Middle years and friends

After Anthony moved up to "Big School" aged 11, like most children he went from one of the oldest boys at Junior schoold to being tone of the youngest at Senior school.

We had looked at lots of different schools and managed to persuade the Head of a smaller school (700 children) to accept him, even though we live slightly outside the school's regional boundary.
Because he was slightly outside the regional boundary, he only knew one other boy in his class.

Even though he still suffered from OCD and anxiety and was physically smaller and quieter than average, the other students looked after him. He didn't seem to suffer any bullyingat all.

One example -playing rugby on a cold winter's day, Anthony became almost hypothermic. and went into something of a trance, ... the teachers didn't notice - but the other children did see that he was in trouble and "shutting down"

The whole group helped him get dry, warmed up, get dressed and bought him a hot chocolate drink.

Even the tougher boys looked out for him - his personality engendered support and assistance from a high percentage of his peer group.

By the time he was 15, his lack of obvious academic skills caused him to be placed in the lower teaching groups - but he was still quiet, diligent and tried hard in his lessons (which was appreciated by most of his teachers) - and won various awards for outstanding effort (if not for actual achievement).

However his final year at senior school (16) his best friends were in year below him and he was easily led and got into some minor scrapes (part of a gang who "egged" a house etc).

To stop that escalating, we manged to secure him a Saturday job at a local retail store, which kept him occupied at weekends and gave him increased self esteem ... and disposable income.

Today at 21 he has a wide variety of friends of both sexes and appears a very confident and likeable young man