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.

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

OK so this thread is just a wind up.

I must say the Alpine toboggan made me laugh 😂

@MrsCuthbertson Nope, that’s what we did on holiday this year - fortnight in the Austrian and Italian Alps. Why would it be a wind-up?

@XelaM OK, it’s a bit niche, but I don’t get why it’s so far fetched? I studied languages at uni so we do a fair bit of travelling in Europe. Summer toboggan runs are super popular in tourist areas. I know it’s not exactly mainstream in the U.K., but it was just meant to be an example of the kind of stuff we do on holiday! 🙂

Let me guess. The children at your DD's school went to Southend with their cousins and grandparents and spent their days eating jellied eels, playing the slots and riding on donkeys?

DD1 sounds a bit like your DD. We moved from overseas when she was 8 and instead of going back to London, we moved near DH’s job and lived in a biggish village in Bucks.

The village school was the making of DD1. It was very inclusive, and the classes were all split between two years, so for subjects she was good at, she learned with the year above. Kids would call for each other, or we would go to the park and there were always other children there either playing football or on the swings. She went to Brownies and Cubs, did roller skating in the village hall, village panto, pony club, and ended up with a good group of friends. She’s 25 now, and lives and works overseas, but she’s still in contact with her friends from the village (we moved overseas again when she was 10).

It just made it sound like you're implying the kids in your daughter's school are from rougher backgrounds and your family is more wholesome and sophisticated.

If your daughter's school intake is so unusual that no one ever goes to museums or sees shows or goes on holidays abroad then I would suggest changing schools. Sign her up for other activities where she could make friends (a girls football team for one - there must be some in London). Pony Club has been brilliant for friendships for my daughter.

I would also actively invite kids over to your house or offer to take them to soft play etc. other parents might be grateful for a break.

@XelaM @WinterWeightlossGoal I don’t want to say exactly where, but it’s an outer London borough (zone 5) and an area that’s a bit more traditional and conservative than the London norm (our bit is fairly reliably Tory voting). And the CofE school DD is at is probably a bit more traditional and socially conservative within that (more so than I realised when we applied).

Private school would be a massive stretch for us, and it’s not what I ideally wanted for DD, but we might need to look at it again and see if it’s doable. I do think I’m getting a bit of a hard time here with the social class stuff - we thought we were doing the right thing sending DD to a local state school. Other people we know have gone private from the outset as they wanted to ensure their DCs made suitably ‘nice’ friends, and others who are smug about having their kids in the ‘local school’ in Hackney or Walthamstow in reality live in gentrified areas where less wealthy people have been forced out so all the kids are the same as theirs anyway. Ours is a genuinely mixed school, with all that comes with it, but I think there’s sometimes a level of disingenuousness about how harmoniously and genuinely the different ‘tribes’ within schools actually mix.

Why can she’s not be friends with the boys? You say they don’t want to be friends with her? Why? At that age they don’t usually care.

I’m in a busy London suburb and i have to say that if you can’t find friends there then a smaller more isolated place surely won’t help that? She’ll find her place.

@MrsCuthbertson Well actually some of them did go to Butlin’s, yes. No judgment, and they all had a lovely time, just not our bag. 🤷‍♀️

Where on earth are you in London. I don’t recognise what you’re saying at all. The schools here are really progressive and liberal and girls and boys equal. I can only imagine you’re in some west London conservative hellhole?

@Raisinganiguana Because, for whatever reason, the boys and girls in this cohort have basically been in gendered silos since nursery age and don’t mix. I genuinely have no idea why - the school are perplexed by it too (it’s the last couple of cohorts, not just ours) and it’s not just DD affected by it - none of them play together. Parties are very gendered too - so far all of the boys’ parties this year have been football ones, and all of the girls’ have been themed around unicorns, mermaids or princesses. Very little crossover in who attends which parties.

I’ve taught Year 1 and agree that its unusual - it was nothing like this with my classes a few years ago.

@Raisinganiguana Not west London, but quite a similar demographic to somewhere like Uxbridge.

