A family that moves abroad moves as one nervous system. If one parent is braced, the children feel it before breakfast. If a child isn't sleeping, nobody is. If everyone is coping, nobody is resting. This is why I work with expat families on the Riviera as households rather than as individuals — and why the session that helps most is usually not the one you'd expect.

Here's how it works, who goes first, and what changes.

The household as one system

In a new country, the adults are running the practical alert: bank, school, préfecture, language, car. The children are running the social alert: new class, new language, new rules. Everyone comes home at 6 pm with a full tank of unresolved and empties it on each other. Nobody's at fault. The house just has nowhere to put it.

What a family in this state needs is not more activity — not another club, another outing, another plan. It needs one place where demand stops, and it needs it repeatedly enough that the house starts to expect it.

Who goes first

The parent who holds the most. Almost always. I say this to every family and most of them argue, because they want the child helped first. But children read the adult nervous system before they read anything else, and a settled parent at 6 pm changes the whole house. Start with the one who is closest to empty.

What the sessions look like

For adults: 45 minutes at home, on the bed, fully clothed, while the children are at school or asleep. Hands resting lightly on the body in a set sequence, no conversation. Most parents fall asleep in the first ten minutes and describe it as the first time in months they've been horizontal without listening for someone.

For children: fifteen to twenty-five minutes at bedtime, in their bed, with a parent in the room. Nothing to do — book, toy, screen. Hands resting lightly on shoulders or feet. They go quiet, often sleep. Always alongside the paediatrician.

For the house: I come on the same afternoon for both if it suits. Parent at 2 pm, child at 7. The house gets two hours of someone steady in it.

What one family saw

A child who'd been waking most nights since the move began sleeping through after a few bedtime sessions. The mother, who'd started her own sessions two weeks earlier, said the change in the child came after the change in her — she'd stopped dreading bedtime, and he'd stopped fighting it. I don't know which caused which. I think it was the house.

What I won't do

Treat a child instead of a paediatrician. Suggest sessions for everyone when one person needs them. Sell a family package before a first session. Reiki is complementary in every case — it works alongside medical care for the adults and the paediatrician for the children, and if I hear something that needs a doctor, I'll say so first.

Where to start

One session for the parent who holds the most. Then we talk. The Renewal — four sessions over a month — is the shape I usually suggest for that parent, and if a child's session makes sense after that, we add it. Villas in Mougins, Valbonne, Cap d'Antibes, Biot; apartments in Cannes and Nice. I come to the house.

The first month here

If you've just arrived — boxes still in the garage, school started last week — this is the window where a household's nervous system sets its default for the year. A session for the parent in the first month, and a bedtime one for the child if bedtime is hard, does more now than it will in March. I say this not to sell urgency but because I watch it every September in Mougins and Valbonne: the families who rest early settle faster.

FAQ

How does Reiki work for a family? As a household: the parent who holds the most goes first, because children read the adult nervous system. Sessions at home — 45 minutes for adults, fifteen to twenty-five for children at bedtime.

Can children and parents have sessions on the same day? Yes, and it works well. Parent in the afternoon, child at bedtime, the house gets a steady presence for two hours.

Is energy healing safe for expat children? Sessions are light hand contact with a parent present, nothing applied. Always alongside the paediatrician, never instead.

If your house is running on empty

Message me on WhatsApp and tell me who's holding the most. That's who we start with. The Renewal is four sessions, €640; children's sessions are shorter and priced separately.