Isolated only child- could moving help?

[TempsPerdu]

Hello wise people of Mumsnet. I posted on here last year about my 5-year-old daughter not really settling at school, but now things have come to a bit of a head and we need to make a decision.

We currently live in a busy London suburb. We are well integrated into the community as in DP and I have plenty of friends, but this hasn’t translated into DD having friends. There are no local cousins (only one overseas), close school/uni friends had their DC much earlier so they’re all now teens, and local friends and neighbours have mostly boys. Basically, we have a social network here but DD doesn’t. This evening, for example, I’m facing a choice of taking DD out trick or treating on her own, or in a pack of about half a dozen boys her own age who will all ignore her; there are no similarly aged girls that we know well enough to hook up with.

DD started school last year and that has become another issue. The school itself is good, but she’s ended up in a class of very girly girls who she hasn’t really bonded with - DD is into science and football and Pokémon while (without exception at the moment) the other girls are into princesses and unicorns. The ability range is also weirdly skewed so that other than DD the higher attaining and more motivated children are all boys, and she is working mainly with them. At play times she is currently playing mainly with much older girls (Year 4 upwards) rather than her peers, as they have so little common ground.

It all feels very isolated, and I worry about the future. Every time I read an only child thread, multiple people advise organising play dates and sleepovers and taking friends on holidays - we are totally open to this and when opting to have just the one child we naively thought this is what would happen. But circumstances have dictated otherwise; since the pandemic we’ve noticed people increasingly retreating into their families, and living in London people lead very fast-paced and stressful lives with little time for casual socialising.

We have wondered for a while whether moving to somewhere less busy and pressurised might help DD to make more settled friendships. We have a market town in mind, just outside of a smaller city. We know that it isn’t a utopia, but there seems to be more community engagement, a slightly slower pace of life, there’s only one secondary school so everyone goes there (as opposed to here, where secondary schooling is quite competitive and fragmented), it’s safer so children wouldn’t be ferried around by car so much etc. We just want a more relaxed lifestyle, where DD gets to make the close friendships that she’s going to need in the future.

Does anyone have any advice on this? Has anyone been in a similar boat? How have parents of only children managed to forge a social network in the absence of extended family? Any input massively appreciated, as we are feeling increasingly unsettled about all this.

I've accidently raised mine in a big city and do wish I had chosen a location more intentionally - large town, very very small city scale would have been ideal I think.

We live in London and my daughter is an only child (as are many of her closest friends). You can live any life you like in London - my daughter spends her childhood on a livery yard riding and taking care of ponies. She's a teen now, but has been riding since she was 6. Still a lot of her social life revolves around the yard where she is every day after school and she works there on weekends. Riding has given her loads of friends, resilience, independence and a lot of confidence. I would recommend it if your daughter is sporty.

A boy doing ballet would definitely be frowned upon at our school.

By whom?

@shardash By a certain contingent of the school parents. Maybe ‘frowned upon’ wasn’t the best choice of words - I doubt anyone would be openly rude about it - but there would definitely be a vague homophobic undercurrent and a ‘That’s slightly dubious and not for the likes of us’ type of reaction among some.

I think you need to work really really hard to find her a few hobby groups outside school. It’s not putting enough effort in to say Rainbows has a waiting list or whatever. There’ll be groups and you’ll need to try more than one before you find the one that works.

Karate was the gem for mine. She had not expressed any interest in karate and I knew nothing about it, but she’d tried ballet and another dance class at her request and absolutely did not fit in in exactly the way you describe your daughter not fitting in at school. I was looking for a gymnastics class which I thought might be a better fit and stumbled across this karate group instead.

But it doesn’t have to be a physical activity. Science and gaming are good places to start too. Be imaginative and experimental and persistent and think of the research and the try-out sessions and the commitment to every Saturday morning and Wednesday evening or whatever as an investment in her future happiness.

Also, you need a girls’ football team - they’re springing up all over the place at the moment.

Just a thought OP but is there a home ed group near you? I'm not suggesting you pull her out of school but HE children seem IMHO to be more individual, maybe some of her tribe are in that group?

