International move with autistic children?

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Is this just something that gets ruled out automatically? My kids are 16 and 13 and both are at least moderately autistic (my eldest' is severe).

I got an extremely alluring job offer in England. We live in Canada- where my kids have lived their whole lives. This offer is a really big deal but there's nothing terribly wrong with where we are now, so I don't know if it's worth it. Anyway, I assumed my husband would be horrified by prospect of emigrating and so I thought he would make the decision by saying no…but he's actually really gung-ho (which is weird but I'll take it)… so now there's a possibility…

The main downside to this is that it's a HUGE transition. I can think of a lot of positives of moving overall. The school situation looks much better than it is here for one thing.
So basically I want to know, is it just flat-out insane to even consider this? Would it traumatise my children for life? Has anyone here ever done an international move with an autistic child? (ETA: I mean anyone on WP- obviously this has been done before by someone, lol).

Thanks

Raises hand ! ! Just did it back in July / August of this year. Did not work for us because of my daughter. She couldn't cope with the academic demands of the schools because of the little problem of LANGUAGE. She does not speak any language other than English (was a later talker so we used only English with her starting at age 2). We enrolled her in intense language classes, had her play with local kids every day etc etc etc but it was too much for her, so we fled back to America, tails firmly between our legs.

I think it would have worked out much better for us if we had moved to another English speaking country but it was what it was.

My son coped reasonably well with the transition. He did struggle with the climatic conditions for about 2 weeks, then settled down. He was enrolled in a special school and was almost settled in when we decided to return because our daughter could not cope.

If the schools and the services where you are moving are good, then you should move. It might be a welcome change for all of you. Do you have any family in that part of the country where you are moving ? If not, it might take you a little while to build up a support network but you will be fine eventually.

Good luck and congratulations ! !

I actually think your kids will be okay. Canada and England have the same language and a similar culture. It's not as if you're moving from Brazil to Iran.
My husband is from another country, and I've found that it's a little easier to be socially accepted when you're a foreigner. People assume that your social faux pas are due to national differences rather than neurological ones.

Yes, I read somewhere that there are a lot of Aspies in the expat community in Japan--and the author speculated that it might be because the cultural differences essentially neutralize the social disadvantages. Like when Kirk takes the Enterprise into the nebula in Wrath of Khan.

I'd be willing to bet that England does have comparable, if not better, services.

I agonized over a trans-half-continental move, with ADHD/NT kids, going from Arkansas where we had virtually no support to PA/WV where (in WV anyway) my relatives are thicker than yellow jackets in a puddle of Coke. Absolutely agonized over whether it was morally acceptable to uproot them, even though I was uprooting them back to their very deep roots.

How attached are they to their community in Canada?? I don't just mean therapists, relatives, caregivers, neighbors, friends, people they know (IIRC, your kids aren't real big on people in general). I also mean familiar sights, landmarks, that bakery on the corner that makes the only sandwiches they'll eat... Stuff like that.

How well (or badly) do you think they'd handle the upheaval of moving?? Not all moves are as traumatic as ours was. Ours looked more like a bug-out than a move. We did it all-- from interview for Hubby's job to driving away with the dog and the cats in the van-- in four weeks, and I was a wreck from depression and Risperdal the entire time. If many moves involved a heavily medicated, seriously depressed mother and four changes of living arrangement in four months' time, not many people would move. It soured my older two (one BAP/NT and the other ADHD) and for that matter me on the idea of ever moving ever again, and caused some definite behaviors. On the one hand, my kids are pretty "normal," and there was still upset involved, quite a bit of it. OTOH, our move was a chaotic, traumatic train wreck, even as moving goes.

I don't think it's selfish to even consider, for sure. You have to have a life, hopes and dreams, goals and achievements too. You can't live forever with your greatest achievement of the year being finding a couch that only cost $45 and therefore it's not tragic when it gets destroyed. I think it's smart to consider, and the fact that you are carefully considering shows a great deal of unselfishness and compassion and caring for your family/kids.

And yes, the foreign factor does help with social acceptance sometimes. My aunt on my mom's side, who I am 100% certain is more Aspie than I am, married an Indian-From-India. She gets on much better socially with his family, both those in the US and those somewhere around Hydrabad. Later in life, it's even helped her with being accepted among Americans-- they write her oddities off to 40 years of being married to a foreigner.

I'd be willing to bet that England does have comparable, if not better, services.

I agonized over a trans-half-continental move, with ADHD/NT kids, going from Arkansas where we had virtually no support to PA/WV where (in WV anyway) my relatives are thicker than yellow jackets in a puddle of Coke. Absolutely agonized over whether it was morally acceptable to uproot them, even though I was uprooting them back to their very deep roots.

