Secondary school transition

[Anon444]

We are day 5 on secondary school transition. My son has been late 3 out of 5 days and has had to be met by teachers to get him into school. He is angry at us about the choice of school as he wanted to go somewhere else based solely on a couple of friends attending . We had our reasons for saying no which we have tried talking to him about. No one from his primary school attends his new school. That said he has already started to form friendships and the support from school has been excellent so far. He isn’t sleeping well, is demonstrating physical signs of anxiety/stress (including for the first time ever a tic). He refuses to speak to a counsellor. Do I keep going for a while and hope he settles? Waiting for GP appointment but have basically been told there is no support via the NHS. Looking at other counselling options. Has anyone else experienced this?

The amount of judgement and assumption that I am not helping my child astounds me. Where did I say I am not helping my child get to school. Overriding his choice of school was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make - the school he wants has a reputation that I expect most would be gravely concerned about. Clearly this is a forum for people just to be plain nasty. Feel free to keep posting here - I won’t be reading!

What about those of us that empathised and gave advice in support of both you and your son? Pretty unreasonable to ask for help then not even acknowledge us!!

But you banned your son from going to a particular school so you inadvertently forced YOUR preferences on him by removing that choice. He will have most likely had a totally different experience to you.

That’s a shame OP as I’ve read all the responses and the majority are quite sympathetic towards you with some advice.

The new thing on Mumsnet seems to be to post on AiBU for advice (never a good idea, much better to attract less traffic but in a quiet-er corner), get some replies not to your liking, get a few idiots being nasty for the sake of it (but not that many) and then throw your toys out of the pram and ignore the helpful majority.

There’s been some good advice here @Anon444.
You are quite right - there are some decisions parents need to make for their kids. Ten year olds don’t have the benefit of experience, foresight or seeing the bigger picture. There’s a very good chance your choice will be proven right and everything will work out fine.

But you do need a back up plan just in case you have made the wrong decision. Kids need to know that you are not deaf to all concerns - that you have not locked them up and thrown away the key.

I’d say something like “we thought about this decision very carefully and we think this school is best for you because of X, Y and Z reasons. However, if you promise to give it your very best effort this year and after that you don’t think it’s the right school for you, we can look at alternatives that are also X, Y and Z together.”