Isolated only child - could moving help?

[TempsPerdu]

Also posted in One-Child Families, but adding here for traffic

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 some kind of 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 unusually 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. We requested last year that DD change class, as she got on better with the girls from the parallel class, but the school was not open to this idea.

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.

For the moment, let her hang out with boys, do lots of activities outside school and build friendship groups there. Give it a set timeframe. I think some kids can either become introverted or extroverted according to their experiences and you are right to worry.

It’s very freeing knowing that you have the power to move and change your life completely. I would start drawing up a list of where you want to live and go and visit those places with dd. Go to activities for kids there as well and see how she interacts. I know my kids really get on with people from certain areas and not so much with people from other areas.

If she hasn’t settled by summer, move.

Thank you for sharing your own experiences with your DC. To be honest, I was fully expecting the neurodivergence topic to come up, as that’s the way my other thread last year went - the consensus was that DD must be autistic.

Thank you for being receptive and amenable instead of “Ew! No! How dare you!” 🤣

Those of us with lived experience always pick up on threads like yours, because hindsight is 20/20 and we can see the little red flags waving.

But did I see the signs in my own daughter at the age of six? No! I had an inkling she was different, and that there was something going on, but I didn’t know what that something was. And not one teacher ever raised a concern.

By year 3 I could see the social demands of school were ramping up and she couldn’t keep up. My younger son was also on the pathway towards diagnosis so I’d learned more about autism by then. That’s when the penny dropped.

So my advice is, if the years go by and you keep having the same old niggles, the same questions… that will be when you should think again about autism.

My eldest was 16 before we suspected ASD but she was diagnosed ND by that stage just not ASD. Her school friends had been saying it a while to her before we suspected anything and we have another child with ASD who was already diagnosed. Apparently my DD was told by one of her friends with ASD that her mother, who is also autistic, was convinced DD had it from very early in. It is very difficult to spot in high achieving girls.😪

OP, I can see you are a very committed and concerned parent. What stands out to me from your original post and responses, is that you have a clear idea in your own mind of what your daughter is and isn't in to, what type of child she is, and how she clearly differs from the other girls (who do emerge as quite one dimensional and silly in your descriptions of them, tho you may well not intend this or be aware of it).

I would just like to caution you against forming pre-conceived stereotypes either of your own daughter, or these other girls and her difference from them. Because she is SO YOUNG. She will change so many times, go through so many different iterations and fads and spells and friendships, etc, as she gets older.

But if you reinforce the idea that she is different (and that her interests are more intelligent/worthwhile) than the other girls, then she may well buy into this concept of herself, making it harder and harder to fit in with her peers.

I am not suggesting she has to pretend to share their interests if she doesn't. But it won't do her any favours to despise them.

I have an only daughter. I've never really focused on the fact that she doesn't have any siblings - never seen it as important to who she is or significant to get friendships really. She's not a stereotypically "girly" girl by any means and never has been - tho over the years, some of her interests have been those traditionally associated with girls of course - but mostly not. Again, this has had little impact on her friendships. Her best friend loved dolls and pink and princesses and all that stuff My daughter always hated dolls, despised princesses, etc etc. That never stopped them being amazing friends as it wasn't the most important thing about either of them. Friendship is more based on character, sense of humour etc.

I hope you see what I am saying and can take it on board as worthy of consideration at least. Teach your daughter to respect everybody and their interests, even when they differ from her own, and consider them all potentially worthy of friendship. Otherwise, you can take her anywhere in the world, but she'll never be popular.

She can't really be an oddball at 6, because ALL 6 year olds are individuals and they are all fucking odd in their own wonderful ways. And the parent who said that stuff to you was amazingly rude - I am staggered somebody would speak like that! But if you buy into this idea of her being somehow different to the others too hard, you might start to make it a reality.

Regarding the possibility that she has autism, obviously she might do, but I have worked with kids myself for decades, including working in a special school for several years, and I would suggest that loads of neuro-typical kids love space and facts and the other stuff you mention - I didn't really understand why people thought from your posts that it was likely she had autism? She just sounded like a typical child with a typical child's interests to me! They are all unique and wonderful.

