Teenagers adjusting to life in the USA

[Crazy_Brit 0]

Well I have never had any trouble with my 16 year old son until we came here and now he has been suspended from school for 5 days for skipping classes. Also his attitude has totally changed he is so arrogrant not the sweet boy i bought here last year. I do know he is not happy about having to do another 3 years at school he would have left this if he was in the UK. I do think he is board with school as the work he is doing is the same work he was doing 2 years ago. Anybody else had the same experience with teenagers?

Crazy brit

[perfect 39]

Yep...! adjustment reaction!

I actually left my son behind in the UK for 9 months so he could finish school there (he stayed with friends) so that he wouldn't have to do another 3 years here! Our education system was such that he was at the same level as those kids who graduated here anyhow so we didn't see how he would benefit by basically repeating the last 3 years.

I slipped into life here so easily and never really had what you would call an adjustment period, but my son was a completely different matter. He would barely talk to me, was disrespectful, moaned all the time about how things would have been back home, constantly pushed the limits, stayed out later than he should, even walked out of the house one night with no explanation whatsoever - completely out of character. But after about 6 months of trying to be patient, not getting angry with him, allowing him to find his own level here, talking to him about how difficult I understand it is as a teenager moving to a new country etc, he has settled down amazingly well.

My son found it hardest of all feeling like he had lost his identity : wasn't allowed to work until the govt allows, wasn't allowed to go to college until the govt allows, wasn't allowed to learn to drive until the govt allows, didn't know anyone other than us....but now he has made some good friends, gets out socially and can see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as Social Security number, EAD, AOS etc..... that's made a huge difference.

I think the key is to make sure he understands that you realize how hard it is just being a teenager and then doubly how hard it is being a teenager who has moved away from all his friends at that "sensitive" age. As long as you've made sure his change in behavior isn't the result of getting in with a bad crowd or any of the other usual parental worries, I wouldn't worry too much....he just needs time, understanding and love and he will settle in just fine......

[Girona40 0]

My daughter was 13 when we came to the US - she too found it hard going to school here, because she was so far ahead of the American kids. She didn't have to stay any extra time in school, though, she just got her teachers in England to list the number of hours she had covered in classes over there and the High School here converted them into credits. She graduated from High School here at 15. Now she's 17 (almost 18) and will graduate from University here in a couple of years.

I can imagine how frustrating it must be to have to stay longer at school than you anticipated. Can you not write to his school in the UK and get them to do the same as my daughter's school did? It doesn't seem right that he has to stay on three extra years. Perhaps you should speak to the High School about this.

I would also just mention - I have three kids and each one of them hit a point, around the age of 16, where they became moody and difficult to please. I am sure that is a contributing factor, along with the complete lifestyle changes they are having to overcome.

[denali_1963 0]

The school systems here are so bad my son and daughter went to connecticut schools and also alaska and they were all the same. To much pear pressure for them to handle. If i had another kid i think i would home school them.

[Peggy 1]

My son was 16 when we arrived here. He is now 17.

I dont want to even go there about the school system here.

I had to take my son out of school and put him into GED classes. The school put him in grade 9 instead of the 11th grade that he should have been in.

He had such a hard time when he got here.

I felt so bad for him at times, it really broke my heart. I thought on so many occasions that I should have never brought him here.

We have been here since May. I would say from June to Oct he hated it.

Now he loves it here, and has finally found some true friends that are great guys.

It took alot of late nite talks to help him thru this, but we made it.

I hope anyone that brings a child or teenager here can get thru the ruff times.

My son now has his EAD and SSN so he can now begin to fit in.

He can get a job, get his drivers, all the good stuff that a young man needs to do.

Good luck to everyone with this adjustment issue

[daisy16 0]

crazybrit, after I survived the teenage years of one son, I feel your pain

My honest advice? He's bored and not going to school, so yank him out and get him to complete his GED.

Then, get him to work or going to college, or even both. He can probably still finish the GED in time to start college in the fall. THey'll test him of course, but he'll do fine. I'll bet he can do both part-time, he'll be more interested in school, and will stick with it. The college will treat him like an adult, and he'll have to keep up and work independently. He'll probably like that.

I know the age and peer group thing, but he ain't hanging out with the right peer group now, right?

[Girona40 0]

crazybrit, after I survived the teenage years of one son, I feel your pain

My honest advice? He's bored and not going to school, so yank him out and get him to complete his GED.

Then, get him to work or going to college, or even both. He can probably still finish the GED in time to start college in the fall. THey'll test him of course, but he'll do fine. I'll bet he can do both part-time, he'll be more interested in school, and will stick with it. The college will treat him like an adult, and he'll have to keep up and work independently. He'll probably like that.

I know the age and peer group thing, but he ain't hanging out with the right peer group now, right?

