Coming to terms with a negative high school experience

Graduation is approaching but rather than a joyous occasion it will mark the end of a very painful three years for my child. Any suggestions for how to get through it?

I am sorry this has been your DC’s experience, I don’t know whether “you are not alone in hating your high school experience” would soften the “trauma”, or cliches like “what didn’t kill you will only make you stronger” would help; but do provide these perspectives to your DC.

The beauty of this season is your DC now has a brand new start, help him/her to put the past behind, move on and the best “revenge” to all those mean-kids is to have a great college lives and be happy/healthy.

Do you mean how to get through the graduation ceremony? If so, I’d give her the option to skip it. I’m sorry she’s had such a rough time.

@2wuhanmom

Who needs help getting through it? You? Your child? Both?

Do you have anything special planned, like a weekend trip or longer vacation?

Our D’s last year was bumpy, and HS graduation definitely had an air of “good riddance”. We downplayed it, trying to stay in tune to how she was feeling about things, and threw our energies into looking ahead.

I think it may have been a little harder on our D, even after going to college, because of Instagram and Facebook, etc.
In the pre-internet days, it was easier to let HS drop off the face of the earth, but you have to make an extra effort to disconnect from it, if that’s what you want and need. In hindsight, I wish she had un-followed and un-friended most of that crew.

Good luck!

Yep, definitely have a conversation about unfollowing/unfriending on social media. It definitely makes things linger.

I’m sorry your DC is going through this. I was in a similar position 3 years ago, and I think the important thing is that life goes on. High school will matter less and less, and there’s a whole life of nice people/good food/unread comic books/whatever your child is into.

I think it can be joyous indeed for your child. Wow! What a celebration! Done with all of this nonsense! Never have to deal with XYZ again! Instead of tears at leaving friends, your kid can be dancing down the aisle!

OK, if that isn’t going to work for your kid, I say plan a smaller “divorce” party just with immediate family and skip graduation altogether to do something more fun.

Thanks for the suggestions and advice - @Midwest67 experience will no doubt be difficult for me as well as for my kid - but we hope to look back and laugh some day

A friend of mine used the analogy of prison parole after finishing a particularly difficult year. Perhaps you can throw a getting out of prison theme party for the family :).

Really it is about how you frame graduation. We framed it as “transition to the future” rather than “celebration of the past”. The entire thing was about what was next. Viewing it through that lens makes it just a little bit easier.

Best of luck on this amazing transition for your child!

High school has been good for my middle child but elementary and middle school were traumatic. It pretty much took all of high school to heal. Some time in a positive, safe, confidence building place makes a world of difference. Hopefully, college can be that for your kid. At this point, celebrate that compulsory schooling is done. Everything done from now on is a CHOICE!

HS graduation is an accomplishment, especially under trying circumstances. With the very limited information you’ve provided, I’d recommend that you have a family celebration and focus attention on the exciting new chapter that (hopefully) lies ahead.

Stop thinking of it as “graduation” and start to think and speak of it as “Commencement.” It’s time to commence, to begin life on your own terms.

Up until now, your child has attended the school that he or she was placed into because of your address. For the most part your child took the classes he/she was told to take, ate when lunch was scheduled, and sat in the assigned seat next to the other kids who were also placed in that class.

No more. From this point on, it’s about choices… choice of major, of college, of state and city, of who to be with and who to choose not to be with. Even attendance at the school’s graduation ceremony is a choice-- you certainly could choose to be on vacation or hosting a party that day, celebrating with the people your child does cherish.

Congratulations to you and to your child!!!

My third son opted not to attend graduation or prom. His only friend in his year (he has plenty of friends in the 1 and 2 classes before and the class following) also opted not to attend prom and we celebrated with his family and the rest of the boys’ friends who couldn’t have gone to prom with them. The friend wanted to skip graduation also but went because his grandparents had come from OOS to see it. That was 4 years ago. My son hasn’t interacted with a single kid from his HS graduating class, other than this one friend, since then. It didn’t bother me that he chose not to go.

If your child doesn’t want to attend graduation, they shouldn’t have to. I didn’t go to my college graduation because my college experience was horrible and I still have a diploma (which I never picked up).

Plan something special. Go out to a favorite restaurant during the time that graduation is going on, go away overnight or something. I actually just went to work the day my son was supposed to graduate and he slept in.

In my opinion, people who hated high school have MORE to celebrate at graduation than those who loved it. For those who really enjoyed high school, graduation is a bittersweet event because it means that those times are over. For those who disliked it, graduation means “good riddance” to an experience they’re glad to be done with. There are no mixed feelings. It’s pure celebration.

It’s also OK to skip graduation if that’s what the student prefers.

First of all, hugs to you and your child. It’s unfortunate and there are so many ways in which HS can be a terrible experience. Thankfully it ends.

One of my kids had a less than optimal HS experience but was ok about it. Attended all of the major events because it was an opportunity to celebrate with friends( who were terrific). The other had a lousy middle school experience and chose to skip graduation as well as the final band concert. At that point we all just wanted it to end.

Let your child take the lead in attending/ participating or skipping the events.

It gets better.

One of my friends spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about how her son was doing socially in HS. I told her that the person who peaks in HS has nothing to look forward to. Her son just finished his first year of college - he did great academically and he has lots of friends in his major, where he can finally be with the people who share his interests. In HS, music (his major) is pretty much an elective and an EC, whereas now it’s his life and he’s with people who are of the same mindset. I truly believe that peaking in HS is not the desired thing, not when people routinely live for 60 or more years beyond that.

HS is four years. Put it in the rear view mirror. My college experience stank. It’s over but it got me into law school and on with the rest of my life, which hasn’t stunk as badly.

If you think of HS as way station, it’s easier to deal with, I think.

Good post, @techmom99. I was one of those kids who didn’t do well socially in HS. I LOVED college, though. And at my 30th high school reunion, you could really tell the kids who peaked in HS and never went much farther. I thought it was telling that one of the women used a photo of herself in her cheerleading uniform as her Facebook profile photo. And not just a “temporary” one. The other surprising thing was that several of the people who teased me mercilessly in HS made a special effort to come up to me and tell me how much they had admired me back then. ???

It’s rough when HS is bad because it’s such a tricky 4 years of growth. It’s hard even when it’s good.

But life will be filled with good and bad years, good and bad jobs, good and bad health, good and bad relationships. If your child can figure out what he/she learned, that he/she has the strength to endure even a terrible situation, and that all things (including awful ones) come to an end, all is not lost!

I would celebrate the end of this lousy experience and the beginning of a new one. With that said, I would be careful not to build up the next phase too much. You don’t want a decent experience to feel bad because it didn’t meet up to a ridiculously high expectation. And if you feel there is anything your child can do to make the next phase better, talk about it without suggesting that he/she is at fault.

Congratulations on commencement!

@2wuhanmom I’m sorry your child had a rough go of it. I would look at commencement as the finish line to a long, weary race. It will soon be over and your child will be on to bigger and better things. And, if kids were unkind or things were unfair, emphasize forgiving and moving on (as hard as it may be). Harboring bad feelings winds up snowballing into the next phase of life and I don’t think anyone wants that.

@techmom99 High school is a stepping stone, just like every other stepping stone in life. Some stepping stones provide wonderful memories, some not so many. But your comment suggests if you have a relatively happy high school experience then you have somehow peaked. That just isn’t true for a lot of kids.

Yes. I didn’t care much for high school and neither did my oldest. We both laugh because if you look at our yearbooks you’d think we both had a great time. We both hid our dissatisfaction deep. A few years of emotional distance blurs all those negative feelings.