DS' school is a bit of a mixed bag socially, very wealthy families and also families that live in social housing. I can't believe that none of the kids could fathom what she was talking about when she mentioned tobogganing and the ballet. We went husky sledging in the arctic one year, and I overheard DS telling some friends about it, and although none of them had done that they weren't looking at him in slack jawed confusion. I wonder if it is something in the way your daughter delivers her conversation starters that puts the other children off.

I know you said you volunteered at the school, but you can't be in the classroom everyday, yet you seem to know a lot about how the other kids behave in not wanting to play with her, and also their family activities even though you say you don't interact with the other parents much. If you are getting the low down on the other girls from your daughter, can I suggest that 5 year olds are not known to be the most impartial reporters of reality.

I have to say this resonates with me. My DD is at nursery and for some reason the girls all play together and the boys all play together. They obviously all do the exact same activities at the same time and have access to identical spaces and toys but for some reason it's already panning out like this.

I think you're getting a hard time OP. I think you sound thoughtful and caring and you only want the best for your DD. Your last post sounds a bit like you might be sensitive to your DD not being slightly dorky like you and your DH? Are you perhaps worried she will have a similar school experience to you? Just wondering if you're maybe being extra worried about it because of that? If not then I apologise.

It sounds like she has a lovely life with a lovely balanced home life and lots of opportunities. It sounds like you've done absolutely everything possible to help her meet people other than perhaps change schools or attend a wider range of hobbies. There genuinely isn't much more you can do.

It sounds as if your daughter may well be on the autistic spectrum, especially reading your last update about easily chatting to adults but struggling with her peers. I recognise this as being a trait in my own child who is the same age as your daughter and who is being flagged as being on the spectrum. You and your husband also sound neurodiverse in your interests and general mannerisms. This is just a neutral observation. You may well find that this is your daughter's natural personality and that she may struggle to make connections with her peers regardless of where she is. Has she expressed any anxiety about this herself or are you projecting? I'm also guilty of worrying on behalf of my child with regards to this but so far they haven't shown any concerns about this themselves. Some people are just lone wolves and you can't push that out of someone just because you want them to be popular. My own parents subconsciously did this to me and that was far more damaging than just being myself, content with one or two close friends. Your daughter is five, give her space to develop any friendships she wants on her own. Children's interests change and you may find she starts to align with some of the children as they grow up. PS I recognise your neighbourhood as being similar to mine and honestly I struggle with this too. We're also planning a move because none of our family members are particularly happy here for this reason.

Only child here too (DS) we’re in a smaller city and face many of the same challenges as you OP. In yr 3 at Primary school and is a one class intake and nurturing, but he doesn’t have v close friends, and the one he does is always happy to come to ours to play, but never invites back (and the mum takes 25 mins to leave ours as she won’t scoop and run..)

We have him enrolled in outside school activities but face the same issue in that there’s no opportunity to mix outside of class. Our biggest issue I think is primary catchment is huge, so no really local friends on the street etc. also facing same issue re holiday clubs and who to spend time with

no answer unfortunately, but something I do worry about

Oh also, my child is also five and it hasn't crossed my mind to proactively organise playdates, and they don't do any extra curricular activities 🤦‍♀️ They are so little still. Home life is the most important thing, friendships will come later.

This sounds very similar to our experience with DD (also an only, who didn’t quite fit in with her school cohort). We worried endlessly that at 5 she was too much with us, didn’t have many playdates etc. We signed her up to Rainbows and an extracurricular drama/singing club, and when she was 7, a netball club, and more recently horse riding. We also changed her school for Y3. Outside of her extra curricular clubs, she still probably does spend much of her time with us. But she’s completely content and we’re relaxing into it - she’ll find her tribe in time. She has friends, does some playdates but never seems terribly bothered either way.

I don’t know if that reassures you at all, but all that is to say that perhaps try not to worry too much.