I have no idea how you would be received, people HE for various reasons including children being bullied or schools not being right for that child.

You're in danger of "othering" your DD because she's an only child when really there's nothing unusual about that these days.

Tbh most people would think it unusual for a boy to do ballet, because it is. Not wrong, just uncommon.

You clearly don't like the area where you live so might be happier somewhere else. I find it odd that you live somewhere where no one is aspirational for their kid's education, all the boys are cleverer than the girls and there's not a girls football team.

I also think I remember your post from last year. Make sure this isn’t about your need to feel that you and your kid are somehow Special and Superior. Your dislike for your daughter’s current class is clear and is framed as you don’t think the traditional behaviours are worthy. Somehow if your daughter was more stereotypical and ruling the roost friendship wise I suspect you wouldn’t be posting this.

Don’t over think it as it’s still early days in her primary school career, but if YOU aren’t happy with the school gate tribe then moving is probably the only option. But that’s quite drastic and if you move to someplace where the girls spend their waking moments coding and playing rugby, your daughter might not be exceptional either. Only you can tell whether she will be happier in that environment - and if that is because she genuinely prefers that set up, or because she’s unconsciously feeding off your bias.

I appreciate the above might be clumsily worked - it’s early! Best of luck whatever you decide.

My eldest was an only child until he was 7. We made sure that he always had good ‘social capital’ for example he isn’t the most sporty boy but he joined the rugby team and has really bonded with his classmates that are in the team and for example all his friends were getting into football cards, so although we as a family aren’t particularly into football when he asked for the cards we got him some; and we encourage him to follow his own interests and invariably there will be someone else in his class that’s into that (currently the BeastQuest books) and that helps widen his social circle. Just little things like that to help him be one of the popular kids, although that was mostly up to him as he has (and I know I’m biased!) a great personality that seems to attract people to him. Also there are a fair amount of only children in his class roughly a third of the class don’t have siblings so it’s not really an unusual thing where we are (SW London). Which means he has a great mix of friends with siblings and those who are only children.

I am kind of struck by the fact you have tried so many activities but your DD hasn’t really made any friends at any of them - that seems quite unusual and that she (?) has written off her female classmates as they are into unicorns seems quite a binary way of looking at things. A lot of my friend’s girl children are into the typical girly stuff but that is only one aspect of their personality.

I mean this kindly, but it might be worth thinking about what it is about your daughter’s behaviour around other children that does not endear her to them. I do wonder if you are blaming her lack of friends due to her being an only child but there is something else going on.

In terms of moving to facilitate a social circle for her, I think it is a bad idea as the issues could replicate themselves elsewhere and you will have upheaved your life and lost your own social network in the process.

Well then, they are ignorant gits. Do people still really think that little boys go to ballet classes and wear pink tutus, or might catch the gay? Stupid bastards.

@shardash Yes, it’s surprised me too but there’s still a lot of latent homophobia (and misogyny) out there sadly. I’ve even sensed a diluted version of it among some of the staff (for example, I got the standard ‘boys will be boys’ response when I mentioned to the class teacher last year that the boys were dominating playtimes with football and not giving the girls space or letting them join in).

On a side note, I’ve posted a lot about cliques among some of the mums, but actually it’s DP who is much more isolated than me as a parent within our current class. This is because he’s a football refusenik, and football culture is so important among most of the other dads that they’ve formed their own team, practice together every week and socialise in the pub afterwards - it’s how they’ve bonded and formed friendships, but since DP isn’t part of it he really struggles to connect with them. I sense that some of DD’s issues with not being invited to parties actually stem from him not being in the ‘football gang’ (the few girls who do get invited to the boys’ parties all have dads in the team).

Typically, DP is the one who’s ended up with a football loving daughter (although he’s fine with this as there’s a different culture around girls’ football).

I sense that some of DD’s issues with not being invited to parties actually stem from him not being in the ‘football gang’ (the few girls who do get invited to the boys’ parties all have dads in the team).

