My daughter (14) had a difficult start to secondary school- she had been bullied by one of her best friends at primary so had self esteem issues, then Covid hit and then her closest friend recently moved and has now left school.
She made some friends but no one she was close to and these relationships have now dwindled.
She has much improved self esteem now and is trying to make new friends and chat to people but she says she’s been labelled as socially awkward and a ‘low value’ person to make friends with so she says people don’t continue conversations she initiates. I Know she can make good relationships as she has friends out of school. She goes to several clubs and established friends from primary. There have been positive days where she’s had the green shoots of friendship but nothing has developed. she says everyone is too busy with their own lives to notice her.
we’ve spoken to school who were supportive and tried to establish some buddy style friendships but this didn’t work for whatever reason.
There aren’t any lunchtime clubs at school but she does go to one Afterschool club at school.
it just feels like she’s trying so hard and being so resilient, she goes to school feeling positive and comes home crying.
my husband thinks she needs a new start at a private school (he was privately educated) but I fear we are teaching her to run away from her issues or setting her up to fail somewhere else. At the moment she is excelling academically so I wonder if she just needs to concentrate on her studies and hope that year 10 will shake Up established friendships.
Sorry for the long post- any wise words?