How many friends do your upper elementary kids have?

[Anonymous]

My DD is in 5th grade and has very few friends. She has one BFF and another close friend, but other than that she doesn't seem to have very many friends or a friend group. She said there's a couple of friend groups within the school but she doesn't want to be friends with them because she's not into tiktock and I guess some of the kids are already in relationships/dating, which she says she has no interest in.

Normally, I would say this is fine but my DD mentioned that she does feel left out at times and that she just doesn't click with most the kids at school. I'm wondering if I should switch her to a private school where she can meet kids with more similar interests. Any thoughts or experience with something like this?

[Anonymous]

Probably about a dozen? Nine are dating or on social media. 4th grade.

[Anonymous]

0

[Anonymous]

There's 3 or 4 I hear mentioned regularly but I suspect several more B list acquaintances. Most of them play sports at recess. 4th grade boy.

[Anonymous]

Cultivating friendships outside of school has been really great for my DD. She has three good non-school friends (kids of people we are very friendly with already, so very easy to facilitate those friendships) and it just takes all the pressure off at school. She has several school friends but there is not "friend group" and she doesn't seem to feel bad about not having one (those exist at the school, but her socializing is more amorphous and her friends aren't always friends with each other). She focuses more on the connection with each person and doesn't expect anyone to be her best friend -- it's more like this is the friend who loves to read as much as I do, this is my aftercare buddy, this is my friend who loves to do art with me, etc.

I hope we can keep this up into middle school where I expect the pressure to be part of a group may intensify. But hopefully she continues to be practical and unbothered about it.

[Anonymous]

6th grade boy

3 great friends who live in the neighborhood. Lots of hanging out. Moms work from home or are teachers so we traded off taking them places all summer.

3-4 people he is happy to sit with at school, play with at recess, and wanted to invite to his birthday each year, but we’ve never done play dates.

[Anonymous]

6th grade DS has a big group, 8 kids he sees regularly, 2 don't go to the same school. But a best friend left for private in 4th and the other in 5th, so he's actually a bit lonely even with the big group.

[Anonymous]

10 year old has a dozen really close friends. I think it's totally fine to have fewer friends. Sometimes you just need one. TBH it's a bit of a pain for her to juggle weekends, birthday parties, and her social calendar in general

[Anonymous]

Good for her. My fifth grader was at a similar school until this year and in hindsight, she’s really glad to be away from a school community that is obsessed with social media and Sephora and boys. It’s elementary school and she’s a strong girl for not going along with the crowd. A few friends is just fine and she’ll find her people in middle school hopefully.

[Anonymous]

4th grade girl. Three kids in the neighborhood, two from Girl Scouts, one maybe two at school. We recently moved to an accelerated program at a public school which I think will help a little in terms of school friends but it hasn't yet.

I'm also a person who has a couple close friends (and had none for long stretches of school) so I'm not really expecting much more than she has.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:10 year old has a dozen really close friends. I think it's totally fine to have fewer friends. Sometimes you just need one. TBH it's a bit of a pain for her to juggle weekends, birthday parties, and her social calendar in general

I’m not sure you can call 12 ten year old close friends. More like he has 12 friends. My daughter had two close friends in 4th grade and they were together a lot. Every Wednesday they came over and we went to the Y. I can’t imagine 13 kids getting together a lot.

Kids don’t need a lot of very close friends. They have school, activities, family, they don’t have that many free hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Probably about a dozen? Nine are dating or on social media. 4th grade.

I know from experience these kids will also be the first having sexual encounters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Probably about a dozen? Nine are dating or on social media. 4th grade.

Yikes

[Anonymous]

5th grade DS seems to roll around with a different crew each day depending on who is available. I kind of wish there was a BFF because at least that would help me facilitate playdates on weekends/random school days off.

[Anonymous]

Did you say…tik tok? And dating? None of the 5th graders I know are doing that. DS has maybe 12 kids that are in the immediate neighborhood and close friends. They come over to hang out at least a few days a week, all the kids play on various sports teams together - it’s a tight knit crew. But all kids are different! A few friends sounds completely normal.