If you or your child was lonely at secondary, did it get better?

[WarningOfGails]

My DD in Y11 doesn’t really have a social life. She has one friend who she sees pretty much daily, this is generally him coming round to our house. She has friends she spends time with at school but she doesn’t want to spend any more time with them outside of school, so she doesn’t. From what she’s said she would like a social group to hang around with more & she feels like she’s a social outsider.

she moves to a 6th form college in September & I’m really hoping starting afresh with lots of new people will make a big change for her.

was this your experience? Did things get better? I was never Miss Popular or anything but by this age I had a fairly tight knit group of friends who I had a lot of fun with, I feel sad she’s so isolated.

I was like this in the early stages of secondary I really really struggled with social groups. I got better at my social skills so by college age ( I went to school in ireland so different system) I had a core group of friends that are still good friends 20 years later, 3 of them will be bridesmaids at my wedding later this year.
I also made a good group of friends at uni and socialise alot with colleagues and friends where I live now. Could you try talking about what aspects she struggles with. For example get her to suggest a cinema trip to new friends. DSS is early age of primary but I was almost coaching him in how to build friendships and making simple suggestions that he has now taken on board and started to build more of his own social skills

Tbh I think she’s been totally stymied by lockdowns. We moved here from an isolated location overseas just before Y7, so she was just finding her feet socialising etc when the first lockdown happened in March Y7, and she’s never really recovered from it. She is fine in groups, like I say she has friends at school, but sometimes I wonder if she doesn’t quite know how to deepen a friendship? But then she would say she doesn’t want to be better friends with her associates at school.

I think a lot of people don't find "their people" until a bit later op. College/university perhaps.

Does she do stuff outside of school? That can really help with confidence building and having friends not attached to school.

She used to do Explorer Scouts but that has dropped off this year, possibly because a not-friend from school joined?
She does another activity twice a week, it’s been complicated by having an ex boyfriend there now, & while she’s got two friends there they both go to school/live an hour away so she never sees them either!
She has a little Saturday job that’s very people facing though.