New Kid in School Podcast
When Kyle C. moved from Singapore to St. Louis the summer before his junior year, he was not looking forward to it. “I had a ‘get-in-and-get-out’ mentality.” After he was cut from the baseball team, he just tuned out to the school. He recalls that after that experience, he didn’t want to make any friends. To this day, Kyle remembers his former high school only as time spent waiting to go to college.
Stephanie Z., the child of a military family who transferred from Wisconsin to Virginia, was in the exact opposite situation. “I had to stop thinking that I was walking around with a sign on my head that said, ‘I am the new kid not worth getting to know.’” When she decided she was a valuable asset to her new school, she was taken under the wing of a fantastic art teacher and made a name for herself with her creative talents.
Teens Just Want to Fit In
On average, Americans move every five years, which means that each year, 40 million Americans are on the move. Adolescence can be hard enough for teens exploring their own identities, values, hopes and dreams, but throwing a family move into the mix can be overwhelming. Tom Monturi, a Social Studies teacher at New Jersey’s Dumont High School, believes that “the greatest challenge for a teen in a new school must be the pressure to fit in. With an underdeveloped sense of self, an adolescent who lacks confidence could easily succumb to peer pressure.”
So what can parents do to help steer their children towards positive friends and experiences at their new schools?
Melanie 05/07/08
My husband is in the army, and we have moved around a lot since our kids, 12 and 15, were born. They are used to the drill – when we tell them we’re moving, they have a system of getting involved in their new schools. First, we ask the principal for the directory of all the students, and then we get the names of students who are in particular clubs my kids are interested in joining. They write an email to one person in the club, and ask for some information. It’s a way for them to make a “buddy” before they enroll.
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