For most kids, packing their bags for a day at school is a normal part of growing up. For the three children of late pop great Michael Jackson – Prince Michael, 13, Paris, 12, and eight-year-old Prince Michael II, nicknamed Blanket – soon it’ll be their very first time in a classroom.

Having been home schooled throughout their life, the Jackson clan will start at a new private Californian school when the US term begins in September. Now living with their new legal guardian, the “Thriller” star’s mother, Katherine, the three kids are being enrolled to help them make new friendships.

“They don’t have any friends,” Katherine recently told British newspaper the Sunday Mirror. “They don’t go to school, they have private lessons at home – but that will change in September, when they are due to enrol at private college. But they have their cousins and aunts and uncles around them constantly, and that’s helped them immensely.”

After losing their father a year ago this month, Jackson says it’s not a case that the kids’ life is abnormal: it’s just been very sheltered. “To them, it’s normal, it’s the life they have known,” the 80-year-old insisted. “They have a certain time to go to bed, then they get up and get dressed for lessons. They practise karate and swim, which they love.”
Katherine also admitted her son kept his fame from his children for as long as humanely possible, so they would stay grounded. “He didn’t want them walking around with egos!” she laughed. “So when they went to [Jackson’s] 30th show, the two little ones were in the audience. Michael got backstage and they said, ‘You’re a big star! When I grow up, I want to be like you!’ Michael said that gave him the biggest chuckle.”