up in my hometown.
He did well in school and had lots of friends.
When he was about to turn twelve, we had a good opportunity to move back to my wife’s hometown of New Orleans.
We couldn’t move at the beginning of the school year so we left right after Christmas during the winter break.
My son had to move to a new city and start a new school in the middle of the year.
The school did a great job of welcoming him. He had enrolled back in September so they had a desk with his name on it the whole school year even though he wasn’t there yet.
Unfortunately, he was very homesick for the first month.
He cried about how he missed his old school and friends and that he wanted to move back to Philadelphia.
We tried to keep him as involved in things as we could, but were not having much luck.
We also were struggling as we were trying to find a house to buy, getting used to a new job and missing our friends. We knew we had made the right decision to move but it was rough going for the first month and a half.
We called his friends and taught him how to use e-mail but it wasn’t the same.
My son hit his lowest point when one of his friends called from Philadelphia and told him that they didn’t have school that day because of a snow storm.
That sent him over the edge, and we were lost as to what to do next.
Luckily for us Mardi Gras was right around the corner.
My son got to go to the parades and catch trinkets and suddenly he was having fun that he could not have had in Philly.
On Mardi Gras day, while we were at a parade, we called Jeffrey’s old teacher at his school in Philadelphia.
We had arranged to do this during the school day as she had a speakerphone set up in the classroom. We had also shipped a king cake to the teacher to share with the class.
Jeffrey was able to tell his old class about the exciting time he was having and he started to realize New Orleans wasn’t worse than Philadelphia, it was just different.
Me taking the time as his father to get my preteen son involved in fun activities helped to change his attitude for the better, and that has made all the difference in the world!
