The outsize influence of middle-school friends

My memories of childhood friends are utterly bittersweet. When I was ~9, I fell in with a group that played with WWII munitions that we found in the woods. A few years later, two of my younger friends were seriously injured. I was never overtly blamed, but I felt guilty.<p>And then, about a decade later, now in the US, I fell in with hippies, and got into dealing LSD. But then a couple friends got busted. So I dealt drugs to pay for their defense.<p>My point, I guess, is that I never really learned how to actually maintain friendships. I am capable of making friends, and doing what friends do for friends. But it always feels like I&#x27;m playing a role. Maybe that&#x27;s why I&#x27;ve become an anonymous coward.

Tangentially related to this article, but moving&#x2F;uprooting children can have fairly large negative consequences that affect them the rest of their lives.<p>Here&#x27;s one article [1] that found:<p>&quot;Elevated risks were observed for all examined outcomes, with excess risk seen among those exposed to multiple versus single relocations in a year. Risks grew incrementally with increasing age of exposure to mobility&quot;<p>Examined outcomes consisted of &quot;attempted suicide, violent criminality, psychiatric illness, substance misuse, and natural and unnatural deaths.&quot;<p>There are many more studies if you search for them that show a range of affects including worse academic performance and one I found that included a higher rate of hospitalization in kids who moved (although the cause was unclear).<p>It&#x27;s a traumatic event.<p>[1] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ajpmonline.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;S0749-3797(16)30118-0&#x2F;pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ajpmonline.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;S0749-3797(16)30118-0&#x2F;pdf</a><p>[2] - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;theconversation.com&#x2F;moving-home-can-affect-your-childrens-health-and-education-62738" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;theconversation.com&#x2F;moving-home-can-affect-your-child...</a>

So by Middle School, your social persona has ripened and you spend more effort on socializing than non-social play. And because of the bias we give first impressions, we form the strongest opinion of how we fit in socially during Middle School.<p>Makes sense from personal experience. I went into Middle School with some asocial traits, which ultimately lead to very painful ‘friend’ betrayals... and the next 40 years I spent minimizing the importance of friends.

&quot;But there is also a dark side to the social world of middle school, as anyone who has been through it will remember. Sixth graders who do not have friends are at risk of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. About 12 percent of the 6,000 sixth graders in Juvonen’s study were not named as a friend by anyone else. They had no one to sit with at lunch and no one to stick up for them when bullied.&quot;<p>Very relate-able, unfortunately. In many ways, it set the tone for my life.

My middle school years were pretty miserable due to family drama stuff. I&#x27;m only in touch with two friends from that era (via FB). I contrast this to my kids, who went to a really great charter school from grades 7-12. Their core social groups are still made of their junior high and high school friends - my daughter (age 25) was just an attendant for one of those friends&#x27; weddings, and another one of their jr high friends was also an attendant. For someone in their mid-20s to have a whole social network of friends they&#x27;ve known half their life amazes me.

My son who is on the autism spectrum always had difficulties making friends at school. Because, of sustained bullying in 6th grade we have kept him home and started home schooling. He loves the flexibility to learn anything he wants, and the lack of social anxiety. BUT, off late he has started interacting more with our neighborhood kids more and he is really starting to enjoy their company.They do a lot of outdoors things and they actually make things. SO, it does seem like kids(esp boys) tend to make more meaningful relationships right around middle school some of which tend to last a long time at least until they go separate ways after high-school. Just my own experience with my son.

&quot;I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12 - Jesus, did you?&quot; --Stephen King in his short-story &quot;The Body&quot; (which became _Stand by Me_ the movie.)<p>Totally relate to that.

&gt; “Middle school is about lunch.”<p>I never really thought about it, but 30 years out, pretty much the only memories I have from middle school are lunch time. I remember a few other things, but at least 90% of what I remember from middle school happened at lunch.

Telling your child &quot;you&#x27;ll make new friends&quot; seems to be about the least helpful and least sensitive thing you could say. As though friendships were some fungible substance of social interaction, none of any more value or special quality than another.<p>Though I do wonder if the trauma of severed relationships is helped these days by social media, cell phones, video chat, etc. When I was growing up, even long distance phone calls were too much money for regular use to stay in touch. Moving away, or having a friend move away, was for all practical purposes similar to losing a friend to death. There was a very good chance you&#x27;d never see them again.

Happened to me. My best friend went to the private school and I had to go to public school. It definitely impacted my grades. I had asked my parents to send me to the private school too but it wasn&#x27;t in the cards. And by best friend I mean someone who was a peer with similar work ethic and intelligence so we learnt from each other. That was traumatic. I had made that friend after moving to a different state in the 5th grade. I remember leaving my friends as being somewhat traumatic but not as traumatic as the different high school thing. I sort of owe my career to him and his family since they were software entrepreneurs in the 90s.

