This summer has been hard for Malia, very hard. Not only is the transition to middle school difficult, but the big school boundary changes a few years ago put Malia in a different middle school from all her friends, and a different one from where all her brothers attended. She has been completely stressed out and anxious all summer. In fact, the anxiety started about halfway through the last school year when they started talking about middle school schedules and doing orientations with the upcoming 7th graders. We submitted a request for a special permit so she could attend the much closer and more familiar school, but it was not approved. At this point, Malia is resigned but not necessarily happy, although some recent social drama involving many of her friends from elementary school is suddenly making going to a different school much more appealing.
Today was 7th grade day at the middle school. Malia rode the bus to school for the very first time and spent half a day walking through an abbreviated school schedule. This particular school is laid out like a checkerboard where every hall and every block in the school looks exactly the same, so navigation is tricky. We walked through the school last week and located each of her classrooms, but finding her way around is still proving problematic. I know she will figure it out over time, but she is not feeling all too confident right now.
Tomorrow she will be dumped out of the frying pan straight into the fire as all the upper grade kids join the newbies for the first official day of school. Hopefully she will make some new friends fairly quickly. She doubts herself, of course, but she is a very sociable, very welcoming person and we have seen her gather new friends around her very quickly on many occasions. I think that with some time to adjust, she will be ok. Now we just have to convince her that she will be ok. 🤞
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