The reported transatlantic move puts a spotlight on what families need to know before uprooting their kids
Hollywood Power Couple Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are reportedly considering a move to the United Kingdom with their four children. The couple currently lives in New York, and while no official announcement has been made, the outlet notes that a source close to the couple says they are considering the effect such a move would have on their children: “What’s making them take a long, hard look at their immediate future is that their kids’ schooling and friends are in the States.
The reported discussions have put a very relatable question front and center for parents everywhere: what actually happens to kids when a family moves, especially across an ocean?
The Reynolds/Blake family includes four children ranging in age from toddlerhood to early adolescence. That wide age range is significant because child development research makes clear that the impact of a move is not uniform across childhood.
A toddler and a twelve-year-old will experience the same relocation in dramatically different ways, and parents navigating a major geographic change need to understand those differences before they start packing boxes. For Lively and Reynolds, the professional pressures driving the reported conversation are real — but so are the developmental stakes for each of their children.
Why Age At The Time Of A Move Changes Everything
The science here is more nuanced than most parents realize. A peer-reviewed study published in Frontiers in Psychology drew on data from more than 3,700 university students and found that residential mobility during late childhood and adolescence predicted measurably worse mental health outcomes and lower academic performance, whereas moves before age 6 had a far less lasting impact.
The lead correspondent on that study, Liman Man Wai Li, and colleagues found that the academic performance gap tied to adolescent moves was not meaningfully reduced by higher family income or greater personal resilience; meaning money and grit alone cannot fully buffer a teenager from the disruption of leaving everything familiar behind.
The reason younger children tend to weather moves better comes down to where their world is centered. Before age six, a child’s primary source of security is their caregiver, not their peer group.
Friendships at that age are real but not yet deeply rooted. Once children enter school, however, peer relationships become a central pillar of their emotional lives, and a move that severs those connections can feel genuinely destabilizing. By the time a child reaches the teenage years, the social stakes are even higher — and the research reflects that.
The Emotional Reality For Kids Who Move
In Psychology Today, journalist Melody Warnick describes the emotional landscape of moving for children with striking clarity. By age five, she notes, a child already has their own social network and happy memories tied to a specific place, making a move feel like a forced march into unfamiliar territory where everything comfortable has been left behind. Most children do eventually find their footing, but the transition period can involve genuine grief, loneliness, and a sense of loss that parents should not minimize or rush.
For teenagers specifically, the research points to a cluster of risks that can persist well into adulthood. One longitudinal study of data gathered in Amsterdam found that adolescents who relocated frequently were more likely to experience stress, fatigue, depression, and sleep difficulties as adults. These are not inevitable outcomes, but they are real risks that deserve a place in any family’s decision-making process.
Practical Strategies That Actually Help Kids Through A Move
The good news, as Warnick emphasizes, is that being intentional about how you handle a move can make a meaningful difference. Here are the strategies that research and clinical experience both support:
- Give kids a voice in the process.
- Prioritize rebuilding their social world fast.
- Keep old friendships alive.
- Reestablish routines as quickly as possible.
- Help them fall in love with the new place.
Head over to Psychology Today to read how you can go about establishing those processes.
Why This Matters Beyond the Celebrity Story
The Lively/Reynolds situation is unusual in its specifics, as few families are weighing a transatlantic move, but the underlying tension is one that millions of families navigate every year. Job transfers, economic pressures, family circumstances, and yes, sometimes professional fallout, force parents to make geographic decisions that their children have no say in.
The research is detailed that those decisions carry real developmental weight, particularly for school-age children and teenagers. Acknowledging that weight, rather than minimizing it, is the first step toward handling a move in a way that genuinely protects your kids.
No timeline has been reported for any potential move by the Reynolds family, and neither Lively nor Reynolds has commented publicly. Whether the discussions remain hypothetical or eventually lead to an actual relocation, the conversation they are reportedly having is one worth having carefully, and the science provides families with a real roadmap for doing so well.
