How important to a child's development are school friends?

[Orinoco]

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id guess it helps with feeling good...and safe and worthy?...and that would be good for socio emotional development..which must impact on academic kind of learning/dev??

why do you ask?

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I think a child would have to be enormously resilient for their self-esteem to be unaffected by having no schoolfriends.

If you have issues about the school anyway I would move them. I think peers at school are very important, unless you manage to have very close friendships outside it. Six hours a day is a long time to go without a friend.

it depends also on age, ds(15) only got really good friends in year six and later

My youngest dds who are home-educated don't have school friends. They do have friends, though. They have friends who are neighbours children and friends from the various groups that they take part in (Brownies, Rainbows, Drama). Obviously, couldn't tell you about long-term effects as they are 8y and 5y but they seem okay so far. They do also have older siblings.

juule - I think it's different if you are home-edded though - as if you are at school and have no friends, whilst everyone else does, it can be very upsetting and alienating - whereas if you are home-edded then that wouldn't apply.

Having no friends at school is fairly devastating, because you feel that the other children are actively choosing not to be friends with you, and that you are therefore unlikable. I guess if you have lots of friends outside of school then that would mitigate that, but you are at school for a great deal of your time. When we moved schools last term, ds said that no-one liked him or talked to him. We saw him lose confidence in approaching new children, something he would have had no qualms about previously. This term he has made several friends, and is back in a gang of kids playing after school. He is so much happier. We hope he will take that confidence on with him to the next school, as we are unfortunately moving again.

I went to a very very small school and was in a similar position - 4 girls in my year, 2 were best friends from the off and the other girl was very odd, remember her scratching people a lot, and I was left without a close friend. I used to sit next to a boy, which was better than sitting next to the scratcher, but I knew that I really ought to have a best girl friend. As a result I was mildly bullied by some older girls, I don't think that I would have been if I'd had a friend to hang around with. I think that the older girls probably left after my reception year and everything looked up from then on. In many ways it was a great school and I don't think that I bear any deep scars but it is the main thing that I remember about my early school years.

So yes, I do think that it is an issue and you should consider moving her. Assume that you will have already talked to your dd to try find out whether or not it is making her unhappy but if not you should do - it sounds like she is old enough to have an opinion.

DD was in a small primary school. There was 11 kids in her year group, 5 girls. Two girls were best friends and her and the other two made a weird threesome. She and B fought constantly about who would be E's best friend.
Then, E had a birthday party and invited all of the kids in their year group except dd. It was devestating for dd. BUT, in the end it was the best thing that could of happened to her, as it made dd into the very emotionally strong young lady she is today. She went back to school after the party, with a fuck you all attitude.
When secondary school came along, she chose to go to a school were she wouldn't know anyone, a complete fresh start, and she now has lots of friends.

Sorry, wrong end of the stick.
Yes, I do think it would be a problem for a child in school with no friends at all at school.

Didn't have many friends at school at least not in infants, but plenty outside+ large family, did well for me. Did have friends in juniors.

But all the things you've been telling us about this school seem to suggest it's not really working.

Given the amount of time that they spend at school, it's got to be an important part of their socialisation.

If you're unhappy about the school anyway, I'd definitely move her.

We had a similar dilemma fairly recently.

Ds was at a lovely small school with small classes, which was one of the reasons we liked it.

However, a few people left, making the class even smaller, and that's when problems began. Although he did have a best friend, the friend, quite understandably, didn't want to play with ds ALL the time. So ds became very unhappy.

We've now moved him to a slightly bigger school. Class size is still not enormous, but the benefits have been huge.

With a few more boys (girls don't really feature now ds is 9!) there's always someone to knock about with. If he falls out with one friend, or doesn't want to play a particular game, then he has other choices.

It did take him (and us - we'd been at the other school for ages) a while to settle, but now he is so much happier.

If you have alternatives, I would definitely think about moving dd - particularly if you have other issues with the school also.

I hope all works out

I moved my son to another school for reasons including the lack of friends issue. He'll never be the kind of person who finds it easy, anyway, but with a bigger class of boys there were more possibilities.

He has been much happier as a result.

ds2 didn't have any 'school friends' from 5 to 13. Cos he was home educated. He wasn't that keen on friends anyhow. Would always play with whoever came round but was never that fussed.
He returned to school a few weeks ago and has no trouble fitting in at all.

Orinoco,

A family switched from the nearby village school to our larger town school in June this year because the boy was the only boy in reception.

The mum says it is the best thing she ever did.

I have vivid memories of being the "third wheel" in triangular relationships between girls. Very painful and I haven't forgotten it yet.

I think age and sex are very important factors in this.
Girls tend to forge friendships quite earlier on as they speach normally develops earlier than boys. Also, their social skills are much better than boys (this is something that carries on in adult life)

Personally I didn't have friends at school until I was 9, I was quite happy to go to school, do what I had to do and go back home and play with siblings and neighbours. But back then there was no playtime as such, school would finish at 12 and everybody would go back home to their families.
I never had any pressure to have friends to fit in, then naturally I become part of a group of girls when I was 9 and we stayed friends throughout secondary/college.

That was in a different country though, and I do believe that the English schooling system, forcing little boys and girls as young as 4 to be in school and be sociable when they are actually not ready for it, puts an enourmous pressure and can cause confidence problems that can last a lifetime.

that's my personal humble opinion based on what I have seen....

Thats interesting. My son has (until this year) been much better at making friends than my daughter. He has always had a group that he was friendly with, playing football, messing about etc (we have had pretty much the same boys at his birthday parties for the last three years). This then became a smaller group of five really good friends last autumn. He is nine

My daughter tends to make friends rather more possessively and has suffered as a result. Her friendships are characterized by more drama and heartache, and I would say have only become healthy in the last school year.

Then we moved schools (and countries) half way through the summer term. They both started off very confident, and dd soon announced a new best friend. ds on the other hand became very unhappy and said no one liked him or talked to him. I thought seriously about going home at that point. It has taken a lot of support, and a new class to make him his usual cheerful self, and he now has a bunch of guys to hang out with (and a girl to be sweet on - ahh . dd has in the meantime gone through at least three more "best friends", but is becoming a little more sensible in her choices (in that her new friends acyually have more in common with her, and are less puchovers to be bossed about).

Personally I think the differences are largely due to their natures. ds is an introvert who needs significant friends, whereas dd is an extrovert who needs to be popular and in the thick of it.

I think if you an introvert and fail to make any good friends it is very damaging. I certainly suffered from toxic friendships at primary, and didn't make any true friends until university because I thought that people didn't like me (I had siblings, but no close friends outside of school though). Not sure about the extrovert side yet, as dd is a surprise to us (dh and I are introverts as are most of my family and friends). But I would hate to see her lose her confidence that everyone loves her!

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