Difficult secondary transition- struggling to make friendships

[MrsRolandRat]

Hi,

Just looking for some advice or words of encouragement.

My DD started high school this September. She went there with only 3 other girls from her primary school, her best friends went to a different one. We live a 10 minute walk to the one we sent her to, and the one her best friends and rest of her primary went to would have meant a 25/30 minute car journey. Plus the one we sent her to is actually a better school in terms of performance.

She is so anxious and cries most days at the thought of going. Although she’s hanging out with two of the girls from her primary school she keeps saying everyone knows everyone and she doesn’t. She’s struggling to form new friendships and says she feels lonely.

I didn’t think the transition would be this hard, she was really excited to start the school and this anxiety/worry only started about 2/3 days before the new school term. She also wanted to go to this school so she could make new friends locally in our small town.

In classes she is sat mostly next to
boys who she says don’t talk to her. We have contacted her form tutor who has said she will try and speak to her teachers and see if the seating plan can be changed to help her.

She isn’t keen on the extra curricular activities school are offering but has agreed to start netball after school this week. She’s very good at athletics but I assume these will start in the spring/summer months. She does dancing outside of school but it’s in a different area.

Please tell me this gets easier? I’m so worried about her as she’s just so withdrawn and masks a lot of how she’s feeling. It’s like this black cloud emerges on Sundays as she’s anticipating another week in school.

Just to add she isn’t good with change and did love her primary school and she was very settled there, however it took her a long time to settle in nursery when she was young.

She is a rather shy girl and does struggle with how to make conversations etc.

To top it off her old best friends who went to a different school have now stopped messaging and calling her, so it’s a double whammy.

Apologies for the long post. Thanks for reading.

Really feel for her, it can be so tough, and we know it just takes time but that's not what they want to hear.

Ordinarily of course you try and be a bit more hands off once they're in secondary, but in her case I would think about trying to target a couple of friendships – do you have a class list with peoples addresses, or do you know who might be the girls who live nearest to her? I'd WhatsApp just one or two mums of girls who your daughter has indicated seem nice or who she'd like to be friends with, and see if you can set up something between them, perhaps walking home from school together or a hang out after school, for example use the excuse that you're tied up one Friday afternoon and could your DD come home with their DD?

Good luck, it will get better!

It can be tough but for most kids it does get better. Year 7 can be a bit brutal as kids who know each other tend to stick together (understandably) but as the years go on kids change a lot and start to branch out. My dd would text every morning from the bus saying she had nobody to sit with or talk to. I had to do a lot of coaching - how to initiate a convo, smiling, giving compliments, fake it til you make it. She had been really confident in primary.

my dd struggled in year 7, then it got much better. For her 12th birthday she invited a large groups of girls to her party which helped, then she was invited to lots of their parties and things evolved.
my dd joined hockey and that helped also.

It is a big adjustment for everyone and a lot of children are told to fake it till you make it, look and act confident even though they are not feeling it. Even if she went to the same school as her best friend there is no guarantee that they would still be friends. Primary classes are often 30 children, let's say half are girls and out of those 15 they choose their group of 4. When they get to secondary they are exposed to new and exciting people who are also friends with other people too. My children went to a secondary where they didn't know anyone. Their year group had 270-300 children. That was a lot of potential new friends. At first they were in forms then put in sets for maths, science and English, so more people to sit with.

I wonder if your DD presents herself as shy and anxious meaning people are less likely to go up and talk to the person who looks miserable? I mean would you? Or would you gravitate towards the people who look more fun? Before secondary I sat with my children in front of a large mirror so they could really see their facial expressions and how that might appear to other people. It might be worth getting her to understand what looking confident is, having a small smile on her face even though she feels crap. We all do it, in meetings, when we are in pain but in a social setting. Talk to her about that.

Joining groups and clubs is always a good way to make friends. Usually you start to see the same people walking up to school so she can smile at them. As for boys not talking to her is she talking to them?

The good news is it should get better as she gets into the routine of secondary and starts to get to know the teachers. Remember she has had 1 teacher for an entire year, now she might have 15 different ones. New classrooms, navigating her way round the school, it is a lot. Tell her that. Talk about when you started secondary, no matter what you felt tell her you felt scared. Praise her for managing all of the above too.

It can be difficult. I would definitely mention to the form tutor that she is finding social side of transition hard so school can keep an eye out.

Being nervous and miserable makes it worse so she has to try and put on a brave face, smile and say hi to people. Have a”fake it til you make it” convo with her.

She can talk to the boys she sits next to - don’t wait for them to start conversation. Some are probably feeling nervous and lonely too.

A form change might help at the end of year if things don’t improve.

At my secondary school it was only 12 or 13 girls per form and in Y7 all classes were done in your form group except maths and PE. I went from having a great time at primary to a truly awful time at secondary; there really wasn’t a huge opportunity to make friends and the girls quickly formed cliques.

I compare that experience to my dd’s, who attends a huge school with streamed classes from Y7 and a long 1hr20min lunchbreak jam-packed with all kinds of extra curriculars. My dd has effortlessly picked up plenty of friends.

It truly can be the school, even the individual class, not your kid who has the problem.

It is so hard and can take a while. I think you've done what you can in terms of school. I tried to make home extra kind and relaxed so that at least she felt nice there (seems to be a good way of being with teenagers sometimes too).

Also - parents talk about settling into secondary like they talk about so much else with their children - basically not being honest about how they're doing. I'm sure people have their reasons for this but when everyone says 'oh he/she's loving it' and yours isn't it can feel like there's something really wrong. Most kids take a while to settle and it's only been 6 weeks.

(Also have you met a kid who really was 'loving' school? I've probably met one or two in my whole life).

Make sure her form tutor knows she's finding it hard.

Hi OP couldn’t read and run. My DD had a pretty miserable Y7, made one or two friends but as they picked up other friends she just kind of got dropped. She spent a lot of Y7 alone/lonely, a few friendly acquaintances but nobody to hang out or go to lunch with. It’s heartbreaking I know, you just want them happy.

we strategised a LOT over the summer between Y7 and Y8, she had a lucky break in that the classes all changed so she had opportunities to meet new people AND (crucially) a lot of people were open for new friendships as their old friends were now in a different class.

It’s still early days but my goodness this has been a better year so far. She has a small group of friends now, totally new people she hadn’t even met last year. I think she just got her strategy wrong at the start of Y7 (too much looking for ONE best friend whereas a group gives more options… unless of course it’s a toxic group who ice you out but am crossing everything that doesn’t start!!!!) plus I think she just got a couple of unlucky breaks not quite meeting the right people.

If classes all switch around next year that will probably hugely help you?? But it’s a long time to wait. I would speak to the school for sure. They should be able to come up with some strategies. I do think that for shy/quiet kids who just don’t naturally fall into friendships as easily as others do, strategy is the key.

sorry your DD is unhappy but I could have written your post last year and just wanted to give you some encouragement that it can and will get better x