My Daughter is a Nerd ! Help Please !

In My Humble Opinion
21

If she’s been classified as undesirable by mass consensus, it will be difficult to shake that label. Kids have long memories and no one wants to risk being labeled undesirable themselves. Sometimes it just takes time.

However, I do remember a few kids completely remaking themselves between grades. One kid who was something of a nerd came back one year with a cool haircut and better clothes, and quickly became one of the more popular kids, just by shunning anything remotely nerdy and following the herd. (I’m not saying this is the best way to live one’s life, but it’s one of the few effective nerd to non-nerd transformations I’ve witnessed.) The first weeks of class are when all the roles get established and the labels get cemented on for the rest of the year.

So you may want to try to help her fit in more when school starts again next year. Buy her trendy clothes, get her a cool haircut, maybe let her wear makeup, take her to recent movies, stuff like that. Encourage her to make an effort to talk to other girls about shared interests, e.g. movies, tv, music, etc, right from the beginning. Effort in the first week can go a long way.

Most of all, though, there’s very little you can do. Some kids get chosen to be ostracized, so everyone else can feel better. It’s incredibly unfair and frustrating. But, she’ll turn out fine, even if she’s unpopular for a while.

22

School is almost over and next year will be with a different group. Sounds like you have some time to be used wisely. Why not get her into some activities this summer? How about sending her to a camp. Then next year maybe she’ll have bloomed into a person like Giraffe just mentioned.

23

Aww, I’m so sorry!

Well, when I was nine, I was the class outcast, too. I liked to read, I had just moved in, I had already done what they were doing in school and so appeared “smarter,” and I was pretty tall for my age. The tallness didn’t last long, but everything else did. To make matters worse, we had moved to rural PA where there was no neighbourhood and no kids nearby to hang out with.

Anyway, it sucked a lot, but eventually I made friends. And in high school I was one of the most popular students, despite the fact that I still liked to read and was now one of the shortest people in the class. :slight_smile: I would say not to push her; let her do whatever she feels comfortable doing. As long as she learns good social skills and manners at home, I think her social skills will be just fine when she gets a little older. I know how hurtful it can be, believe me, but just remind her that nothing lasts forever. That helped me a lot when I was nine.

24

I wanted to second the camp thing. I was a big ol’ loser in the middle school years (after having been in with the popular girls in elementary… quite the splash of cold water on Hello Again’s psyche).

Even though I could do no right in middle school, every summer I went away for the whole summer – 8 weeks to a summer camp. I went there for 7 straight years (starting at age 9) AND worked as a counsellor for 2. Not only was I considered not a geek at camp, I was the kid that helped other kids because I knew the shortcuts and the back paths, etc.

I had some separate “camp friends” that I only saw there because they lived in Upstate NY/Connecticut, etc. I was recently a bridesmaid in the wedding of a Camp Friend that I’ve known since I was 10.

The whole experience helped me figure out that just because one group of people doesn’t like you, it doesn’t mean that you are permanently unlikable.

25

Have you thought about introducing her to smoking, drugs and alchohol? Maybe find a way to tell her to be more permiscuous?

Seriously though.

Being “Popular” (big P) is not that important but she should have a group of friends to hang out with. Drawing doesn’t make her a “dork” or anything. (actually, for me it helped because I’m funny, I can draw, and nothing is cooler than a picture of your teacher getting attacked by Ninjas - ok, I had other issues but this isn’t about me) . The problem is that it is pretty much a solitary activity. Have her try diferent group activities. People tend to ostracize the strange kid who no one knows but if when you become involved, people tend to become more involved with you.

If that doesn’t work, I guess you can have her save a popular kids life or something.

26

You daughter is a nerd? Lets see, shes still young, tell her to call me in 9 years. Seriously, I was considered a nerd and had little to no social interaction with my peers for most of middle and high school, and I turned out just fine, so it really is no big deal.

