Friends

One thing that Kayleigh had trouble with since starting school was making and retaining friends. She made friends with two girls in preschool, and then they went to a different primary school. She then started again in Kindergarten, seemed to make a couple of friends that she played with, but again the next year they had either moved schools or were in a different class. Year one, the same thing happened. Everytime Kayleigh seemed to be making friends and starting to move forward wirth her friendships, something got in the way. By this stage, most of the girls had formed best friends and small 3 girl groups, and its really hard to break into one of these groups, especially when you are not sure of whether they are going to be your friend or not.

Then she connected with another girl, C, who also had trouble making friends. This friendship seemed to be going places. C came over our  place, Kayleigh had sleepovers at her place. She went to her birthday party. Kayleigh finally seemed to be getting somewhere, but unfortunatelt something went wrong and they had a falling out in the middle of Year 3. I am not sure about what happened bu I think they just said horrible things about each other parents. I am sure that Kayleigh wasn't innocent in it. From then one, Kayleigh spent more time at recess and lunch with her sister Natassja and her friend A.A and T.T.. Those 4, at one stage seemed inseperable - they did loads of stuff together. TT's and AA's mums were quite happy to have both Natassja and Kayleigh over at the same time. I always worried however, that Kayleigh didn't have friends in her own class and it did turn out to be a problem.

By having no-one close to in her year, when the school implemented a single year class in year 6 (instead of maxed classes i.e. year 5/6) no-one wanted her at their group table. When they had to do group tasks, no-one wanted her in their group. This bullying spilled onto the playground, with the main instigator being her ex-friend 'C'. The other girls would play the game 'Kayleighs germs, no returns', push her out of the way and just be down right bitchy. It didn't help that Kayleigh had no interest in things they were interested in - namely boys, make-up, top 10 music, bratz and the like. Kayleigh was more interested in fitness, top gear and doctor who. In this way, she was able to talk to some of the boys, but then the boys were teased for talking to her and they stopped. I think the only two people that talked to her in her year at the end was Ethan and Brandon. Brandon always seemed to look out her her and several times had told the other girls to leave her alone. He always asked about her asthma as it was something they had in common. She was really upset when he passed away in year 7.

Then came high school. Kayleigh was really really nervous, but as most of the girls that had bullied her were going to MacKillop, she was hopeful that she could make at least one friend. Her Dad told her to just be nice to everyone, talk to people - they are probably just as nervous as you are. I think this was the turning point for her, although she did have some teething problems and she never really made a 'best friend'. The first couple of months she hung out with her year 10 Aspire person, who, with Mr Haidon's help, guided her to make friends with people in year 7. and she did make some friends that she seemed to connect with, but she still didn't hang with them everyday. When I asked her who was hung with that day, her answer was different everyday - most of the time it was her year 'friendship group' but other times it was 'playing handball with the year 10 boys', 'Natassja's friends in year 7' or 'I was talking to the other Kayleigh'. It seemed that she talked with, or hung out with many people from many different year groups, and guys as well as girls.

The few people that went from Theodore Primary to Calwell, Kayleigh didn't talk to them at all, with the exception of Ethan. One of the girls had even tried the 'Kayleighs germs - no returns' crap in front of some of the other girls, and thnakfully one of them turned around and told them to stop being such babies. Before Kayleigh died, she found out that her main bully was going to change school and start at Calwell. This made Kayleigh a little nervous and I had to remind her that she had good friends now. If they abandoned her becuase of this girl then they weren't really her friends. Unfortunately, we never found out as Kayleigh died a week before this girl started.

Ee had run into her friends at the video store, and it was apparent that Kayleigh was still unsure of whether she was in the group - she hung back, only talking to 'J'. Her previous experiences with friends had left her unsure about how to deepen a friendship - I told her she needed to talk more - select one person from the group at a time and talk to them. This was working and the week before she died she was so happy.

The number of people that she talked to, and considered her a friend, was apparent at her funeral. Thank you to everyone who was her friend. Finally she was happy.