Lunch in middle school was absolutely the worst part of my life ... reading this article, I&#x27;m amazed that I didn&#x27;t grow up to be a serial-killer. My family also relocated for my eighth-grade year and, returning in ninth grade was especially horrible. I like like the tag-line of the Mortified podcast - &quot;We are freaks, we are fragile ... and we all survived&quot;. Now I&#x27;m wondering how many of my misfit acquaintances didn&#x27;t actually survive.

“Friendships take place in this larger context where there’s a status hierarchy,” she told me. “Kids know very well which kinds of kids are friends with one another and where they stand in that overall status hierarchy.”<p>Huh. I never knew such a thing existed.

So I only moved twice during the school years. This is a lot less than some but I really think it did me no favors at all.<p>The first was at the end of the third grade. Company town shutting down. There wasn’t much choice here.<p>I moved to a bigger but still small town and even though I moved between school years I still found pre-existing and entrenched friendships. Like many commenting here in never has the greatest social skills to begin with and I don’t think I ever really fit in.<p>Moved again after grade 7 (At the time years 8 was the first year of high school). It was a horrible place and I deeply regret efforts by my parents to send me to boarding school.<p>But I fell in with people who themselves were outcasts and I learned the lesson that even outcasts can climb a rung or two by throwing other outcasts under the bus.<p>After a year of that I actually visited my old town and friends but there just wasn’t much attachment there and I realized just hope much had changed in a year of separation such that I never visited them again. I don’t hear them Ill will, to be clear. We had just diverged.<p>I don’t miss anything snotty high school. I don’t miss anyone from high school. There were some nice people but none I was close friends with. My own limitations played a part in that but it is what it is.<p>There was one more move in high school but it didn’t result in a change in high school. It did however lead to a loss of independence and power. Previously I rode my bike to school. After the move I had no choice but to take the school bus (more opportunities to be bullied) and the way this worked was I arrived at school 40 minutes before it started and had to stay 40 minutes after it finished.<p>Compounding to that the friends I did have just didn’t live near the new house and I lost the ability to visit them without being driven.<p>I think I hated that more than any of the moves.<p>A lot of people who go to college (as I did) get their lifelong circles of friends from college instead. I don’t think I ever learned how to do this so kind of missed out on this too.<p>I don’t know how much of this I can blame on moves. Luck on who else is in your peer group must play a huge factor. All I know is it didn’t help, I didn’t enjoy it and there are literally zero people I have any contact with from the school years.

I wonder if theres a link to the result of studies on children that are forced to move around:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;us-health-kids-moving&#x2F;moving-during-childhood-linked-to-poor-mental-health-idUSKCN0SV2JT20151106" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;us-health-kids-moving&#x2F;moving...</a><p>On the radio I heard the result of a Danish study mirroring this result.

My middle school years consisted of being bullied: verbally and physically abused.<p>I’ve been grinding my teeth since the first physical violence incident at age 11 that involved numerous full blast blows to my head. My response meanwhile was regretful bullying of a few other kids in response. The cap to this was additional physical violence against me before entering high school, in the presence of law enforcement who stood aside and allowed the punishment to be inflicted, likely due to the perception of me having been a scumbag to a popular kid in sixth grade, and&#x2F;or an old school non-interventionist attitude.<p>By the end of middle school, the lifetime of suicidal ideation was cemented. The end result was extreme social immaturity entering high school and a downward spiral of an unwanted life drifting towards destitution and homelessness at middle age. My neighborhood peers were religious tribalists who looked down upon me and essentially formed my perceptions of the world as a religious outsider threatened by promises of eternal torture for non compliance. I dream of suicide around the clock and remain afraid of death and have zero desire for anything but preparing for death.<p>Needless to say, I don’t find this species to be very pleasant or deserving of my time or participation and certainly not of any offspring. This, of course, is sugar coating the reality: I think this species is total rubbish, and regardless of how many nice people exist, there’s been a never ending string of low quality people that I’ve encountered over the past 30 years, myself included. I remain fearful of facing the unknown of death despite decades dreaming of dying. Zero desire for help of any kind; I inherited a fortune and gave it away. I pray for forgiveness and mercy in the afterlife and remain eternally fearful, having been indoctrinated by peers with promises of eternal torture as a consequence for failure to engage in a particular belief system (coupled with the tribal violence by participants of said religion).<p>Fuck this species. Sorry: the solution is for me to die and wash away my broken brain. Some people simply don’t want to be helped. The natural laws of evolution are met with my lack of procreation and my suicide washes away my broken experience so others can have a better chance. Accordingly I’ve given away my inheritance and gone homeless in preparation. So thankful it’s almost over and infinitely scared nonetheless. At some point soon I’ll simply ask God or the universe to forgive me for failing to be “strong enough” to “overcome” my little not particularly uncommon tragedy. Sorry.