Do you have any advice about 'friendship issues'?
It is difficult to know when and how to support with academic work, homework etc but it is even harder to know what to do about friendships.
This will very often be the biggest concern to your child from Day 1 until at least Year 11 - as the educational research, which helped shape some of the comments here, has shown.
Some children like a very close friend, or a very small group. Other children find this claustrophobic and want a large friendship group. Unfortunately this does not always work out neatly!
On the whole children enjoy drama (think of how attached to soap operas they can be), especially at break and lunchtime. Much of the time they are caring and kind but tensions can rise. Later on hormones will have their role to play in perhaps inexplicable mood swings.
You will find it hard to keep a balance between being supportive and being an ‘over anxious’ parent.
Talk to your child regularly and show you are interested but they may well not want to say very much to you. A close grilling every evening will not help your relationship.
Friends fall out from time to time. Sometimes long friendships end because children develop new interests or simply change and need different types of friends. No one can make a child be friends with another.
The best advice is: No one can have a friend without first being a friend.
Most friendship patterns sort themselves out without adults getting involved. Adults contacting one another can make things much worse and can often prevent the natural course of making up. Learning to deal with people and their whims and moods is a necessary life skill. We will never like everyone we meet but we learn how to allow them to be themselves. Friendships can break and make up very quickly.
Bullying is a different issue. The school does not tolerate bullying and children here are made aware of the Anti Bullying Policy and actions that need to be taken if they experience or witness it. The Form Tutors and Class Teachers discuss the Anti Bullying Policy with the children frequently through their school career.
