<p>OP, sorry about your daughter’s experience.</p>
<p>In our high school, small groups of kids have joined together for particular activities: ie collecting warm clothes/collecting prom dresses for those who cannot afford them. There is probably a community organization that can help with the distribution of these items. One could approach the activities department of your school, to get some kind of sanction for these activities. This would be great for your daughter on many levels. She’d gain the satisfaction of helping others, probably receive some positive publicity, gain some organizing skills, have a resume builder for college apps etc. (sorry if this was suggested in earlier comments, I wasn’t able to read them all.)</p>
<p>Despite my lack of sympathy on the editing issue, I am sympathetic to your D regarding her friends getting into performing groups and her bonds with them lessening. Auditions are tough, no matter what one’s age. It takes guts to put oneself out there. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, it is important to keep things in perspective. Every election has winners and losers. She was not the only one. At most auditions, most of those who try are not selected, for one reason or another. If the school is putting on The Diary of Anne Frank, the 5’10" Nordic goddess is unlikely to get a part, even if she is a really good actress. If the madrigal group is designed to have 4 people on each part and the director is hard put to find 4 tenors who can sing in tune, s/he might be able to squeeze in one or two extra altos, but number 7 is out of luck. Number 7 did not “fail” the audition and might well be a better singer than any of the tenors. </p>
<p>There are ways to be part of these groups without being on stage. Theater has zillions of jobs. Drama club kids don’t always get a role in every production, but they are likely to be working on the production in some way when they don’t. I was involved in theater in HS. I remember trying out for things where I was congratulated on having a great audition, and then I didn’t get that part, or ANY part. Why? Probably because the director has a different look in mind, or didn’t think my stage presence fit in with the key ensemble members. I think that finding it hard to go to school the next day is a bit of an extreme reaction.</p>
<p>Your D needs to look at activities where everyone gets to participate, like track. If she tries the newspaper/year book again, she needs to be realistic about the process. Since she hasn’t been in the trenches for the last two years, she is unlikely to get a plum role. Sticking with it despite that can be a learning experience.</p>
<p>HS is tough for most kids at ALL schools. Adolescents are often hyper-sensitive, unsure of themselves, wont to compare themselves to others, as we all know. It sounds as if your D unfortunately defines success as fitting in with the competitive kids and winning competitive elections and auditions. If that’s what she wants, I guess she is going to have to continue to take her lumps. But there are plenty of other activities in and out of school to which she could turn her attention.</p>
<p>I agree about participating in cross country and track. My son loved soccer, but during his seventh grade year, he repeatedly got told by some of his teammates that he had no talent and was a liability to their success. Frustrated, he turned to track and field. Found his true love was distance running, and he got to regionals as a freshman. (BTW, those same soccer teammates, they were eliminated from district play in the opening round of the tournament.)</p>
<p>This year, my son transferred to a larger high school, but because of state athletic rules, he is ineligible to compete (thank goodness, just for the one year). Still, he has learned that he had to become involved in other things. He took a business class and joined DECA. He earned spots in the National Honors Society and Spanish Honor Society, and has already volunteered at the blood drive. He helped the swim team by timing meets or doing stats for the cross country team. If your daughter still loves soccer, encourage her to coach a group of youngsters or earn certification to work as a referee. That’s my son’s passion. He still is around soccer but now he is paid to referee games. He plans to keep his certification updated so he can someday referee intramurals in college. Some people have suggested that this has been a lost year for my son. No, it’s been a learning year.</p>
<p>Perhaps nothing new to add, though I am sympathetic to your daughter’s situation. We have a similar high school in our area (not where my children go), which is reputed to have the “best” programs. However, it is twice as big as any other public high school in our area so that, unless you are the top in whatever activity you choose – sports, music, theater, etc – you will not be able to participate. The result is a huge school where kids are defined by their clique – the stoners, the goths, etc. My boys go to a different public high school where there is more movement among groups, one reason my senior has enjoyed it. </p>
<p>I would echo the comments: (1) continue to look outside of school to find outlets for her interests and talents, such as community theater, community singing groups and (2) encourage her to try again within the school because 9th and 10th graders are often not going to get into activities (though it is hard when friends are getting into music etc and she hasn’t).</p>
<p>Good luck, this is such a hard time for kids.</p>
