How To RemoveThe Fear Of Flying With Children. Part 2

Your carry-on luggage survival kit:

1. Your survival kit for toddlers or children should include boiled sweets, vitamin tablets or something to suck for takeoff and landing to avoid earache. For babies I used to have water or milk in a bottle for them to suck on. It can also include activity bags for the children, fruit and nuts to cover for disorientated meal times.

How To Remove The Fear Of Flying With Children. Part 1

As Christmas approaches some of you will be thinking of making a trip back to your homeland. If you have

children or babies to take with you, this may seem daunting. You can probably already hear the groans of passengers as you and your offspring approach a seat near them.

I heard one young man say, “My flight is going to be terrible now.”  I felt for the mother and hoped that she didn’t hear the comment, though I thought I saw her clench her jaw. I empathised with the young man just a teeny bit. A constantly screaming baby is hard to be near but so is a drunken young man, which he had the potential to be.

Since immigrating to New Zealand from England, I have flown long-haul flights with all ages and stages of babies, toddlers, children and teenagers. The journey is two twelve-hour flights with a variety of hours in transit in between. As my youngest is now a teenager, most of the travelling with children was before those marvellous individual screens for in-flight entertainment.

Individual screens or not, the journey can be hard. The prospect of it can be overwhelming. The journey is worth it though, and the more you are prepared the easier it is. Here are a few tips for travelling with children that worked for me, particularly on long journeys.

Brain Shock or Culture Shock?

The first newsletter is out! Read about what your brain has to go through when it is processing all the changes of a new environment. See 100 images of migration. Click on the link below.
Newsletter 1 Sept 2013

Newsletters Imminent, Community Celebrations

The first newsletter will be out in the next few days. There has already been interest in it so sign up to get the first issue. When you sign up, enjoy reading through the free Ten Tips To Become A More Settled Immigrant.

September hosts the Jewish New Year and the Moon festival.  Both are times of gathering with family and friends and celebrating. If you are away from your loved ones, see if you can join in the celebration with people around you. Perhaps you could invite them to your celebration. If they are not aware of the celebration, you may be just the right person to introduce them to it.

Sit back, enjoy, your time will come

There are some movies you can see over and over again. Even if they are soppy, they just resonate with you in the right way at the time. There are some parts of a movie that you can watch over and over. The end of Love Actually is a favorite. People are reunited with their family and friends at the airport arrival gate. I love watching the genuine embraces and expressions, smiling, tears of happiness. Great camera work (A team was at Heathrow for a week filming this footage.) Watching the collection of those joy filled moments makes me smile and look forward to that time in the future, when it will be me with my arms around a loved one, touching cheeks and feeling each others tears of joy. Here is a snippet of the ending.Enjoy the loving

In Mixed Marriages, who gets to stay in their homeland?

I met my husband in his homeland and we stayed there. Another couple I know met in her homeland and they moved to his. I would love to know if there is an even mix of mixed marriage couple's locations. It seems most of the mixed marriages I have come across, have the women as the immigrant. I could put this down to the fact that I am more drawn to women immigrants, so I know more immigrant women than immigrant men.

Perhaps as suggested in the article Do Men Suffer More Homesickness Than Women? women are geared up to be homemakers so they feel they can make a home where they need. I know as an independent twenty year old, I thought I could make a home anywhere. It turned out to be harder than I thought, especially being so distant from my homeland. Once we became established, it seemed too overwhelming to re-start a life in my homeland and expose my husband to the homesickness trials I had been through.

So we are still in his homeland. We are able to live in a lifestyle that suits us both in enough ways. I guess that is the deal breaker. Which country do you, as a couple or family, think you will have a life that you will be most happy in?

Connecting with grandchildren

What will happen if your children decide to immigrate?  Thinking about this may help you appreciate some of the feelings your parents had when you announced that you were going to emigrate.

Would you miss your grandchildren?  Your parents are probably concerned they won't know or be known enough by their grandchildren. What can you do?

Strategy: Have a plan of how you can keep your children connected to their grandparents. Skype, phone calls, visits, facebook.