I've just reread your last post, where you claim that other children have nothing like your daughter's breadth of interests. Can you not see that a) you cannot possibly claim to know this about them, you are not in their homes and do not see the range of interests they pursue, and b) if your daughter picks up on these attitudes towards the other children that you express, it will be impossible for her to consider friendships with them because she will despise them - you make them sound one dimensional, boring and stupid.

You also claim she would fit in in a grammar school - how can you possibly know this - she is 6! My daughter it turns out is very academic and is at secondary age now doing really well in a very selective private school she got a scholarship for - I had no idea of how she would perform at this age when she was six! How could I - there are huge developmental changes to go through between 6 and secondary age......

You have to give children some space and flexibility to grow into themselves, not decide who they are when they are so little!

I'd share all your disappointment about the binary gender interests there too OP. I remember my son had none of these 'rules' in his head until he went into primary. I've left him go with it, but will always challenge any 'That's for girls/boys' talk, but tbh he doesn't come out with it.

He also struggled a little as the boys seem to put each other against each other and are quite cliqueish, perhaps similar to you, lots of children's friendships have followed parent links and we moved here just before he started primary. In the last year things have really changed tho, he's now 11, and he's in a really great place. We're having a party later and three pals will come round and we'll go trick or treating together. Some things I did, supported him when others were unkind (this doesn't seem to be an issue for you), facilitated varied extracurricular activities, his football team are now his best friends, and kept him close. His confidence and happiness has soared and his school friendships are smaller in number but high in quality, which is all that matters. He's no longer trying to get in with the alphas and yet gets on fine with them, but he's got his own stuff and his own friends going on. So often, time will sort it. She will find her tribe. I'd probably ask again at school if there's a chance she can move to the other class, as this could be a simple solution.

Oh, and I freed myself from any worry at the school gates too. I give a cheery hello and keep going. I'm fine and my ds is fine without those who weren't interested in friendships anyway.

How big is the school? I've seen everything from fewer than ten children per year to ninety amongst friends' kids and that makes a difference in terms of chance of finding someone who shares interests and you get on with.

A friend was very dismissive of what she described as the chavs doing school pick up and decided against that school. What she didn't see were the professional parents picking up from wraparound care. Are you mixing with a different set of parents because of being able to do the schoolrun?
Either way, don't be dismissive of the other parents, even if you have little in common as your child will pick up on it and it'll affect her interactions with others.

IME the friendships don't come from weekly activities where there's barely time to interact. What has made a difference (we moved in year 1) is walking to school, seeing and interacting with other families on the way to and from school, spending time in the local park where you bump into each other. Instead of lots of scheduled activities and hanging out at the health club, spend half a day in the park before it gets too cold(!).

What is the local demographic like that uses the school? The first primary we used had a mixed demographic in terms of everything from traveller families, social housing tenants to very wealthy middle classes but it was a very long way from a university or anything cultural and there wasn't as much value placed on education. Trips to museums etc weren't thought of as a family activity. So it was harder to have much in common with other parents. New location/school is again very mixed with high rates of pupil premium/FSM at the school, but also large numbers of the children of people who work at the local university and who do value education highly.

I don't think being an only and not having extended family has much to do with it. We have no extended family and TBH it's given us more opportunity to build relationships with friends because we're not spending weekends seeing family.

Oh and my DD is also one who hates pink (always has!), princesses etc. Had a very brief unicorn phase.

We had a period of time around year 1 when she'd get cross no one would play her games, and we encouraged her to join in others' games, even if it was something she wasn't interested in, and that eventually worked itself out with give and take.

There seems to be a lot of generalisations and assumptions. The girls are ALL into princesses and unicorns, during the pandemic boys were being encouraged to assert their boyishness and as a result won't interact with girls. You also mention several times how bright your child is. Is it possible that other parents are picking up on your superiority complex? I remember going to visit a friend and her young child was sat at the table doing sudokus. My child was hanging around wanting to play but the mum was more intent on showing how clever her little child was. Be careful that your behaviour and opinions aren't adding to her isolation.