I agree, in one sense, that he is quite likely to be bored. Let's face it, who wants to sit in class going over stuff you covered years ago. This is just what happened to my daughter for the first weeks she was in High School here. We soon realised that she should have been in a higher grade and went and discussed this with her Guidance Counselor. Unfortunately, the woman had no idea of the differences in education systems, but under pressure agreed to work with my daughter's old school in England. It was soon determined that she was in a class well below her level. She completed the final two years in High School here and graduated with one of the highest GPA's in her class - some of the "kids" were 23 years old, for goodness sake!

If you can't resolve this issue with the school's help. I would seriously then consider removing him and letting him obtain his GED. College here is so different to High School. It is more like school in England and my daughter just thrived once she got there. She finds the students are more mature, much like the kids in the UK, and she has made some wonderful friends - teachers and students.

There is nothing worse than sitting and watching your child struggle, unecessarily. We fought hard and it took a while to get the High School to see where we were coming from. I think they felt that we just thought our child was some kind of genius - which she isn't. She is a hard worker and just started school before many of the kids here.

Don't let him suffer this - it will have a real effect on his morale. Staying on at school for an additional 3 years must be similar to being in prison, knowing you are up for parole only to find you have to serve an additional 3 years.

He will make friends more readily if he is in a group of people at the same educational level he is at. He won't feel so lonely and his whole attitude will become more positive. You can see why he is having problems settling here when the system seems so against him. Fight his corner - he has nobody else to do it for him.

Best of luck.

[jodee 30]

Wow,...what a Great topic,..

After two years away from my girls, they finally came to live with me and my hubby in January. WE are a military family, and live in Germany currently thanks to the US Government,....lol. I was really worried that my girls would not adjust to school too. They have spent all their lives going to school in Australia, and there are a few differences in the schooling systems. A good example is Math. Australia is all metric, ya know cm's, kilometres etc, whilst Americans still use the old miles, yards, feet etc, and also we use kilograms, grams etc, whislt they use the lbs, blah blah, blah. Also, a lot of words are spelt differently too. We use "U" in words like colour, and replace "S" for "Z" in a lot of words too. So I thought that my kids would struggle.

They are attending and American Middle/High school in Germany, and are breezing along at the moment. A's and B's all the way. IM so proud of them. Admittedly, they graduated Year 7 last year in December in Australia at the age of 12 and a half. We decided when they arrived here, they would do Yr 7 again, till the American school year finishes in June, that way, they will move on with their newly made friends. Otherwise, they would of done a few months of year 8, and then they wouldn't of done enough to graduate, and would of seen their friends all advance around them.

From both a social, and academic aspect, this has worked out perfectly for them. I certainly didn't want them to struggle, and are happy "teens" at the moment,..if there even is such a thing.....LOL. I'm happy, theyre happy, were all damn happy!!

Even the math teacher is happy, because a part of his curriculum is to teach basic metric to the kids here, and my girls help him with that, in return for some one on one in the imperial path......

Jodee

[Jaylen Brit 0]

My girl is pre-teen - she's 10 - and quite high in her current UK school as far as learning goes - but when I mentioned this to my SO he looked into the the 'advanced learning' classes they have there (it'll be an elementary school btw) and the scholl has indictated that if she is ahead of her current grade she will be bale to go to these 'advanced' classes.

I don't want her to be bored, lazy or complacent in English and Math. History she's conecntrated on English and Euro history of course so she'll be needing to catch up some on US History. Also geography of the US. Apparently they don't do much science at that grade so not sure what will happen with that.

Ideally I'd like her to mix with kids her own age for the social skills aspect, but I think she's young enough to make the transition from UK to US school and adjust accordingly.

She'd be leaving her UK school in another year anyway - to go to secondary education - so she'd 'lose' a lot of her junior school pals then so I feel this is a good time to move.

[Cdnwmn 0]

Can relate although my son isn't having problems with the school part of it.

My son came with me in June 2002. He was 11 1/2 at the time. He told me then he didn't want to come and was going to tell them at the Consulate in Montreal that he didn't want to come. He never did though.

For months and months all we listened to is, "I hate it here. We're in the middle of nowhere. I want to go back to Canada. You forced me to come here" The funny part was he had and still does have more friends than he ever had in Canada. Leaving him behind in Canada was not an option. So up until July of 2005 (three years later), on occasion we would hear "I want to move back to Canada." I was finding that he seemed to pull this when he wasn't getting what he wanted or getting his own way.

