DD is 8, Year 4.
I know friendship issues are common among this age group and the teacher has said she’s seeing a lot more of it possibly due to the affects of the lockdowns.
For context during the first lockdown it was just me and DD, sometimes we didn’t see or speak to another soul for weeks. Her dad disappeared for the entire time, DD was scared by covid and we lived in a 1 bed top floor flat and she was by this point half my size and far too heavy to force down the stairs, no lift as there’s only 3 floors (ground, 1st and 2nd, we were 2nd).
2nd lot of school closures was slightly better but DD was recovering from surgery in the November so we did get to see Drs and Nurses when we went for check ups and occasionally other DC also waiting to see the Dr – she’d gone back to school for a week before Christmas after the surgery.
So I know DDs social skills have been delayed, as she’s an only child. All the girls she wants to play with at school have older siblings, so they do seem more grown up.
DD has a joint condition and SN but nothing is actually diagnosed. She’s down at school as suspected dyslexic. We’re awaiting an official diagnosis and are going through the EHC plan process. I know dyslexia causes processing issues and social issues.
After school I’m getting a lot of “She hit me so I hit her back but I got in trouble and she didn’t” “They wanted to play alone and I didn’t know how to ask the others in the class to play with me so I sat alone” to the point it’s every night. I’m also starting to get calls from the teacher during the day about minor low-level stuff – talking during class, insisting she has to sit with one particular child or she can’t sit with one.
DD lacks confidence, I know this. She won’t even tell her teacher if her joints are hurting. So I do think a lot of it is her not making herself understood to the other children in her class, she also has a slight speech delay and I’ve noticed recently whereas in Reception and Years 1-3 the other children understood her clearly, she’s now struggling to be understood, whether it’s because she speaks slowly and they’re losing patience for her to get to the point or whether they genuinely can’t understand her I don’t know.
She’s started going to lunchtime clubs instead of onto the playground but I think this is actually making it worse because then when she is on the playground those friendships are established and DDs trying to break into them, thats when she says they don't want to play with her.
She begged me to do an after school club with her teacher, literally begged me, told me her best friend in her class was going and she really wanted to do it. But I had to stop it, she was coming out crying saying X had ignored her or the teacher had put her in a group with children from another class or year, and then she’d get violent with me at home. So now I’m the bad guy because she still wants to go, but she hit and kicked me after it for the entire half term she did it, so I said no this half term.
She does Brownies, and there’s a couple from her class there but none of her immediate friends, I had hoped it’d encourage those friendships but she basically ignores them outside of Brownies meetings, which seems ashame.
I’m seriously worried about her, both mentally as she’s so upset about it all and also because I want her to have friends. I don’t care whether it’s 1 friend or 21.
I’ve tried everything. Playdates; the child comes and plays but doesn’t seem to try with DD at school (and I’ve had nearly every child in the class over at least twice), DD had a birthday party in Year 3 and insisted she invite the whole class and one child from the class came, DD had fun anyway as my cousins who have children and ExHs DNs came, but it was disappointing for DD who was expecting 31 DC there and had just 7 and most of those where family.
Any ideas how I can help her? Or is it just the situation? I’m worried she’ll never recover socially from this and that breaks me.