Did you ever change schools?

In a way, I think that almost made it worse, because by high school, I'd got the idea in my head that if I didn't like a school (or the teachers, or my classmates), I could just up and leave it.

How old is Primary 1? I think younger kids are definitely more accepting of new classmates.

I forgot my old friends in a matter or weeks.

I do remember being really scornful of my new classmates as they were learning the 'baby alphabet' - Ah, Buh, Cuh, Duh, Ehh, Fffff, and because nobody could read yet. My mum says I was a right little madam for about a year.

Happened again in America - I went to the local school for all of 2 days, but they refused to let me skip a grade, so there I was, doing calligraphy, while the other kids were still learning to go from ball and stick writing to script.

Also unfortunately, the school actually DID close when I was 14, and was also burned to the ground by arsonists a few weeks before we all left. So I went into my GCSE years at another state secondary - where fitting in was made more difficult by the fact that the influx of schoolless students from Steiner had caused them to change around all the tutor groups so friends were being separated and thus hated us all before we even got there. Also we were weirdo hippies obviously.

Since my best friend had just died of leukemia and my parents had just got divorced, it was not the greatest year. Miraculously I still did well in the exams, but I think I only made two friends the whole time.

Depends. Overseas, obvs, DoD provides schooling for dependents. in the US, in some places you just go to civilian schools off-post with everyone else, in other places you don't. When we were stationed at Ft. Leonard Wood, MO, for example, grades K-8 went to school on-base, but high schoolers had to attend local Waynesville High School.

And even being all military dependents doesn't erase the normal cliques and foibles that all schoolkids have to deal with. There's the added twist that there are a nontrivial number of children who feel that, if their parent outranks your parent, they also outrank you.

The second half, though - outranked? Is that like "my dad can beat up your dad" but with stripes and medals? Ugh, that sounds awful.

six times, cos i just counted

it suuuuuuuucked

p sure it made me the sunny dispositioned charmer i am today tbh

In high school, I switched from a rural all-white school that I had gone to since Kindergarten to a large urban school with a black majority for my senior year. Best decision I ever made of my adolescence.

My little girl has bounced around a bit as we look for daycares and pre-Ks for her. Next year, she'll likely go to yet another school. I asked her if she was fine with that, and she said yes, she likes trying out new schools. We'll see if she keeps that opinion.

istr it being ok when i was seven or eight, after that it was rough enough every time having to make new friends, be 'the new kids' all that jazz

I don't doubt that for a second.

But I will say that I spent most of my days at school wishing I could be the new kid, just once. The school I went to was small – my grade pretty much included the same 20-25 people from Kindergarten on through high school. Whenever a new boy would come in, oh the girls would go wild for him. (at least it seemed in fifth grade.) I mean, I ate in the same exact cafeteria from 1979 to 1991, pretty much with the same people.

All I've ever heard from testimony and books is how much it does suck to always be the new kid, so again, I'm not saying your grass is greener. But I will say that the direct opposite ain't much fun either.

i was the other guy to that guy iirc

Ponds and oceans - new kids coming into my small school were treated like a shiny bauble dropped into a fish tank. When I became the new kid at the large school, hardly anyone paid me any mind.

heh i don't remember joining many oceans either!

5 times. Army brat as we don't call them here (Ireland). Jealous of my daughter, who's now in college, and still sees people daily she started primary school with.

7 times... 3x in elementary, 3x in HS. moving former, choice latter.

altho it would've been only 2 times if the school i eventually did end up at wasn't on a waiting list. the first HS i attended i was just desperate to get out of.

i had to switch high schools three times and while i probably wouldnt have chosen to do so i think it was useful, helped me be at ease w/ppl and get over certain kinds of shyness. it also helps give you perspective on the weirdness of high school, i think

Thirteen schools in thirteen years of K-12, plus two different colleges for undergrad. Pretty sure it broke me.

I think 7 or 8 times? Most of them were within the same general region, so it wasn't as if I was moving really far away except the two most critical times - right before I started junior high we moved to another state and right before I started high school we moved back to my home state, but to a tiny little shit town full of racists where everything revolved around the high school football team.

i think i may be termed a fishing brat

8 times, but with all of high school at the same school even though we moved away from its general neighbourhood - phew tbh

7 times - i didn't mind it too much, just assumed that was how life was, until i had to change high schools in my second-to-last year. really screwed me up and made reg teenage angst about 100x worse. half of it was the actual changing of schools/new people/new teachers etc. but the other half was the absolute indifference with which my parents treated the whole event, despite my attempts at begging to be left at my old school and also arranging regular transport so i could still attend. and also their total denial that they had promised when i started high school they wouldn't make me change again.

I moved a lot during the first 9 years of my life so of course changing schools was a constant in my life. It kinda fucked me up, to be honest. I'm oversensitive I guess.

Changed schools once, had a pretty deep impact on me. First school was a Catholic school run by Benedictine monks. They kept me on my shit and I skipped a grade there. Moved to a public school in my crappy, blue-collar town ... was a year ahead of everyone and teachers didn't give a crap, plus non-existent parents, so I became a troublemaker til college.

Still have a slightly messed up work ethic, but it's all my responsibility now, so whatev.

I always thought about my friends who had moved away – what new places were they seeing, what new friends were they meeting – all the while trying to quell my crush on the girl I had known since I was 6 years old.

That's really tender, if that's not too overblown. Reminds me of a plot from one of those Japanese romance/somehow-sci fi movies.

ha yeah when i moved back to a previous hometown ten years later i fell in love with the same girl all over again

had she been brokenhearted when you left or was she a pragmatist who took the view there are plenty of fishing brats near the sea.

but the other half was the absolute indifference with which my parents treated the whole event, despite my attempts at begging to be left at my old school and also arranging regular transport so i could still attend. and also their total denial that they had promised when i started high school they wouldn't make me change again.

such infuriating injustice.

xp admirable equanimity to both departure and return i'm afraid, tho i did get an invite to her wedding over the new year

forever hold your peace.

was a dip brat, moved every 2-4 years, was generally good (mainly thanks to going to schools with other kids who were moving just as often) until the last two years of high school, which sucked

Not an army brat but my family is SUPER-military in culture and that's what I'm comfortable with. Not that it's bad to change schools or something....I don't think I could have handled it psychologically, I am EXTREMELY loyal!

I got shifted every year or two from school two school. Six dift elementary schools, one middle school and one junior high (which meant I took DARE twice and am a good citizen), and three different high schools. Before I was 12 my parents moved around a lot, and after that my parents decided to interfere when they didn't like the friends I was hanging out with. Sometimes it was justified and sometimes it wasn't; I feel they really shot their cred when they transferred me away form a school because the friend I had made there was "too fat" (but still a sweet Mormon kid). There was really no winning with them and I quit trying to make any sense of it.

I feel this is part of why I am a rambler as an adult who went to five different colleges. I like where I'm at now and I'd like to settle down, but I think I just had some inertia going from all that moving around as a kid.