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Expat Children Syndrome

8th January 2009 by Helena 8 Comments  

One of the things I noticed about coming back to Abu Dhabi was how much more settled (and nicer) the children are being. It seems to me that going home to Sainte Cecile and realising it is all still there and not about to go away has made them more settled.

It is hardly surprising they were fraught by the time we got here. We had left home in June, travelled around Europe and then landed in August in the hottest place in the world which was totally unfamiliar to them (apart from the odd oasis like M&S).

Apparently there is a phrase for this unsettled (and unsettling) behaviour. It is called ‘Expat Children’s Syndrome’ and it is the subject of my next article. So any views you have or experiences of children behaving badly which you think could be the result of moving abroad, please let me know.

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Meanwhile I am delighted to report that the girls have joined a new ballet class (with the most stunning Russian ballerina teacher) and are going twice a week. They will start piano twice a week soon too. Leo has football three times a week and is mad about it. Rather like his father telling me about his rounds of golf he insists on talking me through every match, very sweet.

So not much time for them to suffer from Expat Children’s Syndrome.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: Abu Dhabi, Ballet, Children, ageing, blog --> Tagged With: children, expat, syndrome

8 thoughts on Expat Children Syndrome

  • Anne - Music and Markets says:
    8th January 2009 at 5:59 pm

    Who in the world is that adorable baby stuck to the wall?
    Anne – trying to stay warm in snowy Aix en Provence

  • Stef says:
    4th February 2009 at 1:11 pm

    Hello Helena!
    Well, This syndrome…interesting idea… I moved abroad (to the Ukraine) from my native country (France) when my son, Arth, was 4 month. Next summer, we will move back to Paris, having spent 3 years in Kiev. Will Arth suffer from the “expat children syndrome” once we will be back … home??? That would be crazy!
    Have a nice day!

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  • tim says:
    28th August 2011 at 4:53 pm

    I spent 9 years growing up in three countries apart from my own.

    I don’t recommend it. I still feel like I come from nowhere………30 years later.

  • ... says:
    21st March 2012 at 8:45 am

    I moved to Svandinavia when i was 7, we moved back when i was 12. Now im 16 and i dont feel at home :(.
    It’s really nice living somewhere else, but leaving a place where you grew up is just horrible…

  • Thomidog says:
    26th May 2012 at 2:07 am

    I moved around every few years as a child – I was born in the US to Australian parents, got to the UK at about 2. I started ‘big school’ in the UK at 5, came to Aus and went to school here for a little while, then back to the UK, then to the US where we stayed for 6 months and I found myself back in pre-school. Then back to the UK and publicschool. Then was moved to a private school and we moved house also. Then at 10 I was back in the US and at a public school in the South. Then back to UK and sent to a private school a term after the year began – I didn’t settle there. The same year, aged 11, I was sent to Australia for 6 weeks by myself to meet my relatives. I was seated next to an old man on the plane simply because he was Australian, and he spent half the journey out to Aus regaling me with stories of going shooting in outback Queensland – “boong shooting”, that is – which meant he had gone out shooting Aboriginals as a young man. Back in England I did the 11+ and got into a girls public Grammar where I could begin at the same time as everyone else, and I went there in the January I turned 12 (I think) and made a really close friend and finally started to feel settled for the first time. That was great. Just before I turned 14 my mother asked “How would you feel if I told you we were moving to Australia?” Well. “How long for?” I asked. “For good” was the reply. I just couldn’t believe it.

    What happened after that is such a long story it doesn’t bear going into, but suffice it to say I didn’t handle that year in my life well at all, and I have never really recovered from it. I still dream about the girls I was at school at before we moved, and I am now 48. By the time I got here I had so many losses piled upon losses that it was way too much for anyone to bear. It ruined me. Think carefully before you move your kids, talk to them before you make the decision, involve them in your planning and don’t just spring it on them. Kids are resilient but they are not super-human and everyone has a breaking point.

  • Helena says:
    26th May 2012 at 3:16 am

    Hello Thomidog, your story is so sad, it is true that we cart children around thinking they will be fine, there were times during my own childhood when I felt like I was starring in a pass the parcel game. I hope you can come to terms with it all, and I will certainly try to make my children’s lives as stable as possible. We are most likely going to stay here for a few more years.

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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