What grades in school were the hardest socially?

Post Reply New Topic

Upper high school was easiest for me because, by then, kids were more mature and they didn't get on my nerves as much.

For me it was definitely middle school. Kids were more immature and mean back then. I also didn't really care about how I looked and I didn't wear makeup or style my hair a particular way so I got made fun of a little bit. I was also very shy and basically a loner. I had a meltdown where I didn't go to school for two weeks and I had to go back to my psychiatrist. It was also hard because we moved when I was in grade 7 from a bit city school to a small town middle school. My first school was way more accomodating for me than my new school. I'd say the ultimate worst grade for me was when I first started getting used to grade 7 in my city school because I had a nervous breakdown and I had to be home schooled for two months and then I finally went back to school but I got put back a grade and had special accomodations made for me after that. In my smaller country school, moving in grade 7 was really hard to get used to but grade 8 was bad because I had no friends in my class and I always sat alone. I also got made fun of a lot.

My best grades in school were probably grades 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 12. Even these weren't perfect though. Saying that though, I also had some good moments in my worst grades as well.

In total I went to 5 different schools before college.
#1-Kindergarten-Grade 1
#2-Grade 2-Grade 7
#3-Grade 7-Grade 8 (worst school)
#4-Grade 9-Grade 11
#5-Grade 12 (best school)

Last edited by lostgirl1986 on 23 Apr 2012, 6:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.

7th grade to 10th grade, from age 12 to 16.

It seemed like in middle school kids were really super mean. Maybe they were stressed out from having to change classes all the time but they were very difficult to get along with at that point.

Grade 9 was the hardest grade for me. My peers tried to get me into the latest fashions, trends, hair and music. They've disowned me after I've made it clear that I wasn't interested. I turned to the 60s, and the rest is history.

Age 13, because I actually got to know LOTS of people, who remembered me but I didn't remember them. Shittiest feeling ever.

That's absolutely true, but people were also more willing to engage me without me having to initiate it. I was offered to meet up with one guy out of school. I declined. A couple girls "asked me out". I declined. People tried to be friends with me. I tried, too, but I sucked at it. I was terribly nervous.

I have a relative with Aspergers who will be going into high school soon. He's been tolerating middle school fairly well. What advice would you give him to help him with the transition?

5th though 7th grade was pretty rough for me, 8th grade was slightly better.

In High School I didn't really talk to anyone unless it was necessary which made life easier.

But still, even in HS, AS screwed me over many times.

For me it was kindergarten and first grade. I was completely disoriented. I "failed" my first try at kindergarten, when we lived in a state where it wasn't mandatory before I was 5. My mom tried to take me (I wasn't quite 5 yet) and I threw a fit. It was so confusing, because I don't recall ever having a meltdown before that day, so it was traumatic to realize I was having that reaction, even while I had it. My mom was in total shock. I think she assumed it was separation anxiety. But I'm sure it wasn't. She worked and I'd stayed with babysitters I didn't know before. I'm sure now it was the number of children, the strange environment, the monumental nature of the change.

We didn't try again until we lived in another state and I was 5, and legally had to go. This was a few months, because in the meantime we lived for a while in a state that had no kindergarten at all.

The second time it was still difficult, but there was no meltdown this time. I'd had a few months to think about it, to realize school was inevitable and I'd better get used to the idea. But socially it was still so hard - to learn just simple things like standing in line to wait my turn. I understood that concept already, but the experience of having to realize on my own what the appropriate behavior was, that was new to me. Again, it was disorienting. And socially I was so inept with kids who were strange to me. I hated recess for years.

I didn't begin to adjust to the school environment - the structure but not really the social aspects - until well into the first grade. That was when I started to realize that some of the school work was really fun, and I was good at it. The social aspect never really got fun for me, but the school work did.