How attached are they to their community in Canada?? I don't just mean therapists, relatives, caregivers, neighbors, friends, people they know (IIRC, your kids aren't real big on people in general). I also mean familiar sights, landmarks, that bakery on the corner that makes the only sandwiches they'll eat... Stuff like that.

How well (or badly) do you think they'd handle the upheaval of moving?? Not all moves are as traumatic as ours was. Ours looked more like a bug-out than a move. We did it all-- from interview for Hubby's job to driving away with the dog and the cats in the van-- in four weeks, and I was a wreck from depression and Risperdal the entire time. If many moves involved a heavily medicated, seriously depressed mother and four changes of living arrangement in four months' time, not many people would move. It soured my older two (one BAP/NT and the other ADHD) and for that matter me on the idea of ever moving ever again, and caused some definite behaviors. On the one hand, my kids are pretty "normal," and there was still upset involved, quite a bit of it. OTOH, our move was a chaotic, traumatic train wreck, even as moving goes.

I don't think it's selfish to even consider, for sure. You have to have a life, hopes and dreams, goals and achievements too. You can't live forever with your greatest achievement of the year being finding a couch that only cost $45 and therefore it's not tragic when it gets destroyed. I think it's smart to consider, and the fact that you are carefully considering shows a great deal of unselfishness and compassion and caring for your family/kids.

And yes, the foreign factor does help with social acceptance sometimes. My aunt on my mom's side, who I am 100% certain is more Aspie than I am, married an Indian-From-India. She gets on much better socially with his family, both those in the US and those somewhere around Hydrabad. Later in life, it's even helped her with being accepted among Americans-- they write her oddities off to 40 years of being married to a foreigner.

Excellent. I'll have that to look forward to, then.

I would ask them. Do they have grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc. that they are very close to in Canada? If so, that might make it much harder. I know for me the move at 14 was horrible for years. I am not sure I ever really got over it and in fact, have since moved many times. I now feel like I don't belong anywhere at all. But if they don't have close family members or close friends, it might not be too bad. Also, the culture is similar so I would think that helps.

I've nothing to add about moving kids, but I think you should really have a deep look at what kind of housing you can afford in the UK. Space is much more at a premium here. Houses are MUCH smaller. Feel free to PM me about the rough location of your job and maybe I can fill you in about commute time, housing issues, etc.

I knew a mom who made the opposite move with a medium to low functioning daughter. I met them several years after their move, so I don't know if the girl had trouble with the change, but she seemed fine when I met her.

Funny thing - all the words she'd learnt pre-move were spoken with an English accent, and words she learnt after the move were spoken with a Canadian accent. Also, when caring for her, I had to learn English vocabulary - she understood 'get your bathers off' but not 'get your bathing suit off'.

But she didn't seem scarred for life. She had the usual meltdowns and such over change and sensory things, but nothing unusual for a kid at that level of autism.

Thanks everyone.

That is too funny. I could definitely see my younger son being like that too. Ha

Elkclan- thanks. I'm actually not from Canada and I've also lived in England before (for about 2 years a very long time ago) so I do have a general idea of the space situation (could not believe it when I came to Canada), but more research is definitely needed.

Whatamess- I would ask too except my kids can't tell me what they think / if they can, I don't understand what they're telling me. They do not have any relatives here that they are close to. They are closest to my brother but he lives in my native country (they just know him from when we've visited each other).

BuyerBeware- Very good points here. I don't think they're that attached to landmarks here but it's kind of hard to say. I am worried about my younger son losing people in the community that he doesn't necessarily appreciate but I do. For instance, he knows the librarian and the guy who works at the pool on Wednesdays, etc. and this means that if he were ever to be independent and going somewhere, people would know him, and maybe help him if he needed help. I've been intentionally building these connections for him over the years. I would do it in England too and he's still got loads of time before he would be independent (if ever), but I do kind of worry about losing those people.

My older son is usually a pretty laid-back guy, but when he meltsdown it is BAD and also unpredictable. I generally think I understand what makes my younger son tick, but I have no clue with my older son. What upsets him seems almost random to me (though I'm sure it's not) which is unfortunate because I can't predict it or mitigate the effect. That makes me scared to rock the boat.

My younger son gets distressed by very minor changes in routine but his level of distress does not increase linearly with the magnitude of the change, so that doesn't necessarily mean his world would collapse with a big change. We have moved before several times (never this far) and I've learned some things about how he decides if this ok or not, which I think would help him a lot. But then I've never done *this* before so maybe he would respond differently to *this*.


