Hi. We moved to Friern Barnet in January. This morning my nearly-six year old daughter woke up at 5.30 (obviously as it is the weekend!) and told me she was lonely. I already knew this but now I really need to do something about it.
The thing is we know noone locally. She and I commute into Islington every day for work and school. I can't move her to a school up here because I have to be at work at 8.30 so I can't get pre-school childcare locally because nothing starts early enough for me to get to work in time. She also likes her school and doesn't want to change and, because her school is near to where I work, I can go to class assemblies etc, which I couldn't do if she was at school up here.
I have started her at local Rainbows and local drama at the weekend, but that doesn't really help because I just don't feel I can go up to parents and say "Please be our friends!" and all the kids already know each other because they are at local schools.
Only a few of my own friends have kids my daughter's age and none of them live near me and she doesn't really see friends from school, because she is at a school where the majority of mums aren't working, so they all know each other from the school run or from living on the local estates, whereas I have always worked so I never do the school run, so I never meet the mums.
I feel really quite embarrassed at writing all this, but honestly we are not social outcasts because we are horrible people, it is just because of our current circumstances. Any and all suggestions gratefully received!