<p>One piece of advice that I give my daughter all the time… you don’t need or want to PEAK in high school… you’re just getting warmed up for what is to come! And then I tell her funny stories about my experience in high school and show her my yearbook pictures of the kids who “peaked”, just to give her examples. What happened to the homecoming queen? the captain of the football team, the class president? What about the kid who no one remembers, but showed up to the 20 year reunion with the most success? I also tell her that I don’t remember who (or what group) I ate lunch with! I am also certain that it is so much harder for them now with FB and your “friends” laying it all out there for everyone to see! </p>
<p>Try to remember that she is learning bigger life lessons in high school when she doesn’t have the lead role or top position (and she has your shoulder to lean on when she comes home)… some of these kids won’t experience that until later in life and it will be hard for them to overcome.</p>
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<p>Has she ever considered doing tech for a musical or play??? That’s the kind of thing that kids at my high school did when they were artsy but did not want to be on stage. Tech kids form a really unique and fun group.</p>
<p>People have mentioned the possibility of moving. It’s important for parents to try to maintain an adult perspective over adolescent problems, even as we sympathize with the kid’s feelings. She will finish HS in two years, whether it goes well or badly. For a lot of kids, the main focus of 12th grade is the impending graduation, especially in the second half of the year. If you sell your house and buy another, the transaction might cost you as much as two years of college, depending on the particulars. You have real estate commission (or sell it yourself, and wonder if you got the best price), a new mortgage if you need one, maybe capital gains taxes, transaction-related taxes, and all the personalization that goes into any newly purchased home before you’re comfortable with it (removing the ugly wallpaper in the bathroom, the new dishwasher, etc.) Not many families can willingly absorb a financial blow like that, on the eve of a younger child starting college.</p>
<p>An 11th grade transfer student will confront her own set of social and organizational challenges at a new HS. She might be even more unhappy when she finds out what the new school entails. When you think about that, the prospect of her pulling together a small group of kids to do craft projects with the residents at a nursing home, or volunteering at the local hospital, or getting a minimum wage job with a local florist, or “interning” for free with a local wedding consultant, etc., etc. might be equally effective, and more practical for the whole family. If she has the option of doing some 12th grade coursework at the local community college, that might broaden her horizons a little sooner, and alleviate some of the feeling of not fitting in the way she may have wanted to at HS.</p>
<p>You mentioned that you are not religiously affiliated. You may have strongly-felt reasons for that; you may not. If you don’t feel strongly against it, you and she may wish to explore it at this time. A group of friends from youth group has offered many teens a haven from the social pecking order at HS. It can be nice when the kids from a house of worship are drawn from other local HSs, so it’s not the same exact HS social order reappearing at the place of worship. Many congregations welcome the teens’ involvement as readers, or for holiday decorating, mission trips to help with Habitat for Humanity, etc., and it can be fun.</p>
<p>It is painful to watch kids encounter adversity. But a big part of the transition from childhood to adulthood is the development of that longer perspective on present-day frustrations or disappointments. At least your daughter has the benefit of a mother who is watching the situation and really thinking about how to help.</p>
<p>I think the OP has gotten a lot of good suggestions here. One thing I would like to add from my own experience is that if yearbook or newspaper are things that your D is interested in, she should go back next year, and look for opportunities to assist that are not so coveted - maybe photography, cartooning, lonely hearts column/gossip column (if they are permitted), business manager/treasurer (sometimes not so coveted). In retrospect, I regret not participating in some way in the college newspaper at my college. I went to the first meeting, and everyone seemed so cocky that I never went back. From this vantage point I know I could have found some job there if I had continued to show interest, and that they were a pretty good group all in all. Sometimes you have to invent a position for yourself. In high school, most clubs (if not all) have a faculty advisor). Can’t OP’s D talk to the advisor of something she really would like to do and find a job on the club, production, team etc. One girl who was not good enough to be on the team was a score keeper for a team that I know of for my D’s school. In my own HS days, one of my friends (who was a girl) was a scorekeeper for one of the boy’s teams - a great idea in my opinion.</p>
<p>To Fieldsports, re moving: I totally agree with you, and would not dream of upending our lives and selling our home to move to a different town, although I know a family doing just that (due to unhappy kids). There is absolutely no guarantee that things would be better, and it is simply far too big a risk (financial and otherwise) to take. Private school is not an option due to cost, although we know kids who have tranferred to private school for just junior and senior year and done very well. </p>