As always, it might be that OP’s daughter has autism etc, it’s also possible she’s an only who hasn’t had as many chances to socialise as a child in a bigger family. Eldest children often are a certain way due to being pfb and their parents have never done this before. There are many, many more options that having diagnosable problems. These days, kids with social awkwardness have more options to integrate than ever before.

I wondered the same thing. The OP seems very focussed basically on her DD being better than the other girls in her class and I find it hard to believe that this doesn't come across to the other parents.

Children don't have to have lots in common to be friends. DS2's best friend in reception so far is a very stereotypically girly girl - he is a boy and very interested in dinosaurs. He comes home with pictures of dinosaurs she has drawn for him and he made her a tiara she is dead chuffed with.

Polpa's point is a good one:

1) make sure that if you do go out of London, you go somewhere where there are the classes your studious geeky child will actually like. Mine would love to be doing parkour and rock climbing but all the classes are miles away, and there’s very little in the way of STEM classes. It’s impossible to get into Brownies or Scout squirrels here too. I bet you have a huge choice of classes where you are. Don’t assume it will be the same elsewhere- we didn’t check enough when deciding where to move to.

I'm an only girl and have an only girl. Moved to area we stayed in when she was a baby. My DD was, through primary school, the only child without siblings in her class. The teachers would sometimes do maths/categorising exercises like lining up with other people, which reinforced this to her and to them (sports day, photos, etc, where different arrangements had to be made for efficiency with parents - this kept coming up in various guises). At Christmas she'd really, really want a little brother or sister (at the age of 5). It was not nice to experience.

The playing with older friends thing would come back around every other year, when the classes were split for the older half of one year, to form the younger half of the mixed next class. There were only 2 girls in that 'half', among boys, so from DD's point of view, all of her friends got to stay together in the old class with the old teacher, while she didn't.

I have to say that sometimes you have to stick with it. There are few places where plain sailing and harmony will be the status quo for your DD for more than a year, and it does do some good to have to work it out and develop a little bit of acceptance and resilience (not if there is huge unhappiness there, but a trigger point reaction is not going to solve things when they show up in another way, another club, another school, another market town). If you do move, she'll be 'the new girl' so think carefully about how that goes, and what you would both want from it or be able to do to make it work, after a reception year. You also can't force or hurry more intimate friendships, but from the age of about 7, I think you should see them click more nicely (and then after that, be more dramatic when they don't go right, unfortunately - but this too is part of that growth stage for girls in particular.)

There is no top answer, but I ensure that my DD does things - even now as a teen - where she is not with exactly the same group of school people all the time - make an effort to branch out from 'the same' Brownies/ theatre group/ sport as others and build a broad network for her where there are more matches to be made, without the dynamics of school.

Considering a move to, I suspect, Saffron Walden seems an extreme reaction to your daughter having the bad luck to be in a class she doesn’t ‘click’ with. What if you move and the same thing happens again?

you also sound like an intelligent woman who is too involved in your daughter’s school life (I remember your first thread too). Stop being a STAH mum, get back into the workplace and start using your brain for your own interests instead of hyper focusing on your daughter.

Stop being a STAH mum, get back into the workplace and start using your brain for your own interests instead of hyper focusing on your daughter.

That’s so rude, and presumptuous. Why are women on MN so vile to SAHMs all the time?

That last paragraph sounds like you’re projecting. Maybe you should spend more time worrying about your children rather than belittling a stranger for their choices?

For kids this age, school is the major place they make friends, so it’s not surprising she’s a bit isolated if she doesn’t get on with school kids. But, she’s still young so things might change. Also is it a small school? It seems odd that there isn’t one kid she gets on with. Are you cultural outsiders in some way?

I think a new school at some point is probably a good idea, but I’d only relocate if it’s something you otherwise want to do. Sounds like you need to be somewhere with other families like yours, ideally with other incomers who want to make friends.