I took him back to Canada for 4 weeks (road trip 5 days there and back) last July. Guess what happened? His so called good friends never had the time of day for him. His very best friend never saw him once in the whole time we were there. My son was phoning this kid, the kid would say to him, "If you want to meet up with me and (other name here), we'll be at the mall at such and such a time. I was not letting my 14 1/2 year old kid hang out at the mall in the evening hours. Found out later this kid was hanging out at the mall and smoking (my daughter spotted him the one day). Friend #2 he saw for all of 3 hours for one day, that was it and friend #3 my daughter went and picked him up (he lived in another town), brought him back to her apartment (where we were staying) and he stayed the night. Never heard from that friend again. My son had no desire to go out and do anything even with his older sisters. All he wanted to do was sit inside and play video games. Other than this, he was on the computer messaging his friends back in Idaho.

It's now 7 months later and in the past 7 months my son has been hounding about going back to Canada but just to visit. He still thinks he has these great friends back there and this time around things will be different. I told him forget it, wasn't putting out money (which we don't have anyhow) just so he can just sit in day and night to play video games. His one sister is flying over for a visit in June and the other is hoping to make the trip over in the summer. Once again we notice he's pulling this nonsense when he doesn't get his own way. Same complaints over and over again - so and so has a cellphone, I don't; so and so has a dirt bike, I don't; so and so has snow board equipment, I don't; so and so at the age of 14 1/2 just got a pickup truck bought for him for when he finishes driver's ed. I want to go back to Canada.

[Crazy_Brit 0]

Thanks everyone for your advise I am going to write to his high school in the Uk and see if they can do the hours thing so we can convert to credits here. How did you word it to the school in england?

I was thinking of putting him into Faith home learning so he can learn at his own pace. I need to do something his grades are good A's and B's so he is not a bad boy just bored i think.

Crazy Brit

[Girona40 0]

Can relate although my son isn't having problems with the school part of it.

My son came with me in June 2002. He was 11 1/2 at the time. He told me then he didn't want to come and was going to tell them at the Consulate in Montreal that he didn't want to come. He never did though.

For months and months all we listened to is, "I hate it here. We're in the middle of nowhere. I want to go back to Canada. You forced me to come here" The funny part was he had and still does have more friends than he ever had in Canada. Leaving him behind in Canada was not an option. So up until July of 2005 (three years later), on occasion we would hear "I want to move back to Canada." I was finding that he seemed to pull this when he wasn't getting what he wanted or getting his own way.

I took him back to Canada for 4 weeks (road trip 5 days there and back) last July. Guess what happened? His so called good friends never had the time of day for him. His very best friend never saw him once in the whole time we were there. My son was phoning this kid, the kid would say to him, "If you want to meet up with me and (other name here), we'll be at the mall at such and such a time. I was not letting my 14 1/2 year old kid hang out at the mall in the evening hours. Found out later this kid was hanging out at the mall and smoking (my daughter spotted him the one day). Friend #2 he saw for all of 3 hours for one day, that was it and friend #3 my daughter went and picked him up (he lived in another town), brought him back to her apartment (where we were staying) and he stayed the night. Never heard from that friend again. My son had no desire to go out and do anything even with his older sisters. All he wanted to do was sit inside and play video games. Other than this, he was on the computer messaging his friends back in Idaho.

It's now 7 months later and in the past 7 months my son has been hounding about going back to Canada but just to visit. He still thinks he has these great friends back there and this time around things will be different. I told him forget it, wasn't putting out money (which we don't have anyhow) just so he can just sit in day and night to play video games. His one sister is flying over for a visit in June and the other is hoping to make the trip over in the summer. Once again we notice he's pulling this nonsense when he doesn't get his own way. Same complaints over and over again - so and so has a cellphone, I don't; so and so has a dirt bike, I don't; so and so has snow board equipment, I don't; so and so at the age of 14 1/2 just got a pickup truck bought for him for when he finishes driver's ed. I want to go back to Canada.

Let's face it, any kid that can get what they want - by the old emotional blackmail stunt - will try it! My kids all did it when they were your son's age. They did it before that too. If it wasn't "...then I want to go live with Dad", or "...then I want to go stay with Nanny", or "...you don't love me as much, I guess", were all lines they used. You just have to stick to your guns and tell them that they can't always have what they want and often the item they do want is something that gets shoved in the back of the garage never to be used more than once or twice. Kids!

My daughter went home, she still does a couple of times a year, but she realised that her friends had moved on with their lives and she had moved on with hers. Unfortunately, they hadn't really done much with their lives, had no real sense of direction. She went out with them a couple of times but they obviously hadn't missed her as much as she had missed them. While she was struggling to adjust to life in a new country, they were just carrying on as normal. Anyway, this year she isn't too bothered about visiting her friends - she is looking forward to seeing her grandparents and visiting some places in London she has never seen. I think it will be a nice vacation for us as a family now that she has settled into life here.

