My 7 Year old daughter is unhappy

aeuerby

My daughters school do have lunchtime/afterschool groups but no-body seems to know what they are. I will find out though.

I know that they are mainly sport orientated (she's not fond of sport!!) and a drama club but that's about it.

She does know children in the other classes from last year. They were all mixed up when they changed into the new year becasue they have split year classes now. She was supposed to have been with her friend but because of some problem with brothers & sisters in the same class this didn't happen.

You could be right about the teacher. I am not that impressed with her myself, having observed her a number of times while helping out in the sewing class, she doesn't seem to have much control over her class.

Another thing that has just occured to me is that a boy who is a right royal brat and really needs some serious discipline has been moved to her table beacuse of his behaviour. This could also be having an affect as this problem didn't flare up again till this weekend - about 3 days after he was moved.

Anyway she seems quite happy at the moment and has been fore-warned of the routine tonight - it sems to help giving har a kind of countdown for bedtime - so we shall see how she goes.

Thanks all
Angela.

jellyhead

hi,
my boy is in year 4 now and always has a horrible time at the start of a school year, year 3 was particularly horrible for him. he is scatty and disorganised and loses everything, he feels very insecure if he doesn't have a friend to 'follow' and to remind him of things and generally look after him (he's a summer birthday, all of his friends are 9 already and he's only just 8, he is very shy and doesn't make friends easily and he's just, well, scatterbrained).

there was a group of 4 of them in year 3 and then for year 4 they split him and put the other 3 together in one class and my boy in another class. luckily i knew the mother of a boy who would be in his class and we managed to engineer a friendship between the two boys. my boy plays with a couple of girls outside of school but during school boys and girls don't mix at all, not after around year 2. they would rather be lonely than risk being laughed at for playing with the opposite sex.

apart from the start of year 4 the school have always made an effort to keep my boy with his best friend. i think the year three teacher who sorted out the year 4 groups just didn't give priority to the shy kids that needed their friends. there were 36 kids in each class and only two classes so it was difficult to juggle everybody, there were so many sets of twins or cousins or enemies that needed to be separated from each other. i tried to get my boy moved into the other class but the teacher said there was no way she could do it. my son would have been gutted if he didn't have the vague and more recently cemented friendship with this boy whose mum i know. we set up visits to theme parks etc. during the summer and took this boy with us. we always do that anyway, take a kid so ours has company and in this instance it was useful because it meant that this boy got to know my son better and became better friends with him.

is there a girl in her class that you can take to the cinema and mcdonalds? 'the incredibles' come out in less than 3 weeks. not all parents will let you borrow their child for the day, i think it's more likely they'll say yes if it's a child whose parents are separated, i always find that kids who go to their dads at weekends are more independent and their mums aren't as overprotective as those who have their kids all the time.

by the way i think bedtime is usually the time when kids get upset, it's not that they're attention seeking, i think they are truly upset but have other distractions up til bedtime.

Prudent

Some schools run schemes to support children who are struggling with friendships. This might be a buddying system or a friendship group. Ask the teacher if the school has anything like this running. If not, you could approach the head and ask for something to be set up. Sometimes the playground helpers will organise traditional playground games and try to draw in children who are on their own.

If your child likes being on their own this is ok. However the fact your daughter is so distressed at bedtime suggests she actually quite anxious about being on her own.

Inviting other children to your house is good. Children find it much easier to mix in the playground if they have a bond with another child outside school.

Zoop_2

I do know some of the parents of the children in the class. Unfortunately their kids are brats and I don't like them let alone my daughter.

Could your attitude towards other kids (and their parents?) have anything to do with it? Perhaps the "brats" are the ones she would like to play with but you have put her off?

aeuerby

Could your attitude towards other kids (and their parents?) have anything to do with it? Perhaps the "brats" are the ones she would like to play with but you have put her off?

Thanks for that but I think not. My opinions of the other children are not passed onto my daughter. She is old enough to work out who she does and doesn't like.

Most of the "Brats" are know to nearly all the parents and we all have the same opinion of them.

On my daughter's table there are 6 children in total. 4 girls and just recently 2 boys have been moved onto this table. One of the boys is awful. He doesn't listen, he's rude, he doesn't do as he is told by anybody - not even his parents - and I know & like his parents.

My daughter can't stand him and hasn't liked him since she started in reception 3 years ago. He was moved to my daughter's table because this boy keeps on mis-behaving - a point I am taking up with her teacher tonight.

The other children on her table she likes (as do I) but doesn't play with them at playtime.

Anyway, she had a decent night's sleep last night and got up quite happily today. I have spoken to a few of my friends and their children are going to keep an eye out for my daughter and play with her, so things are looking up.

Thanks for all your help and suggestions.

Angela.

Glad

If she likes the other girls on her table in class, can't you invite a couple of the round for tea and to play after school?

MATH

I'm sorry for the length of this post but sometimes just knowing others deal with the same probs helps even if not a lot of advice can be given.

Have the same prob with my 7yr old girl. I think it is about this age when girls who have been quite happy to play in loose groups suddenly need a 'bossom buddy' and split into little groups which are very selective. If you happen to be out of the loop it can be very distressing.

My little girl was really upset cos friends she has had since pre-school suddenly didn't want to play with her and they can be quite nasty in how they tell you. 7yrs is also ther age I find girls developing a catty streak (which hopefully dosn't last!)