Edited to add: ime temperament is more important than interests at this age. Kids normally adapt to play with their peers and incorporate both their interests (eg “I’ll be a Pokémon riding a unicorn “). If your dd is a bit rigid you might be able to help her play more flexibly.

Ha, thanks @Jellycats4life and @Ostryga for coming to my defence, but I’m well used to disparaging comments like @Minta85‘s (including a fair few from my own mother!) and I’m pretty immune to them now; I’ve no intention of remaining a SAHM forever, but it suits all of us for now and was an absolute godsend during the covid lockdowns.

It’s a fine balance to strike, but many years working in schools have shown me the extent to which many parents are underinvested in their children’s education, so I’m much more content with the balance tipping slightly too far in the other direction when it comes to my own child.

@Bobslug I think it’s just the way things have shaken down with the particular cohort that DD is in. School is two form entry, and she gets on well with a couple of girls in the other class, but they don’t get to see much of each other, even during play times, and the school refused to countenance moving DS when we requested this last year. Demographic is mixed but has been more challenging than usual for the past couple of intakes - lots of issues with development and school readiness post-covid.

As I’ve said, the girls in DD’s class are quite markedly behind the boys in terms of development and achievement, and they also skew very young, with around half of them having August birthdays. DD has a winter birthday, and the difference in maturity between her and the younger girls is very noticeable at the moment - I’m hoping this will even out somewhat as they get a bit older.

On reflection, the other thing that has made me question perhaps moving DD is that one of the girls who she gets on well with in the parallel class recently moved here from another much more rural part of the U.K.. This girl has also been having some friendship issues in her own class and her mum says that she has been quite taken aback by how ‘adultified’, snide and bitchy some of the girls in the cohort are given their age - says this wouldn’t be the case where she’s from, that kids act more like kids and girls and boys play together more.

We are probably facing a move regardless of happens with DD’s friendships - we are not especially happy with our secondary options and the well trodden path here is to move across the borough into a slightly better school catchment in about Year 4, so it’s really a question of whether we do that or plan a bigger move out of London.

That’s really interesting. We are rural - kids go to village school with 100 kids (in total). They play across all ages and even in Y6 will do imaginary games with the younger kids.

Quite shocked a primary school governor would refer to 5 year old children as snide and bitchy to be honest.

Sorry so are the other girls immature and not as clever as your DD who is used to being with adults or "adultified" and overly grown up? It seems a bit difficult to be both at the same time.

I honestly think if you reread your own posts, you will understand why your DD has no friends. You're likely imparting this superiority complex in her and she is giving it off to the other children.

Our school is very mixed, and school gate cliques have now formed - I’m in the ‘middle class professional’ group, with many of the boy parents I knew from nursery, and a lot of the girl parents are very much not in this camp. I definitely get the impression that they find me and the way I talk etc a bit ‘posh’ and serious, especially since, as a governor, I know quite a lot about school life. I have genuinely tried, and so has DP (although he’s a huge introvert and massively out of his comfort zone making small talk) but I can’t identify with many of the things these parents talk about and vice-versa. There’s also quite a significant language barrier in some cases

This previous post I found really telling.

You're basically saying that the same thing is happening to you as to your DD - i.e. you're both too clever and too good for the other girls and their mothers.

I honestly think she is picking some of this up from you and copying your behaviour and attitudes.

I actually do empathise a bit - I am also a bit posh, a bit serious, a school governor and work in a professional job where I don't have a lot in common with some of the other parents. But I don't think I am better than them and I don't impart that to my children. I find common ground and make an effort.

I make my kids parties totally halal to make the Muslim parents happy to send their children, I wish them Eid Mubarak. I dust off my rusty Spanish and talk to the South American parents.

I don't have enough in common with them really to become friends for life but the other parents don't avoid me and my child.

Writing my thoughts out very carefully here; I don’t want this thread to descend into some kind of class warfare bunfight, as I’m generally concerned and was asking for advice in good faith.