So nice to read some lovely, thoughtful posters who ‘get’ my concerns, rather than just picking at the minutiae of things I’ve written and implying I have a superior complex. Thank you. 😊

@WinterWeightlossGoal I think there are definitely other families in the school, possibly even in our year group, who are more similar to ours. This is very specifically an issue we have within DD’s class, and specifically within the cohort of girls. The demographic of the school is changing, and the intakes for DD’s year and the one immediately before/after are more challenging than was typical in previous years.

@wherethewildtbingsgo It’s such a weird phenomenon, but I’m honestly not exaggerating or being paranoid about it - it genuinely is like two separate tribes. In our case, I do think local nurseries have played into it to some extent, as DD’s nursery definitely wasn’t very progressive and did separate activities for boys (football) and girls (pamper parties and nail painting). They were also constantly describing many of the boys as ‘naughty’, so DD entered school already thinking that girls were good and boys were boisterous and wayward. She was only there two days a week (plus she had some time out of nursery during Covid as we weren’t key workers), and wasn’t too influenced by it all, but many of her peers were there 8-6, five days a week.

@PollyPeep I have thought about neurodivergence and it’s not something I would consider out of hand (also have this thread running in Parenting and it’s come up several times on there). I’ll obviously keep an eye on things. DP and I are certainly both pretty academic/cerebral, but I’m not sure high intelligence necessarily equates to autism, and I also think there’s a danger of suggesting that all high achieving, non-conforming girls must also be neurodivergent. I guess we’ll see as DD gets that bit older. She definitely can make connections with others, it’s just that, unfortunately, the children she has tended to gravitate to aren’t those she gets to see on a regular basis.

@LittleMy77 Your situation does sound very much like ours. Totally agree about the lack of connections through organised activities - some posters have suggested that DD must have an issue because she hasn’t made lasting friendships in any of her classes, but everything is so fleeting and so highly structured that the kids (and parents) have no time to get to know each other properly. DD goes to Rainbows every week and happily chats to and plays with the girls there, but it’s only an hour a week, strictly mediated by adults and you don’t see the other parents other than a quick ‘grab and go’ in the car park afterwards. Football is DD plus about 25 boisterous boys (and competitive dads!). Choir is lovely, but an hour every fortnight with the adults sitting round watching silently in a circle. It is very hard to forge genuine, organic friendships with anyone outside of places where you see people for longer periods and in a relaxed setting - like school, except we haven’t had much luck there!

And yes to the lack of reciprocal play dates etc. I do all the running, which I accept as I’m the one with an only child and the other mums we’ve tried play dates with all work FT and have very little bandwidth available for social stuff. I figured I just have to suck this stuff up as DD needs the playdates more than their kids.

@FiddleFigs I’m glad your daughter seems content. Mine is fairly content too at present, but (as you’ve probably noticed!) I do worry about things going forward, as friendships start to loom a bit larger. I’ve had various posters here criticising me in opposite directions: ‘You’re massively over invested!’; ‘You need to be more proactive, put yourself out there and organise play dates!’, and it’s hard to know which route is the ‘right’ one. We did try to switch DD’s class last year, to no avail, but since she entered Year 1 we’ve left everything completely alone to see what happens - I’m certainly not at the classroom door annoying the teacher every day.

Aside from anything else, we’re facing a secondary school choice dilemma at some point in the near future, so may well end up moving for that reason, even if the friendships conundrum resolves itself. Good luck to you and your daughter!

Oh and best of luck @PollyPeep if you do go ahead with a move, and hope you end up somewhere that suits your family better - I can vouch for the fact that the nagging sense of being out of place in the area where you live really isn’t a pleasant one!

Sorry, I have no idea - I've had a busy day!

Pony Club is great for making friends as the kids end up spending a lot of time together on the yard and they eventually grow up together riding, competing, going to overnight shows in lorries etc.

My daughter is 13 and has many friends at school, but her closest friends that she hangs out with every day after school and on most weekends are from the yard. She's been riding since the age of 6 and it has made a huge difference to her social life and general well-being. They grow up to be quite resilient, robust teens who muck out in all weathers and hack out together in the woods on weekends or compete together.

Plus, the horsey parents may be more on your wavelength.