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I don't even know how it's gone this quickly, but within just a few weeks my baby boy will start secondary school and it's terrifying. When I started this blog five minutes ago he was a toddler.
I'm so excited for him as he's so so ready for something new, he's really excited and absolutely full of beans for the next adventure with some freedom of his own. Alf is really grown up for his age and has been so bored the last year or two of primary, as I think after COVID the focus has been on pulling the struggling students up to the correct level, so those that were where they should be have kind of floundered just waiting for the next step.
Needless to say, like many my own experience of secondary school was a mixed bag. In some ways I loved it and looking back I had it very easy, it was a nice part of my life in comparison to others and I did have fun. But, at the time there was the odd heart ache with friends or boys and the odd bit of bullying thrown in. I never really felt like I fit in anywhere, not quite cool enough for the cool kids but not quite clever enough for the rest, not pretty enough for the popular girls but pretty enough to still get the odd boy troubles. It was a weird time but I look back on it pretty fondly now knowing how easy it all was compared to things that would follow.
What scares me now is that times have moved on which is amazing in some ways like for Alf, a budding games creator will get to have coding lessons and he's already so clever compared to how I was with education being so much more advanced. The bad side though is that there's new aspects now like cyber bullying, social media platforms, camera phones, zero fear of teachers and the douche bags got douchier. All things that we'd not even have dreamed of when I was at school, where we were lucky if we had a pager and/or dial up internet at home.
Nowadays there is so much more to think about for teens, nothing is forgotten once it's online and kids can be super cruel. There's pros and cons of course, but as an anxious mother with a rather stupid brain, I do tend to focus on the negatives and overthink.
I also just have this irrational fear of bullying, which sounds absolutely mental I know. I've already heard of one pupil getting expelled due to carrying a knife at the school we are going to, so I guess on one hand you could say it was dealt with well so that's a positive, but also a kid carrying a knife into school, that's insane isn't it?! I've heard other stories of bullying too and it doesn't matter how amazing a kid is, it just takes one little shit to ruin everything. I really hope mine can sail through without getting caught up in that kind of rubbish as I don't think it's character building, I just think it's rubbish.
The school itself is lovely and the staff so far that we've met have been great, but it's the breaks and the walks to and from school that scare me the most. We can arm them with as much self love as possible and I guess just hope that they have the strength to deal with anything that comes their way.
We've started the big uniform shop so it feels like it's really happening now. As soon as that gut wrenching feeling of leaving primary has passed, the nerves are coming back now with this next stage. I'm trying my absolute best to keep my thoughts and fears to myself, I really don't want to taint his excitement with my ridiculous worries, but it's hard isn't it?
If you're a parent with a kid starting secondary school this year what are your thoughts? Also if you've been where I am in recent times and have any advice etc please do comment below 💓
