Our 14-year-old is furious with us. Leaving friends at that age feels like the end of the world, and honestly I can't blame him. We're trying to involve him in the choices but every conversation ends in a slammed door. For those who moved with teens — did it get better, and what actually helped?
Our teenager struggled far more than the younger one — age really does change the whole equation here, in ways I underestimated going in.
Slammed doors, extremely familiar. Hang in there.
The move itself wasn’t negotiable, but we let our teenager choose their own room and pick one extracurricular before we even left. Small pieces of real agency seemed to matter more than I expected.
Gentle disagreement with the “stay positive and sell it” approach that gets recommended a lot — forcing enthusiasm backfired for us. Letting our kid be openly angry for a while, without trying to fix the feeling, worked better in the end.
Following, no teenagers yet but already dreading this exact conversation.
OP here — thank you all, and Marco’s point about not forcing positivity really landed. Going to stop trying to talk him into being okay with it.
Outside perspective from further down the road: our kids were furious too at that age, and both came around eventually, even if it genuinely didn’t feel that way at the time.
Did video calls with the old friend group help, or did they end up making it worse for your teenager?
Anna — helped initially for us, then naturally tapered off as new friendships formed, which honestly felt like a good sign rather than something sad.
Small update: still rocky, but the door-slamming is down from daily to weekly. I’ll take the progress.