AIBU to worry that my strangeness and mistakes are rubbing off on the children and making them unpopular?

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I have never really fit in with most people i know. I have always been happy as i am but i know that people do think i am a little odd. I don't do anything very out of the ordinary but its little things like the fact I don't drink alcohol or the fact i spend alot of time reading, I don;t really watch that much tv. I dont wear much or any makeup etc. In general I just get on with my own thing and not bother about other people but I have been told many times that i'm weird .

I keep making stupid mistakes - today for example there is a party at the school which was called a halloween party. So I let my 6 year old wear a witches dress (she saw it in the shop and wanted to get it to wear). When we got there no other children were dressed up they were just in jeans.

I have a large family of 6 children and up until this point I have never worried about that rubbing off on them and they are all healthy, happy children. Last year my son started getting badly bullied at school for being weird they started to call the whole family the weird "family name".

My dd just started secondary school and she is getting on ok but has been made fun of recently because they recently had a talent show and as she didnt know any popular songs she just made one up to sing. This was clearly the wrong thing to do. She apparently also answers too many questions in the lessons.

My son is now home educated as it got so bad - of course this just adds to the weird label but his anxiety had gone so high that we had no real choice. He is very happy now and thriving. My 3 next children still go to that school and my 7 year old is now getting upset because people are making fun of her for watching my little pony and barbie.

My 6 year old has no friends - this was actually an issue raised by her teacher who said there wasnt much they could do.

Someone recently said to me "wow you turned them into tiny versions of you".

I am just horrified and feel like i have ruined them!

Is it really possible that all my strangeness has rubbed off on them?
I know this sounds like a really silly thread but I am actually really upset.

I think you perhaps need to get yourself in the loop as regards things like parties: it's okay to ask another mum what her child is wearing for instance

^^This - or ask the teacher - but I would probably have assumed or asked if there were dress up and gone with something more than jeans.

I do wonder if it's more about not having good social skills rather than being weird.

We lived in a small rural town in poor part - we weren't local and other parents did exclude based on that - though I did a lot of toddler groups and had enough acquaintances to mitigate the impact somewhat. It was harder on the kids to fit in but they did manage which was a relief as I was badly bullied and worried for them.

They did have some common cultural references - not so much tv but movies and mine craft - helped them to talk to non immediate friends a bit. But a lot of the stuff they are interested in aren't a shared interest - since we moved it even easier for the kids and they seem able to bring their new friends into their interests - they talk about them and it cool or interesting at very least tolerated.

I do think the school should be offering more social support.

Embrace being unique rather than a sheep Ahem! In my experience, all sheep are individuals and completely unique. True. I don't think the others are clones actually. They have different interests. I happen to think everyone is fascinating in their own way.
I came from a family who ploughed their own furrow. We were a bit odd because my mother worked on our farm and my father was an outspoken character who didn't care abut others' opinions. What is important in life is a loving family and doing what you are passionate about. Their strength gave me strength
However. The saddest part of your post is that your little DD has no friends. You need to get on this. Work with school. Force yourself to chit chat with other mothers and you might have found out that the party wasn't fancy dress. I sent my son to his new school in the wrong trousers and it was awful for him and completely my fault.

tonsil

Yay!

Bats are Brill!

Loads of us are just like you, don't worry and our chilren tend to do much better not worse than other people's children.
Mind you remember Larkin

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.”
― Philip Larkin

OP, I think I had a childhood a bit like your children's, and I wanted to say two things.

1. I'm so grateful for my mum for giving me the childhood she did. We did loads of interesting things as a family, she was really supportive of all our weird interests, and we had lots more fun at weekends than many of my friends did. As an adult, I've got a lot more self-confidence than many of my friends do, because I was brought up to think it didn't matter what you looked like or if you were a bit weird, it was who you were inside that counts, and I can't tell you how grateful I am to her for that. So now I swan around perfectly happily with clothes from Oxfam and no make-up, reading books on buses and not knowing who Taylor Swift is etc etc. My brother and I have both grown up with interesting jobs doing things that we love, despite neither of those jobs being the sort of thing you get careers leaflets about in school. And they both came out of hobbies my mum encouraged us and supported us in.

So keep doing what you're doing. Your kids will thank you for it when they're adults.

1. Having said all that, there were definitely downsides to having my mum. I DID get picked on at school, and there were definitely things I wish she'd spotted earlier and helped me with - like noticing that I needed deodorant and buying some for me, or that I should probably use conditioner, or that all the other girls shaved their legs for PE, or that I didn't have the right clothes to wear to teenage parties etc. I remember telling her the other kids picked on me because they said our clothes came from Oxfam (they didn't.) But her solution was to buy me a nice T shirt from the Oxfam catalogue with African patterns on it and OXFAM in big letters "to show them that Oxfam do nice clothes". Which - er - didn't help. And I was very lonely for the first three years of secondary school, which was hard. So I think your concerns are probably valid.

What should you do about it? Well, don't stop being you (even if you could). But maybe see if you can find some other weird kids for your kids to hang out with. Is there a homeschooling network group you could join? Could you find groups relating to their hobbies that they could take part in? Do you have friends with kids their age they could hang out with a bit more?

Do you have friends you can trust to get a bit of help with this? A bit of protective camouflage is a great help when you're 13. Slightly different clothes or haircuts or whatever it is might make a surprising amount of difference.

And - as others have said - talk to your kids. What do they want? What do they think would help? Are there things the other kids do or watch or listen to that they think it would help to do too?

But do try not to worry. As they get older, they'll find people like them. Whether it's nature or nurture that's made them a bit odd, they'll be much happier knowing that their mum loves them just the way they are, that it's okay and interesting to be different, and that the important thing is being true to themselves and follow their own desires. You sound like you're doing great. A mum who spends all afternoon teaching them how to whittle spoons is a much better thing to have than a working knowledge of pop music.

And it sounds like your kids agree.