So nothing to do with her being an only child then..

@WinterWeightlossGoal Can it not be a combination of things? I’m not suggesting that DP’s dislike of football is the sole problem, but it’s part of the different values/ ‘not fitting in’ narrative, and the whole purpose of this thread is to work out what the various issues might be.

From what you have written though none of the issues you have described (apart from not having a sibling to go trick or treating with) seem to be anything to do with being an only child. There is a kid in my son’s class that sounds like your daughter - not interested in what his peers are into, has trouble making friends etc, and he has two siblings. I think you’ve kind of decided that being an only child is the root of all her problems, but it doesn’t necessarily seem to be the case from what you’ve said.

I still think moving house would be a bad idea for the reason of ameliorating her social life as if you haven’t got to the bottom of her issues with her peers then you maybe having the same problem, but with losing your social circle, and having all the upheaval and expense of moving.

I really think you're overthinking this. You can't make children be her friends and you can't make her the sort of child to want friends. All you can do is support her, love her, give her opportunities and listen to her and hope it works.

Not all people need gangs of mates. Not all children need gangs of mates. Not all people or children are good at making friends. It doesn't make them lesser or mean they are defective in anyway.

Only move if you want to move too and if you think there are other reasons (other than making friends) to move. I personally prefer raising children outside of London for many myriad reasons that mean I would never move back. But it's not a panacea to solve all problems.

I wouldn't move, OP. It's all far too nebulous. You would be moving to rectify an issue it's clear you don't fully understand at this point. I can't see whether you've said your daughter is actively unhappy with her school or her level of social engagement with others?

I do think you're considerably over-invested, and should actively make the decision to take a step back and do nothing at all for a period of time. Much of this may resolve itself. Friendships between five year olds are so fast-changing, and children themselves change so rapidly at that age, and start maturing at different rates to their peers.

DS (an only child, aged 11, no children of his generation at all in the extended family as my siblings are childfree, and DH's siblings are much older and have adult children, plus he was born in another country to all our families) has never struggled with friendships despite several moves, one international, just before Covid, but I notice now a bit of a drift from his usually tight friendship group, which he's sad about. I think it's simply that he's well over a year younger than them all (different school start age in the country where he started school), and they're a year further ahead into puberty and teenishness, and think he's babyish in some ways. But I'm not going to pathologise it, or do anything other than listen if he wants to talk, unless he becomes actively lonely.

I think you risk leaping to false conclusions by acting too quickly here, and would lose all your own support network in an unthought-through move.

I would also say, as someone who moved out of zone 2 to a big village outside a smaller city, to think very carefully before you do it. Socially, it was far less outwardly-engaged than in London, people were surrounded by extended family and tended to socialise with people they'd known since their own schooldays, and there was a total lack of interest in someone new and (slightly) 'different'. Children tended to play with their siblings in their back gardens -- the park was generally deserted. And the racism, gender stereotyping and xenophobia was off the scale.

other girls are entirely uninterested in joining in with any of the things that DD likes (science, Pokemon, chasing games, football, jokes, making up songs and rhymes, making story books and so on). DD can occasionally engage them in a bit of art or drawing for five minutes, but because she’s currently the only one who’s not wholly on board with the unicorns/princesses/fairies thing it very quickly reverts back to those things

No, I'm not buying that. As a former teacher (pre school and Reception) I know that some girls are into fairies and unicorns (and there's nothing wrong with that) but in a class of girls you'll find plenty who enjoy running round the playground, skipping, singing, drawing. You want to class them all as "girly girls" and your DD as above those things.

Weird.

It does sound like an unusual bad fit with the general school year co-hort.

I would look at moving school locally ASAP tbh.

Most people used to think it unusual for girls to play football or rugby, but they do now, and are encouraged in their ambitions.

Shame that people are still so bigoted about ballet. The irony is that it is not unknown for professional rugby players to have ballet as part of their training regime, and they know how damned hard it is.

Why are you quoting me @shardash ?