Quite shocked a primary school governor would refer to 5 year old children as snide and bitchy to be honest

If you read my original post, the comment about girls being adultified etc wasn’t mine, but came from another mother whose child had recently joined the school from a very different part of the U.K. I agree that it is clumsy language, but she was surprised and upset about the way her daughter was being treated by some of these girls, and I think the gist of what she meant is that the 5/6 year old girls here are less innocent and childlike than where they moved from.

I’ve seen a few incidences of the same kind of thing when I’ve accompanied trips etc: a girl refusing to sit with another girls ‘because I don’t like her shoes’; lots of remarks about who is invited or not invited to birthday parties (within earshot of some of those children not invited); a surprising amount of interest in appearance - who they consider to be ‘pretty’ etc. There’s a lot of materialism and very early interest in fashion and brands and pamper parties, which is very different from how I was at 5 and clearly different from the area this mother moved from. Also children spending time on YouTube and TikTok and being influenced by that.

I guess, then, that when I say that DD is ‘mature’ I don’t mean interested in adult things, but sensible and well behaved and trying hard to do the right thing. I’d also say she is quite emotionally mature; she is very engaged in what’s going on in the world, watches Newsround every day (because she wants to, not because I make her), asks how she can help the people in wars etc. Very switched on and alert to stuff around her in a way that I don’t see in many of the other girls.

I’m not making her out to be some kind of saint, as she certainly isn’t, and while she’s bright and articulate I don’t think she’s exceptionally gifted either (hence my agonising about whether to try for the super selective grammar school where we live or move elsewhere). But there does seem to be a clash of values between us and many of the other parents in the school, and probably in our local area too.

I don’t want to get involved in protracted arguments, so will probably bow out now, but I think what this thread has done is make me understand that my concerns for DD are about not just her immediate school friendships, but also more widely around raising her in the area we’re in now, where increasingly I think people’s values and priorities don’t really tally with ours. It’s the place where I grew up, and where both sets of grandparents still live, so any move away would be a wrench, but I think I’m also realising that it isn’t really the place I grew up any more, in that either I have changed or it has changed to the extent that I’m no longer really comfortable living or raising a child here - bit of a boiled frog scenario probably.

Anyway, thanks for all the thoughtful and honest posts - they’ve really helped me to consider things from a range of angles, and are greatly appreciated.

My advice is to get her playing an orchestral instrument in a local conservatoire as quickly as possible. She will meet lots of like minded children there, girls and boys and the London music scene is amazing. Also find a proper girls football group as she gets older, there are loads and it is great.

She will thrive once she gets to grammar as well.

Some state primary school classes are just like this, queen bee et al. I had encountered it with my very academic musical DS in a boy heavy rowdy class too. The classes of my other DC were absolutely fine. You just need a few strong characters and it can result in some children not fitting in at all. I would speak to the school again and if they don’t help you, look at other local options. Mention that to them, I doubt they will want to lose your DC.

@arintingly Thanks for the honest post. You are probably right here, and I do need to try harder to find some common ground somewhere. But I am really very torn about the whole thing, because no one else is making a similar effort to straddle social barriers. Everyone has slipped into their little tribes: the middle class boy mums we came up from nursery with all hang out together and their boys play in an big gang (which we’re on the periphery of, but obviously DD is the wrong sex); the different ethnic groups all hang out together and don’t really mix or engage with play dates or parties outside of their bubble; the mums with older kids are all well established with friendship groups further up the school and aren’t interested in doing the same in our class, and the FT working mums are never there to talk to as their kids are in wraparound care all the time.

And in any case, I do want to shelter DD from some of the behaviour I’ve witnessed among the children in the class (see my post above) - I want her to have a proper childhood and don’t really want her spending time with princessy girls who are prematurely into fashion and make up. In any case, since DD currently has zero interest in these things she would either need to entirely change herself to fit in, or continue as she is by opting out of the whole scenario and playing with older children.

In some ways I am realising that this is actually a mercy - I’m aware from chatting to a few other parents that there is a lot of drama and social pecking order stuff going on among the girls at the moment (several complaints about other children raised in advance of parents’ evening this week) which DD has completely opted out of. So, whatever else is going on, at least we’re not involved in all that!