Move school.... again?

[Girlmom83]

AIBU to even consider 6 Yr old request?
Moved then 5 Yr old DD to new school to support her better with social skills (smaller more country school). Its over a year and she has noticeably not improved (has difficulty engaging and is quiet) I invest a lot of time in playdates etc so was willing to wait it out. She came to me recently asking to move to another school where her friend is (this friend does very well socially) and is begging me to consider it. She is alluding to the fact that she doesn't have good friends in HER school and I see her point. But moving doesn't mean her social skills would immediately improve just cause this 1 friend is there. But would her confidence improve just with that simple change? And help her socially.

My heart breaks for her when I see her in social situations and want what's best, but up and moving again is a serious decision.

Is she actually upset that she doesn't have lots of friends? Please type of kids would still be at the play alongside, but not directly with, at that age. Not everyone is a social butterfly.

How was the move meant to improve her social skills?

That's not something schools normally focus on unless they are doing an intervention for a child with ASD or similar.

you are just bonkers dear woman.

I would be looking at how you can help her develop her social skills and boosting her self-esteem.
Poppy O’Neill’s books are pretty good. The ‘Be Cool, Be You’ one is about making friends. I haven’t read that one but have used some of the others with my DC

The chances are that the other girl has more friends because she's more sociable than your dd-which is probably why your dd is attracted to her too.

There's a very good chance that if you move your dd to that school, she'll find the other girl not particularly keen to be friends in school because she'll already be in your group. It could even lead to your dd losing her friendship if things go really badly.

Concentrate on teaching her to make friends where she is. Look at other opportunities where she can make friends, but moving her again is just going to unsettle her and she'll have to restart on making friends again.

Thank you. Consider yourself lucky you don't get where I'm coming from and consider it bonkers. Nothing bonkers about wanting my child to be happy and getting other opinions. My own view is similar to that expressed here, but I also have a child who suffered some early trauma and I will stop at nothing to support her.

I wouldn't have moved her, but you know your child best. Moving her again probably won't help if she is naturally quiet and a bit shy. Why not focus on getting her into other activities - Brownies, drama classes, choir, football, anyting she likes the idea of?

I dont understand why you moved her the first time. A six year old can't make an informed decision about their own schooling.

Maybe talk to the teacher op, my son changed seat to a nice table and it did his confidence a lot of good (I won’t say wonders but he started talking to more people). It was a few years before he found good friends in his class and now there’s four of them that are proper pals. It’s so hard to watch and worse that she’s properly feeling it (my son would just shrug it off and said he was ok being on his own, we knew he wasn’t but it didn’t bother him as much as it might other children). Keep it up with the different play dates and activities and something will hopefully stick x

It’s so difficult when we just want to see our children happy.
I’ve got 5 children ages 9-18 and by no means does it make me an expect but what I’ve learnt is they all did things differently and at different speeds/times.
The girls flit from things and friends far more than the boys. Give her time, she’ll find her feet.

We have done one primary school move which hasn’t gone well socially too. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but we couldn’t have predicted the difficulty. Also if we hadn’t made the move then we would still have the original concerns about the first environment and we would be feeling guilty for not acting on them.

Our son does not see it this way and wants to go back to his original primary.

We have decided not to move again due to the disruption but have chalked it down to experience and feel more empowered to make a better decision for secondary school.

Op my daughter is autistic and i would ask have you considered deeper causes of social skill problems

She needs support in school not to move schools. Have you asked her teachers and the senco for specific help

I would worry that she might end up being left out if she is not as sociable as her friend. That friend is likely to have a group of other friends at school and that isn't always easy to break in to.

Your teaching her running away is the answer, while applying lots of pressure for her to socialuse. Leave her to find her own feet. Some kids just don't do the huge social thing and thats perfectly OK!!

Totally get where you're coming from
I had to move my daughter last year of a similar age due to a house move
She's a social butterfly but missed her old friends
We still have links with the local area so do try some playdates but not always possible
Anyway I found out the 3 friends in her former school go to brownies
So once a week my partner makes the journey so she knows she will see them once a week
Could this be an option if her sociable friend is on any clubs? As I'm not sure continuously moving school would be ideal

i bet she does have friends and has people to play with. Is it that you want her to have a ‘best’ friend? Research shows that it’s actually healthier to have a range of friends and not just one.

I understand your dilemma. I moved my dd when she was unhappy in year 1. There was nothing wrong with the school she was in but she hadn’t really made friends and she was miserable going into school every morning and often faked illness. She became more and more quiet and anxious so I found her another school and on day one she made a friend who is still one of her absolute closest friends 15 years later. She really blossomed at the new school and she got her confidence back.

I think that it’s not easy to find the right school straight away and some kids are more sensitive than others. It’s a place she is going to spend many years and you don’t want her to look back at her childhood feeling sad about it. I wouldn’t stay for years in a job that I was unhappy with and I couldn’t force my kid into a school where her spirit was gradually being broken either. Life is too short and I don’t think that she suck it up just because it has taken more than two attempts to find her right environment. Also she wants to change schools and for a quiet person that can be very daunting so she must be feeling quite desperate.

It is a lot to put onto an unsuspecting six year old to move your dc in hope of maintaining that particular friendship. She needs to learn that friendship is fluid and as long as she finds someone to play with that can be enough. Do they have a friendship bench in the playground , is she included in games and social play? Does the school run any support group to help develop social skills?

She may be a little shy ,in time come round or maybe some children are less outgoing.If you moved her to be with the one friend it would be too much I think for the other little girl.

I dont think its the schools that are the issue i think its you child and you letting her have her way.

When you say "She is alluding to the fact that she doesn't have good friends in HER school and I see her point" do you mean she hasn't yet developed one or two close besties, or do you mean she is alone most of the time, left out in playtimes etc, maybe bullied? If it is that, then believe me, that is horrible for a child and you should move her.

However it sounds like your daughter is upset that she doesn't have a best friend, rather than no-one to ever play with? If it is just this, she is at an age where friendships are fluid, kids might be close one minute and not the next. Moving her is just going to mean she starts again, with no friends and won't give her the skills to build up real friendships if she doesn't have them. I wouldn't move her. What I would do, is try to seek out some other sources of friendship besides school - maybe a club for an activity she likes, or Rainbows or something. This will widen her potential friendship circle and provide her with people she naturally has something in common with (all dancers, marshal artists, gardeners etc).

It’s also wrong to think all dc have best friends. Plenty don’t. They have a mix of friends that they dip in and out of. Being dependent on one best friend can be a disaster. What happens if they move away? It’s best to try and work towards a variety of friendships.

I don't think it's pandering to a 6yr olds whim. Its admitting you made a mistake when you moved her in the 1st place.

@Doone22 The question is though: what now? Should she move again?

You don't seriously think that poster was saying you are bonkers for wanting your child to be happy?

They presumably think that three schools before the age of six is bonkers. Or maybe that letting a 6 year old make their own schooling decisions is bonkers. Or maybe moving school because she likes a child in the other school is bonkers. Or maybe simply that you thinking that changing her school would change her personality and turn her into somebody that makes friends easily.

The latter point is the one that troubles me the most about your thinking (and I say this as someone that struggled to make friends at school myself), it is like you don't accept her personality and are wanting to force something that you need to allow to evolve naturally and without pressure.