MOTHER’S MUSINGS COLUMN

How I Prepared My Children for Their New Life Abroad

Enthusiasm, fun, and youth books

Musings on week ten: 7th of March, 2024

Moving to Greece? Of course, my husband and I were enthusiastic and motivated by this project. But our kids?

What about them?

“Kleri, you must be aware that your children may not cope well with the language change. If so, you might think of coming back.”

A couple of friends of mine, who currently live abroad, lived through these difficulties with their daughter and warned us about this difficulty. They still chose to stay, and their daughter is now bilingual.

Becoming bilingual, what a gift!

I dreamed about that. It became an obsession for me to offer this opportunity to my children, whatever the language.

Whatever the difficulties.

Enthusiasm

The key word! What has carried us during the preparation, and still does.

It became an obsession for me to offer this opportunity to my children, whatever the language.

Greek! I love it. My husband too (great!). So, let’s go for it. Crete, here we are.

Whatever the difficulties.

Yep, but have you ever seen an entire life without difficulties? Let’s go with enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm

I LOVE this word. I can not miss out on the pleasure of giving you the… Greek etymology! Because you have all the philosophy in this unique word.

It comes from ancient Greek ἐνθουσιασμός (enthousiasmós), from ἐν (en, “in”) + θεός (theós, “god”) + οὐσία (ousía, “essence”) and meant historically “divine inspiration” (source: Wikipedia)

What better help than the one of God?! :)

In the word “divine,” you must understand the Truth, philosophically. When you are enthusiastic, you feel you follow the right path.

What better for children than to feel their parent’s assurance?

Our excitement helped a lot. Our children felt it and loved Greece even before knowing the country.

Learning with fun

I started to introduce the Greek language to them some years ago, with Greek songs for children. We used to listen to them as bedtime music. They were fond of these songs.

When we decided to come, six months before our move, I made them listen to the Greek alphabet. I chose two songs on the Internet, one from an adult (easy to understand), and the other one with children (to keep their interest in the song).

As my son could memorize it quickly, I encouraged him a lot, saying he was quicker to learn Greek than French. I suppose that his difficulties in French (he was in the first class of primary school), contrasting with our encouragement in Greek, gave him more confidence in learning Greek than in French.

Little by little, he communicates his joy of learning Greek to his sister, who started to learn the alphabet.

My son even took pleasure in writing the Greek letters in many ways, which wasn’t really the case for the Latin alphabet!

Three weeks before moving to Greece, I asked a young, dynamic, and creative Greek teacher to give some lessons to my children. Georgia was bursting with creativity!

She made them play with the letters and taught them recreational games by playing with them in a park. In the end, they were able to memorize sentences.

Unbelievable!

Youth books

I obviously had to prepare them for the change of language, not only by giving them the basis but also by initiating them to comprehensive issues they would have to face.

• Facing comprehensive issues

I found this wonderful, colorful youth book, Chatterbox Bear by Pippa Curnick, telling the story of a bear that moves and arrives on an island full of birds.

He cannot understand a word and is very frustrated (good to show my children it wouldn’t always be simple!).

Then, both found a way to communicate. It is a way to illustrate one can always find a solution. A way to show my children they will find different ways to communicate.

• Preparing the move

I also used to read them the story of Bougeotte (“On the Move”) by Perrine Joe, a travel story. It is a French youth book, but you can easily find books on travel topics in your language.

Bougeotte is a house that moves each night, allowing a man and his son, Basile, to discover a new place every day.

That way, I prepared my children for the move. Once in Crete, we continued to read it before sleeping, especially in the first weeks. This move has become an adventure, as enjoyable as the one of Basile (but not as original! lol).

• Initiating them to Greek words

During a trip to Crete some years before, I bought a picture book of Greek words, 100 First Words, that I found pretty good. Nice colors, clear words and pictures, and words grouped by theme. My children leafed through it from time to time and started to get used to the writing of Greek words.

To go further, I bought my son a conversational guide for children by Les Editions bonhomme de chemin. I fell in love with the design of this small book.

All these books allowed my children to prepare for the move and get used to the Greek language little by little, in a fun way.

I’m glad of all we did to make them start school in Greece in the best conditions, and I can say it was a success as we had (until now!) no problem.

My latest, in particular, now understands the language perfectly, and I’ll be writing about it soon.

Have you ever had an experience abroad with children? How did you prepare them for their new life abroad?

I’ll catch you next Thursday for next week’s topic of Mother’s Musing Column.

In the meantime, you can find my Mother’s Musing Column below:

Want to know more about our journey as a family to Greece and our life experience here? Have a look here:

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