Reply to parents of unpopular kids - how do you stop feeling sad?

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[quote=Anonymous]Don't lose heart, OP. Sometimes it just takes a while for kids to find their tribe. My DD was like yours in 6th grade and in 7th grade too. Now in 8th grade, she has a great little group of friends. These are girls that in 6th and 7th she met and talked to in class or in outside activities but never really saw on the weekends or outside of school activities. Now they eat lunch together at school and make plans to do things on the weekends sometimes, including trick-or-treating last night. I think this pattern is pretty normal. The "friends" from elementary school drift a bit at the beginning of middle school as kids grow and change and it can be hard for kids to navigate the changes. Those surface in-class friendships grow deeper over time. It was tough to watch DD go through her time of feeling left out, but that makes seeing her with her friends now that much sweeter. Throughout, I always told her three things: (1) I'm willing to host friends/bring friends to movies/take you to meet friends whenever you want to do that - don't let logistics get in the way, we'll figure it out (2) you are a great kid with lots of interests and you will find people who appreciate you and who you appreciate too - don't feel bad about being left out from groups of people that you don't have much in common with (3) this is totally normal: it took me a long time to find good friends and even as an adult it takes time to meet people and form friendship bonds, but it is always worth it in the end. On the latter point, I could point to specific examples of people in my life and say "I didn't meet great family friend so-and-so until high school or college" or "I met so-and-so when you were in preschool, but we only became good friends four years later after we worked together on a few projects" -- I think giving her some concrete examples helped her be a little more at peace with what was going on in her life. Good luck, OP. [/quote]

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