Feeling Lost & Confused! Schools, Moving...

jso315 · **Feeling Lost & Confused! Schools, Moving...**

Sorry if this isn't the place to put this... but I needed a little "mommy support" so I thought I would put it here under the chit chat.

DH & I had a plan to move in 1 to 2 years...

DH & I had a discussion that we are going to change our plan a bit. We really wanted to change school districts & go to another one, but didn't want dd to have a hard time moving from one school to the next (I changed 13 different times & vowed to never do that to dd), so we put a time frame that we wanted to move her no later then the summer between kindergarden & first grade. But I was really feeling the pressure ~ it has been consuming my thoughts & honestly, don't want to feel like this ~ so we decided yesterday that we will still try for that goal, but if it is later then that, we will just move into a different neighborhood within the district when we are really ready & have everything paid off & some $ in the bank. Even if that takes a few years longer.... Seriously speaking - we would be moving from a school rated "excellent" with a Performance Index Score of 106.2 (out of 120 ~ the school with the highest rating in our area, moveable area, was 107.0) to a school with a 105.9 and rated "excellent". Both schools have a 25 out of 25 with the standards being met. The only reason we strive to be in the other area is because it is more rural & you can get a house with 1.5 - 2 acres of land. Where now we have .75 acre. But we can also find this land in our area as well... it is just more common in the other area. I know, is the .75 addition acre really going to make a huge difference in our quality of life? not really.... but it is an area that we love - it is only really 10 minutes closer to the things we love & might even be further from dh's work because it is not situated so closely to the interstate... so it isn't like we are stuck between a rock & a hard place - dd will get an excellent education at either school. Where we are now is actually a tad cheaper in taxes. Why do these decisions have to be so tough?!?!!

Mommysavers has proven itself to me as being an excellent support group ~ this is where we go when we are feeling lost & confused, this is totally how I feel right now! Thoughts?? Suggestions???

3boys2anglz · 04-17-2008, 07:43 AM

I think it is much easier to make decisions like this if I address my feelings of fear first. Once you have acknowledged and dealt with the fear, the rest comes a little easier. I think a lot of people (me included) become essentially paralyzed due to the fear of what might happen that we just do nothing.

There are positives and negatives to any move/change. A counselor gave us this suggestion as a tool when having to make decisions. Sit down with your husband and write all of your options and the pros and cons and best/worst case scenerios of each (i.e. You could do nothing and stay right where you are, you could move now, you could delay for X amount of time, etc.). When you do this, you may agree on pros and cons or you may find that what one of you sees as a pro, the other sees as a con so you can address all of these issues. Once you have all your options down, you can start eliminating until you get to the one that is the most desirable and best for your family. Keep in mind that no matter what you do, there will be something you give up and something you gain.

Children usually adapt to situations as well as mom and dad do. You can make this very exciting and positive for her and do some things to help smooth the way if you do move. Take her to see her new school and meet the teacher and her classmates well before the move. Once you find a house, introduce yourself to the neighbors and see if there are other children her age or groups you can get her involved in, etc.

I wish you lots of luck with this decision.

jso315 · 04-19-2008, 06:21 AM

Thank you so much - We honestly hadn't thought to do a pro/con list. We do that with other things, but just didn't get that far I guess... I have just been anxious & haven't been in the right mind to think about things logically.

maggie · 04-19-2008, 11:15 AM

I know how you feel. Sometimes I feel like I am consumed with thoughts of school and how it is all going to play out for my boys. Where I live, there are a handful of good public schools and a whole lot of really awful ones that you just wouldn't put your kids in. Private school is very expensive and competitive. We have tried both and we have settled on public for now, which means much higher taxes (but still cheaper than private school tuition for 2 kids). Just last week we found out our neigbhorhood was being rezoned. The school is actually closer and is excellent academically and we know lots of people with kids there. It is a fair deal. We have the option of keeping our children where they are and driving them ourselves (no bus) or sending them to the other school. I am so torn. They both feed into the same middle school which is getting better but is no gem. I hate this part of living here. School is a huge deal and everywhere you go the moms are talking about it, the park, the schools, church, everywhere. I daydream about finding a place to live where people just use the public schools and they are good and it is just what you do. It sure isn't like that here! But we love where we live and don't really want to move to the suburbs. I am sure there are pros and cons there too.

I think we all learn to adapt to our surroundings (our children included), but we will always worry about doing what is best for our children. It is exhausting, though, all this worrying, isn't it? I hope you figure it out.