Lack of local friends

[hibbledibble]

I'm getting down about this in behalf of my DD. I would appreciate some advice!

She is 7 and didn't get into our local school (literally meters away from getting a place, and has been on the waiting list for years). She goes to a school some distance from our home, not through choice.

I have tried to maintain friendships with neighbours who go to the local school, and nursery friends who have gone there. Pretty much all her friends went to the local school.

I feel like I am flogging a dead horse now and need to admit defeat. We have invited friends to our house, tried to arrange play dates elsewhere, tried to invite them to her birthday etc. I get excuses/no reply, and no reciprocal invites. Sadly my DD also sees them playing in the street outside our house, and is never invited to play, or even has them ignore her or walk away when she tries to join in.

Her friends from school live some distance away, so it's difficult to arrange playdates with them, especially with working parents.

I feel she is missing out, and I shouldn't try and maintain her local friendships anymore.

I'm wondering how to fill this friendship gap. She does lots of extra curricular activities, but hasn't had playdates with anyone from them.

I really feel for you and your DD, I’m going through almost the same thing atm.
Although we moved to a bigger house 15 miles away, my DD is almost 10. At the beginning she has 2 birthday party invites from the kids at the new school and I thought everything would be fine but she then started having problems with kids leaving her in the playground, and being mean.
She has managed to keep up her friendships with her old school mates but only sees them once a month.
I’ve tried asking her to invite the new friends over to play but she doesn’t think they will want to come. The new school is still a short drive from our house so none of them live near us which means she has no one to play with after school.
I have tried taking her to the local parks near our house to meet people but she prefers to be locked away in her room.

It’s tough isn’t it, my plan for this summer is to be out of the house as much as possible, we will go to local parks and I will take her to the areas where I know her school mates play after school. Which means I won’t be able to do the usual after school jobs like washing up/ prepping dinner etc.. but I’m willing to sacrifice that for my DD happiness.
She is having a party this year for her birthday so I hope they will come and start to build stronger friendships.

That also sounds difficult wet washing. On the plus side, as she is 10, I assume she is starting secondary school soon? So that could be a new start, and a chance to form friendship groups.

Possibly, we’ve just had a new start though in September. One more year in primary then they all go to high school together. So the same group will still be amongst her. I just hope that they’ve all grown up a bit by then and she will be accepted into the group.

How about joining some local clubs? Eg brownies or gymnastics? Do any of the local kids go to these?

I grew up like your daughter - for different reasons as my parents moved house a few weeks after I started reception but I stayed at the school because it was close to my Mums work. So I lived in the thick of a big group which just didn't include me and my school friends were further away and my parents didn't want to make that kind of effort. It was ok for me in the end as we moved to the US for a while and left everybody and I also had a bunch of siblings, but I do remember being 7 and really wanting my own group of friends.

Have you tried playdates with school friends, have you offered to drop them home after, maybe? Does she get invited to parties ? Does she have a school friendship group, who she could join with for some activities closer to her school ?

I think at primary school everyone focuses on school friends especially after the first couple of years at school.

Personally, I would keep on with the after school activities during the week and arrange something with her current school friends at the weekends. They don't really need to have friends over in the week and I found most local people at my sons' school were too busy for much after school anyway.

Thank you for all the replies.

She has friends at her school, though they have been leaving the area recently. Offering a lift home is a good suggestion, but not sure if it is practically manageable with all our children!

She does local clubs and loves these. The children from our street who exclude her don't go to these clubs.

I'm trying to arrange play dates with her school friends at the weekends, but haven't been very successful so far. I think parents are just so busy with work and other things. I'll keep trying!