Anyone taken Aussie kids back to UK and they have wanted to stay ??

Hello everyone ,

Has anyone taken their Aussie kids back to UK for a " holiday" to see how they liked it and how did it go ??

My kids are 14 and 16 and in 3+ years planning on taking them for three months ( they have an aussie dad ) and I am remarried to an englishman for 10 years , I was born and bred in yorkshire and have always longed to go home but wont/cant without my kids.

People tell me im living in a dreamworld .. maybe I am

So has anyone taken kids back to UK for a longer holiday and they have wanted to stay despite having family here ????

If this hasnt worked has anyone successfully left their adult kids ( 20+ ) in Aus and gone back to UK with regular visits to Aus ?

You are talking about 3+ years in the future. Your children will be at least 17 and 19 years of age by then. They may not even want to go back for a "holiday". Perhaps it is a question to better ask once you are in that time frame?

My kids were 14 and 16 when I took them back to UK for a holday after being in Oz for nearly 9 years. We had an 8 week holiday planned and just 4 days into the holiday they called a family conference (just something we do when we have family stuff to talk about) and they asked me if we were in UK just for a holiday or was I thinking of moving back there. Once I told them that I had no intention of moving back to UK, they both gave a huge sigh of relief and said "thank goodness, we can relax and enjoy our holiday then - it's ok Mum but we don't want to live here again either". PHEW!!!

However as you aren't going for another three years, I think you might want to stop stressing about it now.... save your sanity for a few years anyway!

Bottom line is we are all different and if they decided to go back to live there, you will just have to suck it up. It is hard to live in another country to your child/children, and it wasn't until my youngest moved to Queensland from WA last year, I realised what I had put my parents through by moving to the other side of the world.

thanks for the replys .... my homesickness is so bad that I have to have plans to go back to keep my sanity. My son (14) said he should have been born in England and my daughter Im not sure . In the future I need to spend time each year in the UK and so for me this is my first option but I understand of course that they may not want it and then I will revisit things ...... My dad is 68 years young but longs to go back to UK and at times is a right misery guts ( actually most of the time ) and so I dont want to end up like him ... we will find a way but to believe this is where I will be for the rest of my life is not an option for me and I dont hate Australia I actually think I would miss it if I went home but this is not home and after 26 years Im pretty sure Ive given it a good shot...... what will be will be !

Another factor to consider is if any of them want to go to Uni, they will not be able to do so in the UK without paying International fees (upwards of GBP 25k a year last time I checked) as they will not have been living there for the three years prior.

I took my kids (aussies)back to the UK when they were 9 and 11 yrs of age.They're now in their 20's.Both have said they would not return to Australia to live.So in that regard,its been sucessful.

When my kids were young teens they didn't want to live in UK - but at the end of their teens one couldn't wait to get here, he lasted a year and returned to Aus (I think he was lonely). The other never had a burning desire to live in UK despite having been born here but came for a post uni gap "year" over a decade ago and has no intention of living in Australia again. Ironically, the one who came first is on his own (well, with wife and kids and no one else of his own) and he would love to come and live in UK (I think he is lonely again!) but they can't afford it and she won't leave her mother! I really think that had either we or his brother been in UK when he came at 18 he would have stayed. Quite a few of DS1's friends came for their working holiday and stayed if they could. His school has quite a large London reunion most years!

I'm born and bred here in Aus but all my extended family is in the UK, when we were younger mum would take me and my sister over for visits about once every couple of years (its so expensive back then and mum paid for it all). I'm now 28 and bidding Aus farewell so the pull of family is not to be underestimated you may well find if you do move back and your kids stay that at some point they may want to come over too.

Not in that position so maybe shouldn't comment but any children with dual nationality have a choice of where to live once they are adults and may make different choices from there parents! In fact given my 10 year olds unfathomable obsession with Canada at the moment he may end up somewhere else completely!

As you have two they may end up in different places so what then?

As a mum I empathise entirely with you, every milestone my son passes I experience grief (he lost his last 'baby' tooth recently!) and given his heart was in Scotland and he had already said he wanted to go to college there I knew if we didn't move back I'd be losing him for sure. We weren't particularly happy in Perth (& definitely not happier) so it was easy to move back.

If he did decide to move back to Australia as an adult, I can't see us following but who knows!

Who knows what our children will do, they grow up make their own lives with wives and partners and together they decide what they want to do just like we did.

There are no guarantees. I have a close Australian friend, one son went to the UK on a working holiday, stayed, opened a business and that is that. Her daughter took her own life. So she has one son living in Victoria and she lives in Queensland.

Her sister in laws son, is living in America as he is a scientist ant that is where the work is. Married an American so bye bye that son.

My sister in law lives in New Zealand migrated before they had children. One son lives permanently in the UK, two live in NZ.

We cannot pull ourselves apart to be with them, also there is always the chance that a parent moves to be near a child and they up and move somewhere else.

My friend in QLD had neighbours where that happened.

Marriages break up, partnerships fail and the children move on.

We live in a global village and we just have to put up with not being near our nearest and dearest these days, its the modern way.

In my view the only losers in following children are the parents. They move away from long term friendships at a time of life when they need their friends and peers.

Our children are not the same generation as us and we are parents not friends in the end.

I will be staying in my pond with my dearest friends nearby and as I said to my son yesterday, he is staying with me for a few days and was apologising for not helping me more. I told him he has his own family and life now and that is his main concern now, not to worry about me.

I was just wondering if the kids ever see their father. You would have to wait until they are 18 anyway if this is the case ( and maybe if not). Three years is an awful long time away, I wouldn't even be thinking about it yet. At that age they change a lot, it may be that your son is telling you what you want to hear just now at age 14.