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Original poster

Struggling with secondary transition - advice please

36 replies

cherryberriesonacloud · 18/09/2025 22:51

Hello

Sorry for rather rambling message but wanted to paint the picture.

DS started at secondary a few weeks ago - he enjoyed the first few days but since then has been fairly miserable - anxious/having panic attacks at bedtime and generally struggling with the overwhelm of it all.

I know it is very very common to struggle with this transition, and that it takes many children months if not most of the year to settle in. But I don't know how to support him day to day.

He complains when we get him up in the morning, at 7am - which is early but he's always been quite an early bird and would naturally wake up 7:15/730 so this aspect isn't a big change. We're insisting he has lights out by 9:30pm and would struggle to make him go to bed any earlier. But some nights he has had panic attacks and doesn't fall asleep until much later.

He complains about how much homework he has, but he's getting only very short tasks at the moment so it's not generally taking very long. I think he feels anxious that he's getting homework for 2-3 subjects. He's also overwhelmed with all the logistics of navigating the school and the different lessons, remembering kit and equipment etc (again totally normal I know).

He's NT and has always done very well academically. The school he's at is quite academic but he doesn't seem to be struggling with the work, though he says he's tired at school and finds it hard to focus. He also complains that he finds most of the lessons boring.

He is becoming really fixated on how he has much less free time than when he was at junior school - he does have less, but he gets home around 4:45 and doesn't get ready for bed until about 8:45 so even with homework and dinner he still has about 3 hours a day. He does only one afterschool club which was totally his choice. I try to point out to him that he still has lots of free time plus weekends but he's just so negative about it and won't listen.

The school itself is not the issue - it is a great school with good pastoral support, and he is making friends and is generally a good 'fit' for him - there's no question of us moving him, as the issues he's complaining about would be the same anywhere else. There is a counsellor at school who he has seen once - she taught him some breathing exercises and tried to reassure him (that's as much as I've got out him about it) and he's due to go back in a fortnight. He doesn't want me to tall his form tutor that he's having issues though.

I veer between feeling sorry for him and wanting to support him to thinking that he just needs to get a grip, that this is life for everyone and that no-one gets to stay at junior school and shirk responsibility for ever! He keeps saying he doesn't want to go to school and I worry that if we can't turn this around we may be on a path to EBSA.

Can anyone advise on what we can do to help him break out of this negative mindset? Sorry again for long post.

OP posts:
pinkdelight · 18/09/2025 23:37

what time does the school finish? It stuck out to me that he’s not home till 4.45 with a 40min commute, which sound like it’s a long school day. My kids at secondary and sixth form are both home by 3.30, finishing at 3 and 3.10 so even with yours longer commute, 4.45 still seems late with only one afterschool club a week. Is there a reason he went to a school quite far away that no one else from his primary went to? No criticism in any of this, just picking up on the factors that stand out as not the usual situation. Still a transitional time and likely he’ll adjust and feel better as he settles, but it does sound like a fair response to not having as much time or freedom as he used to, or as some friends at closer schools may have.

TheNightingalesStarling · 18/09/2025 23:33

Is it quite a long school day... they seem to be finishing at 4pm?

Justanotherteacher · 18/09/2025 23:29

Can he cycle to school? That would half the travel time.

Original poster
cherryberriesonacloud · 18/09/2025 23:29

Octavia64 · 18/09/2025 23:11

It is overwhelming for many kids.

(ex secondary teacher).

we used to keep the academic challenge down fairly low in the first few weeks as there really is a lot of adjust to.

focus on reminding him that he does have time. If he complains about homework or similar remind him he does actually have three hours.

panic attacks - there are some good strategies for dealing with these. Generally they involve grounding - so becoming more aware of your body now.

a classic is to write down or descrive
5 things you see
4 things you hear
3 things you smell
2 things you can touch
1 thing you can taste.

if you google grounding strategies you’ll get more.

Thank you, that's a good tip re grounding and not one I'd heard before.

We have been pointing out that he does have quite a bit of free time still but he just won't accept it. It's like he's determined to feel miserable and (dare I say it) wallow in self-pity.

The academic challenge will inevitably be ramped up over time and I do worry how he will cope when it does.

OP posts:
Original poster
cherryberriesonacloud · 18/09/2025 23:26

ChillWith · 18/09/2025 23:15

My first thoughts too @noblegiraffe. Also, how is he getting to school? If public transport, rival schools or older kids can be pretty mean to Y7s

He's either walking or getting a lift with us or occasionally with his friend.
We've looked into the public transport options (public buses) for the days when he can't get a lift but by the time he'd walked to and from the stops and waited for a probably-late bus it would shave only about 5 minutes off the time it would take to walk home. But we should explore it as an option for very bad weather days.
I doubt very much there would be anyone else from the school on the bus if he did get it.