27

I was going to suggest letting her try a martial arts class, but darn it, someone beat me to it…

Martial arts completed my transformation from school pariah to a well-liked and respected guy…it’s great for building confidence, but not for the reason you’d think - the majority of martial arts practitioners are friendly and kind (cos if they were b*stards they wouldn’t be allowed to train) and should make her feel welcome. This in itself is a massive confidence boost and should allow her to make the necessary steps to form bonds within the school.

All my closest friends are martial artists and I’ve never met a more awesome bunch of people.

28

For Godshake, your daughter is just nine years old, what is she supossed to do? date football players? I never heard about parents complaining about their children being good students, it´s that silly for you?
Maybe in a couple of years she will find (most of times this happens) a girl or two with similar interests and make friends with her/them… stop worrying about nonsenses, there´s nothing wrong with her.

29

When she gets too sad, give her drugs. And let her give drugs to her school acquintances. She’ll be popular in no time.

30

Um, perhaps the fact that her daughter is unhappy, lonely and can’t seem to make friends IS a cause to worry!

I don’t think she’s worrying about her being popular, she just wants her daughter to be HAPPY!

Do you know what it’s like to be the class pariah in elementary/middle school? It completely and utterly sucks.

31

Am I the only one to understand the words “She stays in her homeroom for recess, lunch, social studies and field trips, but most of the time she’s in a learning support class.” to mean that she’s with a homeroom group, not alone in the homeroom room?? I mean, if the poor kid is excluded from recess and field trips, no wonder she’s not making any friends! At that age, friendships aren’t made over long division!

I understand the problem to be more of a social one, on the playground, not because she’s not participating.

32

I was almost the same way in school…all the way through high school. I didn’t start coming out of my shell until I started college…she’ll grow out of it, just give her time and be her friend. The best thing you can do is just be there for her, becuase nothing you say will change how kids view her

33

mnemosyne. I think she means her daughter has a Homeroom (where the field trips, etc happens) and a learning support class. I had a few classmates with a similiar situation. They would follow our schedule, except from ten to like 1, they would be with their learning support teachers. But the fieldtrips, recesses, lunch, and the afternoons they were with us.

34

I was a pretty big geek in elementry school. In middle school it got worse, with people throwing rocks at me and spreading rumors the whole bit. It was outright hellish. I was horribly depressed. Then high school came around and somehow I got cool.

I like the camp idea. I went to a few short camps, and it was amazing to shake the negative stigma for a while and get a fresh start. It was a big boost just to know that I was capable of making friends and being cool. An art camp or summer program (even art classes in summer school) might put her around more people like herself, and would also develop her imagination and artistic skills. You might even look into an art-focused magnet school. Even the school where your districts’ gifted program is located might be good- lots of outsiders with big imaginations.

The secret isn’t to be cool. The secret is to find a few close friends who think like you. It took me a few years, but eventually I found “my people” and once I realized that my artistic ambitions were more important than being cool, somehow I got cool anyway.

35

There’s no such thing as a new group of kids while you’re in elementary school-- unless lots of people are moving into your neighbourhood. The social circles have been set, and won’t change significantly until your daughter changes schools.

There’s no point in telling your daughter to go talk to kids during recess because she did that before she started talking to you about the issue*, and because these are the very kids ostracizing her. Encouraging her to interact even more with these kids will make her the butt of more jokes, and essentially rub her nose in ‘being left out’.

If this situation really becomes unbearable for your daughter, you’ll have to plug her into a new social group: summer school of some kind, girl guides, sports, etc… But you’ll have to do your best to make sure there are relatively few children from your daugter’s school, so that your daughter has a chance to make new bonds.

On the other hand, there’s nothing really that bad with being on the outside: it gives her more time to think and less time to do something stupid because other children are egging her on.

[sub]*Okay, that’s just a guess, but based on personal experience and talks with loner kids it seems to apply every single time. If they weren’t trying to be with the other kids and being shut out, how would they know?[/sub]

36

I didn’t have time to read this entire post so forgive me if I repeat advice given in previous posts. From what I read, it appears you and I are in the same “boat”. My daughter is 11, has ADHD, Dislexia, is developmentally delayed (apparently the new term for “late bloomer”) and has informed me on several occasions the she is the “class nerd”.

