British mum's website is helping expat parents around the world

A British expat mum launched a website to help others in her position – and now thousands of readers are using it to share advice from around the globe.

Carole Hallett Mobbs set up Expat Child after moving from the UK to Japan with her husband and young daughter. The experience made her realise that being a mum far from home can be stressful and isolating.

“It does help to know that not every expat experience is wonderful. You can be very isolated,” she said.

“When you move with children and they are very young, you go to the school gate and meet other parents there. But as soon as they are old enough to go off to school on public transport, there’s no communication with other mums.”

Another problem can be picking the right school from the opposite side of the world.

“It’s not always feasible to just pop over to another country when its 12 hours away, and look at the schools. We got no help with that and unfortunately didn’t make appropriate decisions,” she said.

The site offers practical advice on topics ranging from flying with a baby to finding the right school, and from arranging leaving parties to raising multilingual children.

“The aim of the site is to provide knowledge and information to other parents embarking on an expat life, and for existing expats who are embarking on a parenting life,” explained Hallett Mobbs.

“Other expat parents from my online community kindly contribute guest articles on subjects close to their heart, and add subject matter that I don’t have the personal experience to confidently write about.”

Hallett Mobbs, 47, was born in Wales, grew up in Devon and then moved to London for her career in the IT industry, going on to work in Hong Kong.

Having met her husband and given birth to daughter Rhiannon, the family moved to Tokyo from the UK in 2006 when Rhiannon was five years old.

“We found our feet in the expat world on a trial and error basis. Although we had a lot of general assistance, the most valuable information came from other expat parents, and the support of the expat community in Japan was invaluable,” she explained.

When Hallett Mobbs first came up with the idea for Expat Child, it was going to be a book. However, the website began to take shape after the family left Japan following the major earthquake that struck in 2011, and moved to Berlin.

“It was a sad and traumatic end to a very special posting in a wonderful country and it took me a long time to find my feet in Europe. The whole expat experience in Germany has been very far removed from the life we had in Japan, and I became depressed,” she explained.

During the summer holidays in 2012 the idea for the book morphed into plans for a website, and they rapidly gained momentum.

“My mood lifted immensely as my idea took real shape. As soon as we were back in Berlin I started working on it, and launched it at the beginning of September 2012. It took off remarkably quickly and has become a full time and very enjoyable job, albeit unpaid,” she said.

The site is now getting 2,500 page views per day, with around 600 unique new visitors every day.

Hallett Mobbs said the figures are “absolutely stunning” and growing rapidly. She added that she wants her website to be a more welcoming place than the popular mumsnet forum - which is promoted as being "by parents for parents".

She explained: "I'm happy for people to share their opinions on Expat Child, but more than that I want information. Mumsnet has a somewhat judgmental reputation, and I want positive advice."

She is particularly happy about the way fans of her site are using its Facebook page to post questions and answers, and she welcomes contributions to the website from others who have personal blogs.

“This is more than a full time job – it’s a full-time life for me and I thoroughly enjoy it,” she said.

“I do feel I’m giving something back and connecting with people I never would have found before.”

Read Expat Child here, or on Facebook or Twitter.