I am sure this is a topic of great interest to many of the folks doing R2I or thinking/planning R2I. I have seen good amount of debate on this in other forums as well and will try to cover a bit. As you can expect, everyone's experience in this area is going to be different for the simple reason that every kids is different. However, one easy classification is - 'reserved/shy kids/accept what parents(may not be fully but are open to trying out)' type versus 'outgoing/question everything' type of kids, which does make a difference in this department.
On the positive side of R2I, a simple example - my kid was trying to get a paper towel and as you may expect the paper towel quality isn't that great here. It wouldn't simply cut at the marked line. Coming from US, he expects everything to work perfectly but unfortunately things aren't perfect anywhere. You would see them working mostly perfectly in US but it is the other way around here in many cases. He was getting real frustrated and started cursing. Had to step in give a bit of wisdom on how to make it work and do not expect everything to be perfect. Bit of a lecture and he understood what we mean and hopefully next time we wouldn't hear so much. Bottom line is - atmosphere here exposes kids to these type of challenges and learn how to handle situations when things don't go the way it is expected, which I think has value in itself.
Coming to the topic itself, so far it has been fairly smooth, as far as their adjustment is concerned. Couple of things which can be listed out:
School: This part has been fine due to some choices we made. First of all, an international school - I have heard cases where kids were put into a normal schools and families returning back after a year. The issue is the school environment. You would mostly see local kids and kids from US won't have that wavelength to adjust or won't have much in common like pokeman cards or baseball etc. International schools tend to have more of returnee kids and kids make friends easily, which is a great part of adjustment. Second factor is language: Language is compulsory and NRI kids have the choice of selecting languages other than Hindi or Kannada, like French. If the kid is smaller, it is a good idea to start with Hindhi or Indian languages but if the kid is grown up (like 5th or 6th grade), it is going to be difficult for the kid to ram-up to that language at the 5th or 6th grade level and do well (for ex, in Hindi, at 6th grade level, kids will be doing poetries or stories. How can you expect a kid who is learning alphabets to do understand and analyze stories?). Check with school to make sure language like French(since alphabet is English, it makes it easier to handle) is offered and take Hindi or local language is the 3rd language(which is not a 'counted' language until 8th standard). This will make a whole lot of difference and kids can spend time on other subjects like Math or science rather than getting bogged down/depressed by language trouble(especially when they are going thru' whole lots of adjustments like people, environment, family, friends etc). I am really thankful that school offered that suggestion of French when we selected Hindi as the second language and we changed our mind. Again, not sure all schools (especially non international schools) offer this choice. Check with the school before you decide on the school.
Home: This area is not as comfortable as it used be for them in US(in terms of the surroundings) but staying in an apartment made a lots of difference. There is the tennis court, swimming pool, place to bike etc and most of all. place is neat and clean with greenery, which the kids expect as a basic norm. Having a car in the beginning itself isolates them a bit from the hustle and bustle of Indian cities and gives a bit of comfort and likeliness. Idea is not to try to isolate the kids from reality but provide a shock absorber environment and gradually expose them to the realities.
Health: There is a bit of negative side here for sure. There is no way kids can be isolated from the exposure to smoke(I hate people burning plastic, paper etc), pollution etc. Water can be main source of health hazard and so far with the bottled water, it has been ok. We make sure kids don't drink water outside and carry water all along. Kids being allergic to dust etc makes it bit more challenging - they will run into eye irritations, cough etc. As one of the doctors said, it will take at least few seasons of exposure for kids to get resistance. Hope that is the case.
Family/friends: This is one of the main reasons for R2I and we have definitely seen changes in kids due to that. They do try to understand more about who is who and how they are related. They have built a good friend circle at school and cousins. As expected, they do miss their US friends, mostly due to the reason of new electronic gadgets etc.
In additon, this is where the kid type I described earlier plays a part as well - if your kid is the questioning type and has opinion on everything and is quite independent, he/she might run into some trouble. This is simply due to the reason that there are things that go on in the surroundings which can't be easily explained. It might be about why people throw trash on the roads, why teacher expects them to theory for a computer subject or why roads have so many pot holes and why they are not getting repaired quickly.
Overall, I would say it has been positive so far. We do hear kids wanting back to be in US, especially when things don't go the way they want them to go. There is a bit of complain about more home work, longer commute etc but hope this will subside as they get used to the system here more and more. Having grown up in India, it is hard to see thru' their eyes but having seen the US system, we can at least understand/appreciate what they are going thru' better.
