lonely 10 year old is breaking my heart.

[wickerman]

Aaagh. My bloody lovely 10 year old dd is having a shit time at the moment. She has always been very popular and well liked but has never found her soul mate amongst the girls in her school and is now feeling that they are all forming into cliques and she doesn't belong anywhere. She says she feels she has to pretend to be someone else in order to fit in and she doesn't want to. there is no one she particularly wants to call up to come and play.
She has got good friends out of school but they live a long way away and we don't see them very often. I feel it's partly my fault as we are quite different from most people round here and I should have seen it coming.
Added to the general pain I feel for her is the fact that she has a history of OCD and therefore she really NEEDS good friends who understand her and aren't going to judge her. I am working a lot at the moment, and am separated from her dad, and we have had so much STUFF going on. What can I do to ease her pain?

Yeh, you're right, they do, and I certainly suffered from that as a kid. My mum is foreign and the area we lived in was pretty xenophobic. This made her become very paranoid and suspicious of EVERYONE and she basically prevented me from having any friends because she didn't like ANYONE. So part of me is terrified that I am just reworking that for dd.

But you do have friends locally, so you aren't really, are you? But I suppose you could think what you wish our mum had done differently and work back from there.

Are your other DCs more settled? It might just be that she is finding 10 a difficult age.

My ten year old daughter is desperately unhappy and lonely at school. Everyone seems to have paired up and my daughter is always on the sidelines and used as a contingency whenever girls are on holiday or off sick.

It is breaking my heart to hear her sobbing saying she is so lonely and all she wants is a consistent friend. She has been bullied in the past as she was born with a cleft lip which has had a marvelous repair (you wouldnt even know!) and also she is bigger than the average stick insect which she is terribly self conscious of.

Any one got any advice as we feel we are banging our heads against a brick wall and have the stomach churning feelings for her when she goes to school every morning

Oh dear it is awful when your child is struggling socially isn't it? My ten year old daughter has been the third of a threesome for the last year and has felt it badly in the past - the other two (though her friends) always pair up when there's a choice and she's left hanging. She definitely isn't a natural at making friends at this age and is still, I think, just feeling her way. That said, I know she's a great girl and so will get there - a lot of it, I think, is a learning process - my only advice is not to be too downhearted - keep being there for her and being as supportive as you can wrt to having friends round etc. Check with her teacher that she is looking out for her (it's worth saying that she's unhappy if you haven't already - her teacher can be really helpful and may not know) and that she's not being teased/bullied. And be patient. She will work it out - we can't always stumble upon just the right person, particularly if (as your daughter might well be) you're quite discerning .

Wickerman,

Have you ever thought about home educating?
Sounds like it might suit you and your dd.