Last week was parent-teacher meeting season at my kid’s school. I just started a new job that same week and couldn’t attend because I’m in this weird place where I have to overthink everything I do and be in “prove myself” mode, but I digress. My husband attended alone and her teachers mentioned that our daughter has no friends in her classroom.
Not one friend. Not one BFF. Not one homie.
I hurt for my daughter. I became nervous about her experience in and out of the classroom. I imagined her kindness and vulnerability being met with cruelness and disregard.
I saw her slight frame in my mind’s eye sitting alone during lunch. Trying and failing at polite conversation with her peers.
My initial response:
“What is wrong with these heathen children?”
“I hate these basic spawns of bias and conformity”
I may have overreacted.
I took a breath and brought the topic up with my daughter a few times. Asking for her thoughts and experiences with her classmates and forming friendships. Probing her responses for bullying, sadness, or loneliness.
I found that kids are a bit cruel. That some were her friend one moment and randomly abandoned her a month or a school year later. Between the lines, I found that my daughter wanted friendships but found no honest ones. But she didn’t talk about it with pain and didn’t really view it as I did.
She plays with her little brother and other random kids during recess. She has some connections in class, though she wasn’t sure if they were real friends or not just yet. Still, she seemed open and resilient and hopeful.
Though I still side-eye her classmates, I’m making peace with it. Especially after Googling many variations of: “is it okay that my kid has no friends?” I’m only slightly ill at ease, but I’m trying to really understand why she doesn’t have close friends, maybe its because:
- She’s quirky and a bit of a shy introvert, making it a bit of a challenge to make meaningful friendships
- There are cultural differences. Though the school is diverse interms of nationalities (Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.) but not so much ethnically, my daughter is among a very small population of African-American (black) children at her school, this may be contributing to her difficulties, but I’m not certain.
- Kids are seemingly trifling, one minute they are friends and the next minute they rescind their friendship because another kid does not want to share their attention with my daughter.
I’m trying to take it in stride and build opportunities for my daughter to connect with kind kids and parents from her class outside of school via playdates. But I’m also looking to make connections with kids within our community.
It’s okay that my daughter doesn’t have class friends. She’s not alone, she has a mother and a tribe of folks to support her as she navigates awkwardness and eventually (and hopefully) finds a community that appreciates her.
What did you say?