OP posts:
Original poster
cherryberriesonacloud · 18/09/2025 23:23

noblegiraffe · 18/09/2025 23:12

You said he enjoyed the first few days and then started having panic attacks. Did something happen that has triggered this? Did something happen with his friendship group?

I don't think so - my reading is that the first few days were quite fun with various team-building events, introductory sessions and the like.

Since then the work has started in earnest and the novelty has generally worn off. He has said a couple of times "I can't believe I have a whole seven years of this." He says he feels under pressure from everything he has to remember, from the homework and from the relative lack of free time.

He had had a couple of panic attacks before, within the 18 months or so, but it was never clear (and he was unable to explain) what caused them. They weren't related to the bullying at the end of junior school as they came long before that.

OP posts:
Original poster
cherryberriesonacloud · 18/09/2025 23:19

Sorry, yes, NT = neurotypical. You are right to pull me up on the acronyms. EBSA = emotional based school avoidance, basically extreme anxiety that means a child really struggles to go to school.

Thank you for your reply, to answer your questions:

  • definitely not the school, it is not one of those stupidly strict ones. No-one in the year has received a detention for anything yet, there is a rumour (unconfirmed!) that one boy got a minor conduct point thing.
  • Friendships - no-one from his junior school has gone there, but he has quite a good friend from infant school who he has stayed friends with, and is in his class which is great. There were a number of meet-ups with families before school started and he got to know some others there. From what he says, he has a little group who he goes for lunch with etc (including the friend from infant school), and he had a zoom call with one boy yesterday so they could do Roblox together. He did have some serious friendship issues (AKA bullying) at the end of his time at junior school but I'm not getting even a hint of that now.
  • Yes, the commute is much worse - he was a 7ish minute walk from his Junior school and now it's a 40 min walk to his new school - that said, he gets a lift most days either with us or with his infant school friend so I'd say he's only doing the 40 min walk maybe 3 or 4 times a week (out of 10 journeys to/from school). But either way, this is undoubtedly a big change for him. And despite us repeatedly encouraging him to leave books he doesn't need in his locker, he is still carrying round way more than he needs to.
  • Last year he was doing a Saturday football club but that didn't continue beyond Y6 and he's never really been that into football. He's just decided to stop doing Scouts but he had been wavering about that for a while (it's on the same night as the after school club that he wants to do).
  • His afternoon routine - he used to be home by about 3:45 and now it's an hour later (if he walks, but he's home by 4:20 or so if he gets a lift). Other than that it's not wildly different from before - he alternates between doing homework and then having screentime for a bit. We normally limit screentime to an hour during the week but have been letting him have a bit more as it's how he decompresses. He also reads a fair bit.
OP posts:
ChillWith · 18/09/2025 23:15

My first thoughts too @noblegiraffe. Also, how is he getting to school? If public transport, rival schools or older kids can be pretty mean to Y7s

noblegiraffe · 18/09/2025 23:12

You said he enjoyed the first few days and then started having panic attacks. Did something happen that has triggered this? Did something happen with his friendship group?

Octavia64 · 18/09/2025 23:11

It is overwhelming for many kids.

(ex secondary teacher).

we used to keep the academic challenge down fairly low in the first few weeks as there really is a lot of adjust to.

focus on reminding him that he does have time. If he complains about homework or similar remind him he does actually have three hours.

panic attacks - there are some good strategies for dealing with these. Generally they involve grounding - so becoming more aware of your body now.

a classic is to write down or descrive
5 things you see
4 things you hear
3 things you smell
2 things you can touch
1 thing you can taste.

if you google grounding strategies you’ll get more.

ParentOfOne · 18/09/2025 23:06

BY NT do you mean neurotypical? I struggle to keep up with internet acronyms

A few questions come to mind:

  • are you sure it's not the school? is it one of those schools that gives detentions for the most stupid things? Those environments can wreck a person's mental health
  • how about friendships? Did none of his friends up in the school? Or maybe they are but in different classes?
  • How long is his commute? Did he go from a 5 minute walk to primary to navigating multiple trains/buses to get to secondary?
  • What did he do last year which he isn't doing now? Any specific activity? Sports with friends who have now moved? How has his afternoon routine changed?
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