Anonymous wrote:MS teacher here. These posts break my heart.

From my POV, please communicate with your child's teachers/counselor if s/he is having a hard time socially. So often in classes, kids put on the brave face and seem happy when that may not be the case at all. By keeping communication open, we can work together -- if even in small ways like sitting/not sitting certain kids together or keeping an extra eye out -- to help make things a little better during the school day.

Hugs to you all. Your kids are lucky to have such caring parents!

You sound like a wonderful teacher. I wish there were more like you! I'm one of the PPs and I have to say that while my daughter's counselor was super supportive of her, she struggled terribly in the classroom during most periods of the day. She was so lonely. Still is. There were 3 teachers that showed her compassion over the years and I will never forget their kindness nor that of her counselor.

MS teacher here. These posts break my heart.

From my POV, please communicate with your child's teachers/counselor if s/he is having a hard time socially. So often in classes, kids put on the brave face and seem happy when that may not be the case at all. By keeping communication open, we can work together -- if even in small ways like sitting/not sitting certain kids together or keeping an extra eye out -- to help make things a little better during the school day.

Hugs to you all. Your kids are lucky to have such caring parents!

Anonymous wrote:Most of these problems are fixed by attending a large school. Kids find other friends, cliches not as important.

I felt like my daughters small private middle school was far less cliquey than big public ES...

Anonymous wrote:My DD has social skills challenges and is shy about making new friends... It does not make it easier that she is not into music, clothes, boys. I find her to be withdrawn lately which is sad to watch. Her bFF moved away last year and she has not rebounded.

Does she like Miranda Sings? My DD has long conversations with friends about her, and when they get together they make faux Miranda videos.

Most of these problems are fixed by attending a large school. Kids find other friends, cliches not as important.

My DS is in 6th grade and school is miserable socially. We build up weekends with special events and BFFs outside of school. I wish I could take all of you out to lunch so we could support each other -- this is tough!

This is why I have my daughters diversify their friend portfolios. They have multiple friend groups. Neither one quite has one best friend (if pressed they will name each other) but both are very happy.

Get her inviting other girls over. Get her involved in other activities.

OP here - thank you all so very much for your words of empathy and support. I was a bit verklempt reading your observations and anecdotes! I think this age must be universally upsetting in terms of friendships, cliques, etc. It's just nice to know she's not going through this alone, and neither am I. Hopefully, I can support her through this stage.

I've always emphasized to my DD that having groups of friends is a wonderful thing. I don't have a "BFF" and find the concept bizarre. I have many different friends. Why limit yourself? My DD does have friends that she feels more comfortable with, but by having several friends when one's sort of walked away it's not huge disaster socially. On the other hand, my DD doesn't have a go-to person everyone associates her with and when friends are pairing up for various reasons, she's sometimes left noticing she doesn't have that immediate "of course I'm paring off with my BFF" that most of her friends have. Having a large group of friends isn't a complete fix.

I'd encourage broadening her friendship horizons, and supporting her efforts to build new friendships. Making some extra money available for things like going to the movies with friends can be helpful. Finding other social groups can also help. If she's involved with scouts, sports, or something in addition to school, when friendships at school get complicated, she'll still have the ease of the scouts friendships.

It is so hard to see your child suffer. BUT they do need to learn those coping skills. Assist by distraction and support but do let them learn to work through it so they mature in the process. However, I do know how hard it is to not try to solve the problem for them. If you are not a parent, you have no idea how difficult it is to not swoop in to take away hurt from your kid.

God, I hated sixth grade. My BFF branched out and left me. I spent the year trying to woo her back - bringing cookies for her, gifts, etc. I can imagine how hard this was on my mother, who was one of my teachers. She finally told me point blank to go make other friends because J wasn't coming back. I ended up making excellent friends for 7th and 8th who were wonderful and caring and kind. J did try to come back, but by then I was too busy.

The book Blubber by Judy Blume really resonated then, but that may be outdated now.

Anyway - DD went through this last year too (6th grade) when her BFF found a new BFF. We too kept her super busy. She also plays a year round sport, and we made sure she had a lot of social outlets that way. We ramped up visits with cousins. I took her on outings over school vacations and used a lot of my own days off for this, to make sure that she didn't feel like she was sitting home on days she would otherwise have been with BFF in former days. It was indeed costly and stressful for US, but it was the right thing to do for her. Now in 7th grade, DD has well moved on and has a lot of lovely, kind, non-drama friends - very different from BFF who was a huge drama queen.

Good luck, OP!

Anonymous wrote:My DD has social skills challenges and is shy about making new friends... It does not make it easier that she is not into music, clothes, boys. I find her to be withdrawn lately which is sad to watch. Her bFF moved away last year and she has not rebounded.

Have you found anything to help?
How do you cope - it;s usually also hard on the mom.

My DD has social skills challenges and is shy about making new friends... It does not make it easier that she is not into music, clothes, boys. I find her to be withdrawn lately which is sad to watch. Her bFF moved away last year and she has not rebounded.

NP - I appreciate everyone's input. My DD 4th grade is going through a hard time now. She is great one on one and has several successful one on one friends. What is TERRIBLY hard for her is when there is a group. Recess is especially hard as her individual friends join in groups. While my DD has good friendship skills, she questions that these girls like her and excludes herself.


SHe was so down on herself last night, I cried myself to sleep.

I know social media, when the time comes will be horrific.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We went through a patch like this in 4th grade. The worse part is that the school started sending home notes concerned that DD was playing alone and not making new friends. Gee, ever heard of grieving?
Oddly, the "BFF" came back about a month after DD stopped caring and made other friends. They play together, but my DD is pretty chary of her.
What helped meanwhile is that we de emphasized school friendships and focused on meeting new people and strengthening acquainanceships through GS, sports, church etc.
I'm not embarassed to say that we ran distraction and it was costly. I figured it was cheaper and more fun than therapy.

I don't understand this??

Not OP but what I think she means is that she ran her daughter's social calendar and kept her busy. It was costly in that the mom signed her DD up for activities that cost $$$.