Parenting primary versus secondary kids

[wellthatsokthen]

Aibu to wonder how parenting changes between primary and secondary school. In (our) primary school the mums seem hugely involved in setting up play dates and deciding who their children should and shouldn't be friends with. Parents seem very involved with the school, the playground, the other parents etc etc. Aibu to wonder what tends to happen when children go off to secondary school?

*Macmillan

I've never experienced deciding who your kids should or should not be friends with though. There are some natural friendships from nursery etc but no other parental involvement

DD has just finished Year 7 and her social life is very different to what it was at primary school.

Despite going to a very tight knit primary school and having the same close friends from aged 3-11 yrs, they’ve pretty much drifted apart and she has a new set of friends. I’ve also stopped meeting up with most of the mums, as our DC have all gone to different schools and it seems a bit forced, although we have a natter if we bump into each other.

I don’t arrange play dates for her at all now. She asks me if she can go to a friends house after school etc. and I decide on the matter. I do insist on at least talking to a parent first and getting numbers for her friends parents, but I pretty much just drop off/collect or set a time for her to walk home. No coffee with the Mums anymore, which is fine by me!

Thank fuck no more class birthday parties, either .

I don’t have much to do with anything at secondary. Ds is 15 and if he was to go over to someone’s home that I don’t know I would still ask for a parent’s number so I could text and check it’s ok. I am definitely in the minority with that though.

Dd is nearly 13 and the parents are slightly more involved, eg would nearly always still message before dropping etc, but there is no involvement in friendships at all. I wouldn’t know the kids well enough to express an opinion in any case, they barely venture out of my kids room when they are here.

I know my ds 13 friends by name but that's it

DS has just finished Y7 (in private). He arranges things with his friends via their phones, asks if he can go to a friends/the park/Goals/McDonalds/the cinema, I agree 90% of the time and he just takes himself off there and brings himself back. We're in London so he either walks or gets the bus.

I don't recognise this at all: I specified state because a friend of mine has had three children at private school and there was much more parental involvement at her children's school. The parents at private school even attended their DC's proms. I can't think of anything that DD would have liked less than to have us at her year 13 prom

I found it started changing earlier, in year 5 and year 6, and year 7 wasn't much different. Meeting friends on their own in town and on the recreation ground, dropping off and picking up where the activity had been organised between the children, with maybe a few minutes chat with the parents if I'd never met them before. Then another jump in year 8 when you never meet or speak to the parents at all, child buying their own train tickets and travelling for 30 minutes to meet a friend.

My eldest starts secondary in September so no experience of it yet. Going from memory of my own schooling, my parents attended parents evening annually and I remember them going to my GCSE drama play but that’s it. I walked to school and back and let myself in from year 7 onwards.

Just guessing you don’t attend very much in person because they’ll most likely make their own way to school and back and you’ll only be invited into school for parents evening and if they’re in trouble.

Very different. In my experience the Queen Bee Mums massively have their social standing wiped out in Secondary.

My teenager still walks to school and back and hangs out with the same friends he did in primary plus a couple of new friends. I still have coffees etc with the friends I made when he was younger. So not much has changed, just that there isn't playground chat - we have to be a bit more organised in advance now.