Authored by Douglas Mefford in Hawaii
Published on 06-02-2009

Any time you have to make a long move with children you can face a number of special problems and challenges to make it a less traumatic experience for them. When you are moving to a place as isolated from the rest of the world as the State of Hawaii there can develop other difficulties not required in moving on the mainland. Regardless of the location of your new home, some extra effort is required to make it easier on your children to cope with the uprooting of what they are used to.

During the initial packing stage it is helpful to make sure and include your children in the process. Try to leave their rooms for last. This prolongs the time they have with familiar surroundings and gives them somewhere to be that is not too disruptive to yu as you pack up the rest of the home. Make sure they can choose a special toy or other “comfort” object that can be kept with them as they travel. Since it helps to get your children involved in the process be sure to use a maximum of smaller boxes for packing. Being able to help pack the house to the moving van can give them a greater feeling of importance.

Since children can be very attached to their pets, investigate what is required to bring the animal onto the islands. It is a different environment and may require specialized immunizations to fit safely in with Hawaiian conditions.

If you are moving to Hawaii with school-aged children or those about to reach that age, it is crucial to check out what has been reported as a widely varied rating on the Hawaiian public schools. There are some parts of the islands where the school systems rate well but also many that fall well below the national average. The vast majority of mainlanders who move to Hawaii with their school-aged children find that it is best to enroll them in either private schools or take the time and effort to home-school them.

There is one delicate and quite touchy problem you and especially your children will have to deal with when they move to Hawaii. Even though it has been a State in the Union for sixty years now, the people still tend to call anyone from the mainland “haole”, which means “foreigner” in the Hawaiian language. Race relations are still strained in a lot of Hawaiian culture. The indigenous Hawaiian people are descended from Asian/Polynesian stock and a newcomer, be they Caucasian or Negro, will find that they are now in the minority class by a wide margin. Despite the government’s and educator’s best efforts, racial discrimination against mainland Americans is a fact that will have to be considered and dealt with.

A good way to help your child acclimate to Hawaii is to have them study the history of the Hawaiian people so they can have a better understanding of the culture they are entering. By knowing more about this unique place in the ocean and its unique people, they will be better prepared to more easily fit in to their new home.