It takes a while and all you can do is be caring and understanding of how hard it is for teenagers. I certainly wouldn't have been able to cope with all that my daughter has - I would have freaked out a long time ago, but she is doing her best and that's all we can ask of her.

Oh, CrazyBrit, when it comes to how to word it with the school in the UK, that was the easy part. We just asked them to work out for the past two years (since my daughter was 13 at the time and started Secondary school at 11) how many hours she had completed in each subject. They were more than happy to do this for us and sent us the details by e-mail. Getting the new High School here to understand some of the differences was the hard part. Here math is taught by dividing up the subject into one year of calculus, one year of algebra, one year of geometry, etc. In the UK they group all these areas of math into one class, so my daughter ended up having to divide the number of hours she had done in math between the four areas. It was a little complicated, but we got there in the end. It will make your son's life so much easier once they get him in the correct grade. I think another problem was that their understanding of the term "year" was different too. My daughter was in the "Year 8" when she left England, but that is not the same as "Grade 8". Once they grasped that, she was placed in Grade 10, where she needed to be. Persevere, it will be worth it in the end.

If I can be of any help - please don't hesitate to PM me.

[ctjwa 0]

Coming from a younger perspective (I'm 25, no kids), I'm not sure I'd recommend pulling your son or daughter out of school, or sending them to college at something drastically young like 15. One of the most important aspects of school, especially college, is the social interaction. I think it's a critical part of adolescence, and has a major impact on how you grow as a person. I can only imagine this is even more so the case for students coming from another country! Perhaps the schools in England are more regimented and focused on learning the lessons in the quickest period of time, but here I would value the educational process much more than what's memorized from the textbooks. (as a small disclaimer, I went to an ivy league school, and did very well. but the social interaction is far and away what I value most from it.)

I think that is why your children have been placed at a grade level 2-3 years behind what they have already learned - to keep them at the same age/social level, which I can't disagree with. Perhaps in the meantime you could try to supplement their learning with other things? Reading, field trips, projects?

Above all, remember that teenagers are going to cause trouble no matter where they are from or where they are now I know I skipped my fair share of classes!

[Girona40 0]

Coming from a younger perspective (I'm 25, no kids), I'm not sure I'd recommend pulling your son or daughter out of school, or sending them to college at something drastically young like 15. One of the most important aspects of school, especially college, is the social interaction. I think it's a critical part of adolescence, and has a major impact on how you grow as a person. I can only imagine this is even more so the case for students coming from another country! Perhaps the schools in England are more regimented and focused on learning the lessons in the quickest period of time, but here I would value the educational process much more than what's memorized from the textbooks. (as a small disclaimer, I went to an ivy league school, and did very well. but the social interaction is far and away what I value most from it.)

I think that is why your children have been placed at a grade level 2-3 years behind what they have already learned - to keep them at the same age/social level, which I can't disagree with. Perhaps in the meantime you could try to supplement their learning with other things? Reading, field trips, projects?

Above all, remember that teenagers are going to cause trouble no matter where they are from or where they are now I know I skipped my fair share of classes!

I can agree with you on some aspects of your post. I wouldn't recommend pulling a child out of school, not when there is a way of resolving the problem. Social interaction with other students is crucial. Education is not just about the academics, but learning how to get along, how to listen to other's perspectives and a multitude of other social skills.

Schools in England are definitely not more regimented or focused on learning lessons in the quickest period of time - far from it. My daughter was told not to question anything in class, here in the US, but to listen, read the text books and answer the quiz questions. As long as she did that the teachers considered their job done. This may well be just the situation in her particular school, but from talking to other parents in different parts of the country, it is all about the tests. In England children are encouraged to ask questions - an entire class will be stopped if the children want to have a deeper understanding of what they are being taught.

I would mention also that my daughter started school - not nursery or kindergarten - at the age of three, along with her twin brother. My eldest son also. This is probably the reason they are further ahead than their American friends.

Personally, the American children I have met seem to be less mature than many English children. I don't know why this is, but every teenager I have met here seems to be more niaive, has less knowledge of the world outside the US and have few opinions of their own, simply following the views of their parents. I don't think children should be placed in a class just because they are the same age as the other children in that class. Why should a child, who has already covered the curriculum for that year, be held back just so they can socialise with kids their own age. The mental age of a child needs to be taken into account too. For the few weeks my daughter was placed in a class of children her own age she was so frustrated. She would come home and say "I can't even have a conversation with these kids - they are just so immature".

The education system in England is very similar in the method of teaching as college is here. Personally, I would get my child through the High School as quickly as possible and then get them into a decent college, where my daughter is thriving because she is more familiar with the responsibility placed on students.

[Peggy 1]

Sometimes parents got to do what they feel is right for THEIR child.

Being made fun of, and put down by people everyday because your from a different County is not a good social interaction.

What is that teaching them?