Richard Hogan: A new school can be a tough transition

Pic: iStock

It’s hard to believe after the washout we have had that summer is all over. 

Summer has come and gone. Leaves are falling, days are noticeably shorter, which means only one thing: Back to school. 

Next Monday, thousands of students will commence another academic year. 

For a lot of parents, it comes as relief. The structure will help their children to get off the screens and back into a healthier routine. 

Other parents will be managing their children’s transition from primary school to secondary school. I am one such parent. 

My eldest daughter is making the big move. I have been writing about this transition for many years, outlining key tips and ideas on how to better support this time in your child’s life. 

It is interesting, to me, to live the theory and tips I have been suggesting. Seeing, firsthand, if they hold up, is the best research I could ever do.

It can be daunting for a child to move from the familiar comfort of their primary school into the big unknown world of secondary school. They will be surrounded by difference. 

They will hear and experience more adult themes over the course of these next few years. And they will become adults, by the end of this journey. 

I have been telling parents to try to help their child have as many friends as possible. 

Children often get caught with a very small network of friends, and if a rupture occurs, which it so easily can, they can be left without any friend.

So, a wider network of friends is crucial to help your child to avoid relying on one person for security. 

I have seen it so much in my clinic: A beautiful child sitting in front of me, devastated because the one friend they had has rejected them for new friends, halfway through the new school year.

They are left isolated and alone, desperately scrambling to join a new friendship group. That can cause all sorts of suffering. 

If your child is in sixth class this year, try to get them into a sport or hobby that will introduce them to new people. 

Last year, my daughter started hockey, and many of the girls she met there are now going to be in her new school. 

I was talking to my daughter about the year ahead and she said she couldn’t wait to start secondary school, because all of these new friends will be there. Theory in practice.

Richard Hogan. Pic: Moya Nolan

Talk to your child about some of the things they will encounter. If a child arrives into secondary school cossetted from the world and how teenagers can be, they will collapse the minute someone says something hurtful to them.

I talk to my children about why people say mean things. If you get in there early and help them to see that hurtful words have no power if you don’t believe them, it can really protect them.

It is when children align with the negative words of others that they really hurt and that can cause a life-long scar. 

I explain by asking, ‘Why do you think someone would make a comment on your appearance or say something nasty to you? Do you think they are happy people? Would a confident person say something really mean to you or is that an insecure person, who wants you to feel like they feel? And if someone is trying to put you down because they feel bad about themselves, should you listen to them and allow them to succeed?’ 

Being targeted by someone is one of the most unsettling experiences of our formation.

But, if we better equip our children to critically evaluate the actions of others, we will immunise them against those hurtful words.

My daughter told me one evening that a girl was continuously saying mean things to her. I told her that it was a great learning moment, and that there will always be people who say mean things to you, but it is how you react to them that makes the difference.

I asked her if she believed what she was saying, and she told me she didn’t. Well, then, I said, they are just the words of someone you don’t like. Smiling, off she went. 

A couple of weeks later, she was waiting at the door for me when I came home. 

She excitedly described helping a girl who was being bullied in school that day; she told me she saw a girl crying in the yard and when she asked her what was wrong, the girl told her a boy called her a whale.

My daughter asked her, ‘Do you believe him that you are a whale?’ The girl said no. 

‘So, why are you upset, if it is just words from a silly boy who is trying to hurt you?’ The girl instantly cheered up and said, ‘Thanks Hannah, you’d make a great therapist’.

We have to arm our children with skills to cope with what they are likely to encounter as they go through school. I meet so many children who internalise the negative comments they have heard, they believe that the person said those terrible things because they saw it in them.

That type of thinking can last a lifetime. My work is to try to untangle that internalised prejudice and help them to see that those words were not a comment on something about them but about the person who said them. 

Now, if you teach your child that, they will be powerful.