It took a couple of months winkling this out of my little one. The only advise I could give her was to go and find new friends if her old ones wouldn't play with her. She does have one good friend and since then a couple of new kids have joined the school and cos the other groups are so self-contained they don't bother with the newbies so my little girl has picked up some new friends this way. Maybe suggesting your little girl finds someone worse off than herself to befriend and help(and there will be someone) will boost her self confidence and take her through this rough patch.

Since this some of her old friends have asked her to play with them. (she was all for telling them to BOG OFF! like they had to her) but I've told her it's fine to play with them but to remember how they treated her and not to become so emotionally attached to them.
Keep a couple of really close friends you know you can trust and cultivate a wide circle of associations that are not so important.

Inviting friends arround and befriending the parents is a good way of 'cementing' your child's friendships but it must be the friend they choose. I have to 'hutch-up' with parents I wouldn't choose as my own friends because of the choices my children have made.

We may not think we pass on our preduces to our children but I think we do unknowingly. My oldest boy (9ys) has a girlfriend she is often at our house and invited for meals. I thought I had done a good job at hiding the fact that I dislike her and her parents. I privately refer to her a JAIL BAIT :-[. I have never said this in front of him and didn't think I had let it show publicly. However, my son has picked up on it and mentioned to his Mother that Daddy doesn't like her!

The other piece of general advice I would give (for what it's worth!) Is never fall out with parents over ya kidz squabbles. I've seen so many kids kiss 'n' make up, leaving their parents daggers drawn for years.

When I realised what my little girl was going through it nearly broke my heart cos I was never the most popular kid in school cos I came from a devoutly religious family which kidz and teachers alike saw as good enough reason to give me a wide birth. When I was 12 due to a misunderstanding perpetuated by a teacher and another adult in the school the whole class refused to speak to me and kept this up for the next 2 yrs. Billy Nomates wasn't in it! but I lived through it.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

jellyhead

although mine is a boy i think it's true what you say about girls becoming selective and spiteful at age 7. my little boy (year 4) still plays in a big group of boys at playtime and they just run around chasing, play fighting, etc. the girls sit gossipping in twos and threes.

i started helping out in school as a parent volunteer 3 years ago and was really gobsmacked by how incredibly nasty some of the girls were. i was put into a year 3 class and i had no idea that 7 year old girls could be so horrible. some of them were still cuddly and friendly, still 'little girls' but others were like mini teenagers and knew how to manipulate situations, tell lies about other girls and whisper and start rumours to ostracise particular girls from others. i saw a couple of lifelong friendships broken up because one girl had decided she wanted to be friends with a girl and 'take her away' from her best friend, and she knew how to do it whereas the girl who was being left out didn't really know how to deal with the situation and hadn't learned how to be nasty or manipulative.

these kinds of things are not always permanent as kids of that age can forget easily and will form new friendships or resume old ones. teachers can make a big difference if they notice what's going on and try to make everybody be nice to one another. if it's becoming really upsetting for the child though i would ask if they can be moved into another class where they have friends. although my son still plays with his old friends and being in a separate class hasn't affected their playtimes i do think it's different for girls.

can you maybe have a christmas party? maybe a sleepover at your house or even a disco in a church hall or something that would remind her old friends that she still exists even though she's not in their class, and might make her more popular with the girls on her table. or what about taking a group of girls to watch the christmas lights being switched on and go to mcdonalds? ice skating is also nice at this time of year although you need at least one adult to a child if they can't skate. swimming is fun at any time, is there a waterpark type place near you with slides and stuff?

i agree with what's been said about kids being friends with people even if you don't like their parents. my son plays in a big group and some of the parents i like, others i don't like at all and some i only have a 'playground' relationship with and wouldn't really socialise with outside of school because we're so different. i let my son make his own friends although i have steered him away from one or two boys in the past who were too violent and always hurt him.

jockettuk

my daughter will be 10 in jan and we have just now got her to understand how nasty some kids are.. for whaterver reason my daughter took a shine to a girl who started school the same day as her in reception and they formed a strong friendship then at the age 7 situation this girl turned nasty .. my daughter couldnt understand it and no matter what this girl did my daughter just said but she is my friend.. this has gone on for 3 yrs now and last yr i had to go into the school abt it as she was trying to turn all my daughters other friends away from her..nothing i did or said would make my daughter realise that this girl was not a friend as she liked to call her as friends dont treat you like this..This yr they got split up into different classes and wow what a difference ..This girl now has no one to pin the blame on in class no one to hassle and at playtimes my daughter tells her if she is going to be nasty then she doesnt want to play with her..

Its taken my daughter 3 yrs to build up this confidence to tell her to go away and her other friends are now starting to see this girl for what she is nasty and horrid, she is the one who is now going to be on her own..

I say to your child hang in there it will get better eventually

Peakma

I remember how hard it was being a kid,some children are so manipulative and cruel.And often the teachers just dont notice.I was picked on between the ages of 7-11 and I hated school.I was one of 5 children so my parents never seemd to notice either.I always felt more grown up than everyone else and bored.
I have a nearly 6 yr old son and a 4 and a half yr old son niether of them want to get up and go in the morning.I remember never wanting to join in and they are similar,which I suppose thats how they've seen me.I hope they have more confidence, they seem to.I think it is pretty boring a lot of the time, far too much sitting about and being quiet for that age.
Maybe you could invite a couple of freinds around after school so she can get to know them better,It might be easyier for her to form some friendships if it's not just one on one.
good luck to her, and remember indiviuals are much more interesting than just one of the crowd. I still find it pretty hard to form friendships now.Proberbly why I'm sat here talking to annomymous strangers, far easyier!