My second worst year of school was 6th (at 10 years of age), because we moved again, and the kids in the new school were so different, and saw me as so different. At my prior school, intelligence had been valued by all the kids, and athletics were sort of undervalued. In the new school, if you were smart you were outcast, and if you couldn't play sports there was something seriously wrong with you. I did get bullied there, and felt like an outcast in all new ways.

The third worse time was when I realized I was supposed to start liking boys in a new and different way. I was already having trouble making friends with other girls and with feeling like an alien, and having to change clothes in front of others in gym, so this was like adding a new form of torture to the old one.

I don't think I really began to feel socially adjusted until college, and then I finally got a little "boy crazy" and that was hugely distracting. So much so that I couldn't pay attention to school, what teachers wanted, making friends, having a part time job AND stressing over liking a boy. I also couldn't decide on a major. It was all too much. I dropped out.

All in all I think it's pretty amazing that I had any success in the workplace, and I credit that mostly with finding a fairly introverted form of work, where I could work at my speed and not need to do group tasks. I learned to be patient with myself - all this time still not knowing why I was so different socially. When I learned what it meant to be introverted, that helped to a great degree. It wasn't until after I retired - in recent years - that I learned what Asperger's is and had this great big AHA moment.

So that's what was going on all those years.... Geez, could someone not have explained to me? But they couldn't, apparently, since there was no one who knew what it was in 1961 or so, when I first tried to go to kindergarten. Even by the time I dropped out of college there wasn't a formal description.

Last edited by SpiritBlooms on 23 Apr 2012, 8:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.

In 6th grade I lost almost all of my friends, and stopped seeing people outside of school. I started going online at this time, and the friends that I made on there helped me through middle school and high school. Middle school was not fun, even though I didn't get directly bullied so much. People talked about me and thought I was weird and it prevented me from having many friends apart from my neighbor who was a couple years younger than I was. The first two years of high school were just as bad, maybe even worse, because I didn't know anyone and the only friend I made that I saw outside of school was a bad influence and we eventually stopped talking. Luckily I had a few people to talk to because we were in the concert/jazz/pep band together. I started trying to fit in when I was a junior, which was exhausting, but it still wasn't as bad as it had been. People realized I was a good musician so half of my class thought I was cool, even though I didn't really make any close friends, so the last two years weren't as bad. I still didn't fit in. I didn't go to junior or senior prom, or any other dances... except for my junior year homecoming dance that my friend somehow convinced me to go to... bleh.

So I'd say 6th through 10th were the worst for me, which was ages 11-16.

11-13, I was completely socially clueless, but not completely socially oblivious, so social interaction was baaaaaaad.
Younger, I was completely socially oblivious, so no social interaction was goooooood.
Older, I was not completely socially clueless, so social interaction was so-so-so-so-so-so-so.

Poll = Non-Verbal Cue

For me it was definitely middle school. That was the stage where it was no longer considered "cool" to "be a kid", which put me at a huge social disadvantage because of my delayed emotional maturity because I was still into "kid" stuff in 6th grade. Everyone was now emulating the teenage stuff, especially the girls. I remember being picked on quite a bit during that time, mostly in 6th grade but it ended up tapering off in 7th and 8th. (I was really well liked in 8th because of my drawing ability).

6th grade was quite awful for me in many aspects now that I really think about it.

For me it also seemed like middle school was when a lot of kids started "going bad" (in my opinion). Smoking, drugs, drinking, sexual stuff, rebelling, etc. I never thought kids should have been doing any of those things at that age.

Oh middle school was the worst! Probably partially because my middle school wasn't exactly the best, lots of drugs and about 20% of my class had a criminal record lol. High school wasn't nearly so bad, sure it had all the typical high school stuff going on but I found in general people were more accepting and respectful.

i remember high school being confused the only lesson i was good at in high school was art

For me, all the grades up to 10th were rather bad. In 10th grade, a band of us social outcasts formed our own "in group" for mutual support and defense. We also helped each other study O:-)

I always did ok within the neighborhood -- once people get to know me, they usually like me. The problems were always at school and on the bus