Yeah, honestly this is the number reason I want to do it. But it definitely won't be worth it if my kids are screwed up from it. There are ways that they would benefit, but most of those ways are conditional... like ASSUMING x, then they benefit. I don't know if that's good enough. For example I think the National Autistic Society is a hell of a lot better than any autism organisation we have here (I've been subscribed to them for years!) but so what? We could still get crappy teachers and crappy therapists. Ugh

YippySkippy- I agree that it can be easier to be socially accepted as a foreigner. I'm not sure my kids will benefit that much though because "In Canada, it's customary for children to greet guests by ignoring them, screaming repetitive noises, and flapping their hands wildly" might be a hard sell. But I agree with the principle.

HisMom- Wow really? It's good to hear that your son coped reasonably well.

Thanks again, it's given me some new things to consider.

Yes, once he got used to the local climatic conditions, he began to cope quite well. The good thing in the bad (his lack of language) meant that he did not really mind going to school in a non English speaking country, with aides who didn't speak or understand a lick of English ! I think if he had had some concept of language, and ANY receptive language (in English), then the move could have back-fired really badly, like it did for his sister. Never thought that there could be ANY benefit to his having no language, but you learn something new every day

So, yes, we moved back because our NT daughter couldn't cope, not our autistic son. I do wish it had been the other way around, though.

My husband is American, and moved to the UK between the ages 5-13.

One good thing is your children are already diagnosed. My husband wasn't.

The world has gotten much smaller since my husband lived there. There was no McDonald's back in the 70s. The stuff they have at home "food wise", should be almost the same over there.

The one thing my husband had an absolutely MISERABLE time with is relating to people. England and America are separated by the English language. lol.... And the social class aspect too.

There was a lot of bullying and Yank this and Yank that.

Also he said, he found people never told you what you did wrong socially. It was very difficult for him, because in America , at least they yell, "Hey jackass, why did you do that?" In the UK, he would do social mistakes, and just be excluded.

He had a huge problem with the accents and the "street lingo". What you hear on the television is a pretty sanitized accent. He said there was an Irish kid in his class that was talking to him in English, but between the accent and the slang, it might as well be Mandarin.

What is interesting his NT brother and sister just LOVED
England. My husband said it was the most isolating, miserable time in his live, and he lived in France for 3 years after that. France was easier, since he never learned to speak French, no expectations to fit in.

My Aspie nephew goes to his mother's Asian country for 6 months out of the year. It is one of those countries I read how all Aspies would love to live there. He HATES it. He is absolutely fluent in the language and at grade level. The older he gets, the less he wants to go, because he can not pick up all those social cues that are not obvious to "Mister White Guy". Face it, the Ugly White American will get a pass because the people figure he hasn't a chance in hell to every pick up the nuances. My nephew has dual citizenship. He IS expected to go with the unspoken, unwritten, social flow, and fails miserably at it.

So, I guess, neither of these two very high functioning Aspies would be in a hot rush to move overseas. I think it is easier if you ARE low. People can tell there is an issue, and cut you major chunks of slack. Plus, you are not a native. My husband and nephew pass the surface NT test very well. It isn't until you get to know them that you see they are spinning a zillion stacks of plates, trying very hard not to drop them.

I would look at worse case scenario. If it all goes to utter s**t, and neither kid can not cope, how easy is it to move back home? Is it contract or a transfer? How much does extended family help out now? If things spiral out of control, who will be your back up plan?

Will you have private insurance or have to deal with the NHS? The wait times can be miserably long.

Believe me, I am jelly jelly jealous of your opportunity. My kid is NT, and my husband has me to run cultural interference, when he doesn't understand the social stuff. I'd be gone in a heart beat.

I wouldn't rule it out.

Yeah, that particular benefit doesn't really apply to medium-to-low functioning autistics, does it?

I never moved internationally, but I did move across the country when I was 10. My parents' intention was to have a better life and be closer to extended family members. But the move made my Asperger's worse. A lot worse. It took seven years for me to recover from the damage the move did. The social norms in the new place were different from the ones I had managed to master, despite it being the same country. In my old town, I conquered most of childhood fears, had a set of loyal friends who were there for me, and was largely tolerated by the community I lived in. In my new city, I was terrified of the house's laundry room (a la The Furnace in "Home Alone"), had no friends for six years, got bullied mercilessly just for being me, and had therapists that were utter quacks! Not to mention I had to leave behind 100% of my childhood toys and 90% of my childhood books. Since it took a long time for my parents' income to build up enough to afford new things, all I had for years were the books I brought over and a Nintendo my parents bought at a garage sale.

Aspie1- I'm sorry that happened to you, that sounds hard.

Anyway we've decided not to do this. Too hard. I feel disappointed in myself in a way but it's done now. *shrugs* Thanks again.