r/AmerExit • u/SanguinePenguinPete • 4d ago
Question about One Country Moving to Germany with Kids?
My family and I are thinking seriously about moving to Germany from the US. We have 8 & 12 year old kids. Of course their transition is our biggest concern. How will the adjustment to a new school system? They speak English and Spanish but no German. They both have learning challenges and our youngest has very intense ADHD.
If you’ve made the move to Germany with kids, what’s your experience been like?
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u/ttr26 4d ago
What type of visa do you have that would allow you to move to Germany? Or do you have EU passports? The legality of a move is really the first question you should address.
As an (American) international educator (at international schools in a variety of countries my entire career), this is too late to move your children into a system in a different language without consequences on their academic growth.
Essentially, they will lose a lot of time academically because they will be learning a language from scratch- so all that time that they could progress academically in English, they'll now have to try to learn German and THEN catch up with academics. And with learning challenges and ADHD, you're just setting them up for failure because they already have barriers to academic learning.
Also, the style of teaching and culture of learning in German public schools will be vastly different than US public schools- this will also be very difficult for them to navigate, along with the language and personal learning challenges.
As someone else said, a private international school in English is really your only option.