Year 7 having a wobble as he has no friends [sad]

[itwasmuchbetter]

DS has seemed fine since staring brand new secondary school last Friday. He seems to like teachers, lessons etc. and I was secretly feeling relieved about how easy he was settling in. Then last night I was telling him how proud I was of him and his eyes filled with tears!!! He said he has forgotten how to make friends and he feels like everyone else has a friend except him. He is not keen on football and I think a lot of the dc do that at play time and I get the feeling he is spending a fair bit of time on his own. I feel heartbroken. I reassured him and said it is early days, normal to feel like that etc etc. Not really sure how I can help him and would love some reassurance please.

[sparkles18]

My DS is feeling exactly the same as your son. He too doesn't like football and seem to be wondering around on his own at lunch time. I've done exactly the same reassurance as you and also said to try and talk to more boys. Lunch time clubs are starting next week so we are going to sit down tonight and see what clubs he would like to join and hopefully he will have more children to talk to. It is heartbreaking but I'm being all positive and reassuring with him and keeping my fingers crossed that he will click with someone soon.

[itwasmuchbetter]

Thanks sparkles - shame we can't put them together! We talked about clubs too and hoping he will meet like minded friends there. Good luck to your DS, it's such a huge learning curve.

[PumpkinPie9]

Could you email the form tutor to mention it? Visiting the library might give him a bit of a break sometimes if he is feeling overwhelmed. A lot of schools have a club for kids who need help settling in that you wouldn't know about unless you asked. Do a lot of the kids come from the same primaries and he doesn't?

[harragirl]

This was my ds last year. He didn't know anyone at secondary and spent the first few weeks on his own reading in the playground. He's another football hater. By half term he had found a group of boys with similar interests (Minecraft etc) and had joined Science Club and cross country club - both at lunchtimes. He is still not much of a joiner in, but in year 8 he now has a "best friend" who he walks to school with and plenty of others he plays with in breaktime (and I mean play - still acting out Minecraft etc etc although they call it something different now to sound slightly cooler ...!).

Honesty it will get better - this time next year you will be posting a similar message to the one I'm posting now!

[Fern1965]

My DD is the same and it's absolutely breaking my heart. She is so, so upset every day after school (started last week) and I just don't know what we can do to help. This is very hard. You have my every sympathy.

[tribpot]

I was surprised when my ds got home yesterday from the first day of Y7 that they hadn't done a bit of ice breaking in their mentor group and introduced themselves to the person sitting next to them etc - the school don't seem to be making a lot of effort to ensure the children integrate so they seem to be sticking quite closely to their primary school groups (which is fine if you have one and rotten if you don't).

I would email the tutor, it may only need as much as a 'who here doesn't like football?' kind of remark (my ds doesn't so he would be fine at our school!) just to get things going, but needs a bit of a push. The kids will of course integrate eventually but when they're all feeling like fish out of water they need a bit of a nudge.