From Strangers To Friends: Migrant Families and the Art of Social Integration
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Many new parents will reflect from time-to-time and ask themselves, “Is there more opportunity out there for my family? Are we doing our best here?” Parents can’t help but think there is always something more to be done to support their children. Is there a sport they ought to be enrolled in, an activity they should be introduced to, a skill they should be learning? And sometimes this line of questioning leads to thoughts about location - is there somewhere else in the world that can offer us more? This comes as no surprise, of course parents want what is best for their children! Moving elsewhere could mean access to a better school system, a better healthcare system, more promise of job opportunities, and a multicultural environment.
But the decision to pack up and move should not be taken lightly, it is a huge lifestyle shift that will alter the future of one’s children, so if you do fly the coop, you want to ensure you move to the right place for you and your family.
A friend of mine currently finds themself hemming and hawing this very decision. She has two young kids, and her primary reason for relocation is for educational purposes - she wants to surround her children with the best education system, and to enable them to grow up in a multicultural and multilingual environment. For many, access to education is a driving motivation for family relocation, and understandably so. She wants to afford her children every opportunity she was never granted as a child.
There are a host of benefits to be unlocked when relocating, but that’s just the thing, they are unlocked and earned, they are not free. And these benefits will never be fully realized if we aren’t successful in overcoming the challenges that come with a drastic relocation. One of these challenges is the need to socially integrate into your new destination country, and to embed yourself within a new friend network and community.
My friend wants the best for her children, but she is quite introverted, and among her concerns regarding relocation is the fear of social isolation and forming new friendships - not just for her kids, but for herself. Forming meaningful friendships can be challenging at any stage of life.
How Exactly Do We Make Friends?
Relocating as an adult means you are leaving behind friends and family, an entire support network, and sometimes generations of built relationships and familiarity. Moving isn’t just scary for kids, but it can be for us as well.
Children can have an easy time making new friends, sometimes it comes naturally and two kids just click. However, children in new environments where barriers related to language and culture exist may have a harder time breaking the ice. In these instances, they sometimes need parental support in making friends. Oftentimes, a parent will introduce their child to the child of their friend, and in doing so, our children are actually making use of our social circles to form age-appropriate friendships. One of the main sources of social interaction for children is through their parents, and when parents need to jumpstart a new social circle, this friendship avenue for their children is lost as well. Moi Panda CEO Feiya experienced this very challenge when relocating!
It is equally as important for parents to form new friendships as it is for their kids to form new friendships. A family is a team, a collective unit, and the happiness and success of one member will benefit the others in the family.
Finding Comfort In the Familiar
One approach some families take when relocating is to seek out others from their culture who have already relocated. Another friend of mine moved to Canada with their family when he was in primary school, and experienced this first-hand. His parents were not familiar with the culture and language of their new country, and struggled to form any sort of meaningful social community. Over time, this weighed on their mental and social well-being until they eventually found support from the small Albanian community that was established in their new Canadian home.
And while this is a great accomplishment, my friend laments the fact that as a result he spent most of his early childhood with other Albanian children, and that his “parents moved to introduce their kids to multiple languages and cultures, but they only hung out with kids from their own roots” and this detracted from a fully immersive experience in a new culture. In due time, he formed meaningful friendships with others beyond this community, but he always felt the process took so long, and that it was hard to break beyond his expat bubble.
And while finding comfort in the familiar is important, and in many cases necessary, the world is a big interesting melting pot of culture, language, and tradition and we ought to fully embrace this beauty. Afterall, this is a driving motivation to relocate for many.
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Expanding Your Family Network
As the world becomes more globalized and diverse, there are more resources available to relocating families for a smoother cultural integration. It is important we open ourselves to new cultures, while maintaining the aspects of our culture that make us unique and ourselves. We need to have means of sharing who we are, what makes us special, what makes our experiences interesting, whilst listening to others’ stories as well. As we learn from one another, we genuinely become global citizens, and grow to respect and love one another. And this is a sentiment we ought to foster in our children when moving abroad. We as parents need to successfully model this behaviour.
A stepping stone in this direction is to seek out a local immigration group that focuses their work in cultural integration. Attending international community events like coffee houses, festive traditions, and conversation classes are a great way to meet people from all cultures and walks of life - who still relate to the challenges sometimes associated with immigration. Moreover, many of these groups have local allies who are eager to share their local culture with newcomers!
Similarly, attending family events and social activities tailored to families is a great way to grow your network. Just this past weekend, I attended a Pumpkin Patch event, and there were so many families with children, activities that encouraged kids to mix and mingle, and opportunities for new familial connections to be forged. Growing your network can require some effort, it may not come for free, nor may it come easily, but by modeling strong friendly social behaviour for our kids, we can inspire them to also say hello to a new kid. A friendly hello to the family next to you in lineup, or sat at the next table, can model friendly social skills for your kids.
And if in need of growing your social circle so that your children may benefit from your new connections, another great avenue to explore is volunteering! Volunteer networks have at their roots, a community of people who want to help. Putting yourself in social situations that are primed for helpful networking is a no-brainer! Volunteer activities have such a range, that there is always something for everybody, and getting your children to understand the value of volunteering whilst growing your family social networking … well, talk about a win-win!
Moi Panda team member Olivia offers a few other insights into their experience relocating with family, and some social avenues she explored in her new country.
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Modern Solutions To Expand Your Network
While these means of family networking are valuable, and have been proven to yield success, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way, or a way that could be more congruent with a particular family’s dynamic. That is why part of our mission at Moi Panda is to build meaningful friendships globally and locally, not only for children but also for families. Migrant families can leverage Moi Panda to expand their networks and social bubbles. We aim to not only provide connection for children, but to establish parental support networks for the entire family. And we are not alone in this ambition - the online world is becoming more and more viable as a safe means of forming new social connections.
As the number of devices in our homes continues to grow, the temptation to get lost in the digital world is very real for children. As parents, using the digital world to create safe friendships that extend beyond the screen and into the real world is a great way of modelling to our kids that forming new friendships is possible through many different mediums.
As a relocating family, take advantage of every resource at your disposal. The quicker parents establish a friend network, the more it assists their kids in forming friends - either through their parents, or through seeing their parents as motivation to make new friends despite language and culture differences.
Many new parents will reflect from time-to-time and ask themselves, “Is there more opportunity out there for us? Are we doing our best here?” And this line of thinking may lead to a relocation, in pursuit of a better future for their children. Know that you are not alone in this move, and that today, more than ever, there exists a plethora of support resources intended to help make your transition, and that of your children, more enjoyable.
Brandon Collier, Business Analyst at Moi Panda