She also is in remedial classes at school. She started a year later than her peers her Kindergarten year and wasn’t diagnosed as having ADHD until around 3rd grade. At this time, as she begins her first year in Middle School as a 6th grader, she still is only reading at a 3rd grade level.

Like yours, my daughter is “different” than the other kids. She’s also been raised to have compassion for others and to get along and play with with everyone. This hurts her in the school environment because the girls, all of them at one time or another, have made what I call the Rounds. Paired off in one of 9 or 10 little groups whispering about the girls in the other groups.

Like yours, my daughter has spent countless hours on the playground by herself or playing with the few others that, for whatever reason, find themselves alone for a day at recess.

She has many friends who are neighbors of ours. When these kids play at our house, as they have for years now & oftentimes there are as many as 12 to 15 kids in our yard at one time, the rule is simply this: Everybody plays or nobody plays. If one of you comes to me whining because the rest are excluding you then EVERYONE will take a time out. Even the excluded one.

This always worked well at home, but things aren’t the same in the “real world”. Even some of the kids who’ve played at our house since they first learned to walk have snubbed her at school in favor of joining one of the Cliques-du-jour.

I made a special attempt to get involved at school when she first started. She started Girl Scouts in Kindergarten. So I networked alot of the other Mom’s and enlisted their support. They all love Alex, that’s her name, and many of them spoke to their daughters one on one about how they could make things better for her at school.

She and I have had many talks about this phenomenon. I told her that no matter how many people she befriends in her life in whatever way, she will only have a handful of “true” friends.

It breaks my heart to think of her alone on that playground day after day. But I know she won’t always be the Ugly Duckling and I told her so. I was much the same nerd as a child and, though some of my “true” friends may beg to differ, I’m not a nerd now.

I empathize with you soooooooo much. Email me anytime. It helps to have a sounding board for all the frustrations and anger you feel sometimes. I’ll tell you some of the things I’ve tried and some of the “private” jokes my daughter and I share as a result of her plight.

Tell your little one to hang in there. Women never really get any easier to deal with, (why can’t we get along with each other?) so this is good practice for when she grows up and has to work with the teeming female millions.

37

The martial arts thing is a GREAT idea. In retrospect, I wish my parents had done that with me. It would have given me something I was good at that used my muscles just as much as my brain, but wouldn’t have aggrivated my asthma. Oh well. Guess that’ll have to wait for time machines to get invented.

Labels are hard to shake once you enter the middle school years, when kids are at their meanest. I never felt fully accepted until I hit high school, when I completely came out of my shell. And I think this was in no small part due to the fact that I didn’t have to take gym class anymore, which I considered a daily dose of self-esteem lowering. The fact that I went through my last three years of high school knowing that I was good at every single thing I was doing (except trigonometry, but who cares about that?) and had friends because I was good at those things completely changed my life.

So if your daughter has a knack for art, she’ll likely fall in with the other artsy types in high school, and start hanging out in coffeehouses that put her works on the walls. Just make sure she doesn’t start smoking. :slight_smile:

Your daughter doesn’t sound like someone who will be terminally unpopular. The kids in my school who were terminally unpopular were notable for having no discernable talents. There was nothing to them. They were just … there. Your daughter does not seem to be like that, and she’ll find her niche in no time.

38

Yes, I know, I´ve never been popular or so. Anyway I was a little loud in my post. The fact is that you can´t force a child to make friends, frineds come and go, I still got a few from middle school which I count into my best friends. Somethings in life (friendship, love…) happens, you can´t look for it.

39

My son (6th grade, 12 years old) has been having a similarly bad time socially at school this year. We decided this week to just start summer vacation early. It may be irresponsible–but why make a child suffer for a couple extra weeks? We have some positive plans for the summer that may let him have a better experience next year.

40

My thought as a stop gap measure: why not keep her in contact with her friend who moved? Get his phone number or AOL screen name or something.

Also, I’d highly recommend some extracurricular activities.