I think you’ve kind of decided that being an only child is the root of all her problems, but it doesn’t necessarily seem to be the case from what you’ve said

Oh gosh, I have clearly done a terrible job of explaining myself here. I get that it all sounds very convoluted, probably because I’m feeling very unsettled about things in general, and yes - there are things feeding into it other than the only child issue.

But FWIW, I’ll have one last go at explaining it: Every evening, weekend and every school holiday, other than clubs and paid for childcare, DD spends all of her time with adults. There’s DP and I - both academic and a bit geeky ourselves, with pretty non-mainstream tastes - and her child-free auntie, who’s also a teacher and brilliant with DD, and two sets of doting but quite elderly grandparents and an uncle and auntie who like overseas with her only cousin. That’s it. Because of our personal interests and because we have few family ties, holidays are spent doing a mix of child-friendly stuff, outdoorsy stuff and a lot of cultural stuff: theatre, family concerts, art galleries, museums. We have plenty of time to chat to DD, explain stuff to her, read with her, craft with her, cook with her - it’s all very lovely, in its own way. When she goes back to school she’s always had a nice time, learnt a lot and done a whole load of different stuff.

But I am starting to worry that all this nice edifying cultural stuff, plus the fact that she can sometimes go for weeks on end without interacting meaningfully with anyone her own age, is setting her apart from her peers who don’t get to do any of this stuff. As I said upthread, we don’t know many other only children - no others in DS’s class - and the things we do are so far from the social norm here that I feel we’re in danger of making DD seem ‘weird’ in other people’s eyes.

She is amazing with adults - super engaged and articulate - because she is used to us chatting to her, sharing random general knowledge and explaining things like current affairs. Hence why I describe her as ‘mature’. But with other kids… she is daunted by noise and chaos (not used to large numbers of children, other than in a structured space like school), can come across as a bit of a smart arse (correcting things other kids get wrong - obviously we tell her this isn’t appropriate) and, as I’ve said, seeks out older kids at school rather than interacting with those her own age.

We’ve just had Half Term and every holiday, the gap between her and her peers seems to widen. Her school friends are all busy running round with cousins and siblings and hanging out with family friends the same age. Many of them don’t have the opportunities to do the things that DD does, and have no idea what she’s talking about when she goes back to school talking about the ballet she’s seen or the Alpine toboggan runs she’s been on. As I said in my first post, when we made the decision to stick at one child, we naively thought that there’d be loads of others in our boat, and that we’d somehow end up in a settled community where there were lots of casual play dates, kids would hang out in each other’s houses and families were around to meet up during weekends and holidays. The reality feels a lot more isolated and lonely for DD.

And apologies for the super long post, but I wanted to get my thoughts down and make it clear that the only child issue does tie in with the school and friendship issue.

I don't know anyone in London who didn't at some point take their kids to museums (that are free) or to pantos/West End shows. I don't think what you're describing is some unusual lifestyle and you may just be very unlucky with your school.

Can you afford private school?

Where exactly do you live OP? I am finding it hard to believe that there is not a single child in her class that goes to museums/bakes with their families/does crafts etc.and all the dads are only into football and all the girls only into princesses - from what you describe you are in a village of complete yokels with no interest in culture but am I right in thinking you are close to London? How do you even know that the other families aren’t also spending their weekends at museum etc. There must be some kindred spirits there, how did you and your family end up in that spot?

I do wonder if it’s worth considering that you daughter may not be neurotypical especially how you mention she is overwhelmed by noise and chaos and that she seems like a mature ‘smart arse’. Unfortunately kids can pick up when someone is different and at that age don’t always have the empathy to moderate their behaviour. But the earlier the diagnosis the better.

As I mentioned my DS was an only child for many years - and like you we didn’t have many young children in the family (he actually has a couple cousins now though) so he spent a lot of time in adult company, however he has a wide group of friends across his different interests. In the holidays we put him in a holiday camp at least one a week, just so he was getting some peer interaction as well as the usual play dates. I echo what a PP said about people in smaller towns already having friends and family as their social life - moving doesn’t sound like the best thing for you guys.