<p>“Getting through” these next two years seems to be the only option that makes sense, and she will get through. I just want her to survive with some degree of self esteem still intact. I know that adversity such as this is part of the transition to adulthood and actually, one of my older kids, who had no such adversity in high school, has commented that it was actually harder to learn some of this as an older student, who had never faced rejection earlier. </p>
<p>There are a lot of options mentioned on the thread that I hadn’t considered (including interning, scorekeeping, etc). If there are other ideas, please keep them coming! Thanks!</p>
<p>Another idea for an artsy kid–decorating committee for school dances. Our HS has Homecoming, Winter, and spring (Prom) dances, and they are always looking for help!</p>
<p>I kind of skipped through this thread, so forgive me if this is a repeat. Destination Imagination is a great program. A team of up to seven kids selects and solves a problem over several months and then presents the solution in a competition in the spring. My daughter never fit in and always struggled. DI gave her a nice outlet. The kids do everything: come up with a solution, write a skit, make the set and costumes. It is a wonderful team building opportunity.</p>
<p>The problems specialize in different areas too: improv, theater, engineering, and two focus on science. We had independent teams for my daughter’s last two years of competition because we had kids from multiple schools.</p>
<p>Girls Lacrosse!!! Not sure what part of the country you are in, but in my neck of the woods, we don’t turn anyone away and LOVE to steal soccer players because of their speed!!!</p>
<p>I am really sympathetic to your D and particularly to you because it always hurts the mom more. But I would gently suggest that you really consider in as objective a way as possible what activities your daughter should consider. She was wrong in her perception of the school newspaper, completely wrong, and if she had gone in there humble and prepared to pay her dues and be the low woman on the totem pole, she would be an experienced upperclasswoman this fall. She didn’t pay those dues. You say she’s a good singer and dancer. I’m sure she is, but where does she really place in the school. Are there a lot of competitive dancers and singers who have real training and experience? In schools with excellent arts programs, there are fewer places for walk-ons. </p>
<p>My daughter was interested in drama in high school, but a lot of her classmates came from a prestigious magnet middle school that worked with artists from the top level of the NYC arts community. She didn’t go there and knew that she couldn’t compete with them. She picked moot court and mock trial instead. Paid her dues early on, learned what she could by doing the grunt work and keeping her mouth shut, and became captain in senior year.</p>
<p>We have a friend whose son is interested in music. He didn’t receive admission into an activity that my son and another friend did. She was incensed and the son was very upset and hurt to be left out. I gently explained that the two boys accepted have been playing instruments for almost 7 years (they are 13) with top teachers, participate in community orchestra and practice in the range of 1 1/2 hours a day. Her son plays last seat of an instrument in the school band and doesn’t put the work in. </p>
<p>Realistic assessment is a good thing.</p>
<p>I’m going to go in a different direction with this. I’d suggest getting your daughter some support or counseling. I hope you don’t consider this labeling, but you have a younger child who seems to quit easily and get frustrated in situations repeatedly, rather than just making the best of each opportunity and situation and being patient. Patience and learning from each experience is critical to life happiness. Perhaps a counselor could help her do some self reflection and realize that external experiences can never make her really happy. High school can be horrible for some, but for your D she seems to have friends, etc. so it doesn’t sound like unusual things are happening. She’s just not succeeding AS A FRESHMAN like she hoped. Very few freshman will excel in a big HS. My D is graduating from HS this year (small magnet school), and she loves technical theater. She didn’t really get a chance to DO things (run the lights, for example) until this year because the technical theater crew wasn’t that inclusive, she had a busy schedule, and she was a little shy. She kept taking the relevant classes for four years - and waited patiently until the combination of her increased confidence and the school’s needs made her a star this year. There is a world of difference between a senior who has worked her way up and a freshman… and I’m proud of my D for her patience and perseverance which have really paid off. In earlier years she concentrated on being a good friend to a few friends, and did her out of school dance and other things – including lots of studying to be a top student. However, if she had been unhappy and very frustrated and sad, I would have gotten her some counseling because the mood and helpless response would have been much more of a problem than the situations that were frustrating to her. And on a related topic, as a parent we have to be careful not to project our own goals onto our kids and to keep a boundary between our own disappointments for them, and how they are really feeling. Our job is help build them up and be understanding.</p>
