Hi all.
My DD is 10, currently in Y6. She was originally a very confident, outgoing child, and still is like that to a degree around adults. Around her peers, she tends to be awkward and hesitant. We moved house at the very end of Y1, and consequently she was moved to a new school. At her old school she had friends, got invited to birthday parties, the normal scenario. However, at her new school, she wasn't invited to a single birthday party for all of Y2 and in the playground she would be excluded from the other girls' games ("Only four aloud to play!", that kind of thing). It got to the point where she wouldn't want to go into school in the morning. By the end of that horrible year, she had become fairly self-sufficient, making up her own games in the playground. It really broke my heart at the time, to see her like that. We had talks with her teacher and the headteacher as well, both of whom acknowledged the problem, but neither acted to make life in school easier for her, or have a word with the other girls.
The situation improved slightly when DD moved into the junior school (same school, but different head and playground), she made a few friends, was aloud to participate in clubs etc. But this unfriendly atmosphere, especially among the girls, still persisted. Most of Y5 we spent living abroad. My DD has been back at her old school since September, and it seems the few friendships she had before, have become a lot more fragile. A girl she has always thought of as a friend wouldn't invite her to her birthday party and my daughter explained this to me by saying "But I am not popular. If she invites me, that means she will be less popular." I was shocked to hear so acute an explanation by a ten-year-old.
Other girls at school have called her "evil" and "weird", and even though I talked to the headmistress, she wouldn't talk to the girls involved, just saying that they "might do something general about name-calling" - as if that ever made any difference...
Needless to say, that all those years of being excluded etc. have taken their toll on our family as well. We have got a seven-year-old son, who loves his sister to bits, but often she would come home from school and take her anger and frustration out on him.
I am still at a loss as to how to deal with the whole situation, how to make life better for my DD. And I am very worried about secondary school, because bullying there can take a much nastier turn.
We could go abroad again, because my DD didn't encounter any of the nastiness there that she is exposed to here. And I am worried that if I leave it for too long, she will become permanently withdrawn.
I am hoping to hear from other mums who are/have been in similar positions, just to know that we are not alone out there.
Any strategies etc. that have proved to be useful for you would be much appreciated.