<p>“She tried to write for the school paper, but her articles were eclipsed by the senior writers who either “rewrote” what she wrote (and she’s a good writer!), or didn’t include her piece. The same thing happened with the yearbook in freshman year. She’d work on a page and the seniors would “fix it”, ignoring hours of work. It didn’t feel inclusive, as most of the activities at our high school don’t.”</p>
<p>OP- I wonder if something else is going on? Is your D easily frustrated? That is the way high school newspapers work. D wrote for the newspaper as a freshman and was frustrate that her articles were rewritten. But that is what the editors do. D has put in her time over the three years and next year will have the pleasure as the editor of redpenning the freshmen articles.</p>
<p>Delta66,</p>
<p>I haven’t read the whole thread but wanted to reply because of the latter part of your OP when you say that she weathers the disappointment but it wears on her and the whole family and the part of moving not being an option. </p>
<p>If I were you I’d tell my daughter I love her 100% either way. She doesn’t have to fit in. She doesn’t have to win awards. She doesn’t have to win auditions. I’d tell her to be happy about who and what she is. The idea that you even considered moving because of the problems you described seems an over reach to me like killing a fly with a bazooka. In my experience, people that are happy don’t need external validation to be happy. They are happy because they see the good and beauty in everyday life. External validation is nice but even without it you need to find beauty in who and what you are regardless of what the rest of the world thinks. </p>
<p>Think about it this way. </p>
<p>Millions of people want to be famous. They want to be well known. And then after they get famous they coem crashing down, in some cases. Why? Is it because they don’t have any real foundation for happiness other than seeking other people’s approval? Just a theory. Tell your D to be who she is and be happy with who she is and stop looking to others for affirmation or approval. She’ll be happy in the long run. </p>
<p>By the way, I also think this is why so many people post stupid things on Facebook. I think it is because they think it is so important to let others know how much fun they are having. It is a way to get approval, IMHO. Incidently, I am sitting down right now. My shirt is white. I am considering tuna for lunch but might, at the last second, go with soup. I thought you might want to know all that to show you how great my life is.</p>
<p>Another vote for XC. It is a self-selecting group of internally motivated kids who are 100% supportive of each other, with 100% supportive coaching. Unlike swimming, you can carry on a conversation during much of the training. Only do track if she will hang out with the distance kids or the jumpers. Weights and sprints tend to be populated by football boys and soccer girls who seem to have a rigid social agenda.</p>
<p>My sophomore daughter is a club soccer player and a good one, but switched to XC even though she is a powerfully built sprinter who will never make the A races. She played soccer as a freshman, but most HS team sports have a mix of kids and lots of cliquishness and internal sniping. My senior son wishes he could go to HS again just to get another season of XC.</p>
<p>EDIT: I left the typos and bad sentences in - pretty much any written piece can use some improving.</p>
<p>As for the student newspaper, I did it in HS, was an editor my senior year, annd found my compatible social group. We were a bunch of intellectually snobby social misfits who managed to find comraderie in our shared HS misery. Some have moved on to great things but being on the newspaper did not make the time more bearable.</p>
<p>Does the school have an ultimate frisbee club? It has sporty kids who have a good time together without the cutthroat competition of varsity sports. It is co-ed so they are always looking for girls. They hang out as much as they play. If they don’t have one, she should start one. It will quickly become one of her favorite things, guaranteed.</p>
<p>Don’t know how many times my daughter did a story, spent hours on it and it never made it onto the air. My other daughter with year book was like, egad, did all that work and they changed the font so all had to be reformatted. </p>
<p>That’s life. In those fields you need a bit of a thick skin. And learning tom play the game is a great skill…</p>
<p>If she really is a good writer, another option is your local newspaper. They hire freelance writers to cover and write high school sports stories. </p>
<p>There are often local websites, where kids can blog or contribute content - most at no pay - but they are there. The sites are looking for regular contributors and content. </p>
<p>She can also just start her own blog and write …</p>
<p>I went to a small exclusive and very cliquish high school where I did not fit in at all. Since I have never been a very social person I would have loved to just have been ignored by everyone in high school instead of having to spend every day worrying about what cruelty my classmates were going to inflict on me next. College was incredibly liberating for me and at first I could not believe I was finally in a place where people believed in live and let live.</p>