Dear Panther Families,
February is “EVERYONE INCLUDED” month at Hazel Dell. Below is the first part of an article from Kids Health that talks about cliques and what you can do with your child if he or she is excluded or is the excluder. I’ll put the second half of this article in the March 18th Panther Post.
PART 1—Your daughter comes home crying because the girls she’s been friends with are suddenly leaving her out and spreading rumors about her. She’s confused because it seemed to happen out of the blue. She doesn’t know what she did wrong and is nervous about returning to school, unsure if she has any friends. You’re un-sure how to help her — you’ve heard a lot about kids being snubbed or teased at school, but you didn’t think it could happen to your outgoing, fun kid.
What’s a Clique? Friendship is an important part of kids’ development. Having friends helps them be independent beyond the family and prepares them for the mutual, trusting relationships we hope they’ll establish as adults. Groups of friends are different from cliques in some important ways. Friendships grow out of shared interests, sports, activities, classes, neighborhoods, or even family connections. In groups of friends, members are free to socialize and hang out with others outside the group without worrying about being cast out. They may not do everything together — and that’s OK. Cliques sometimes form around common interests, but the social dynamics are very different. Cliques are usually tightly controlled by leaders who decide who is “in” and who is “out.” The kids in the clique do most things together. Someone who has a friend outside the clique may face rejection or ridicule.
How Parents Can Help
*Talk about your own experiences. Share your own positive experiences of making friends at school — cliques have been around for a long time! *Help put rejection in perspective. Remind your child of times he or she has been angry with parents, friends, or siblings — and how quickly things can change. *Shed some light on social dynamics. Acknowledge that people are often judged by the way a person looks, acts, or dresses, but that often people act mean and put others down because they lack self-confidence and try to cover it up by maintaining control. *Find stories they can relate to. Many books, TV shows, and movies portray outsid-ers triumphing in the face of rejection and send strong messages about the im-portance of being true to your own nature and the value of being a good friend, even in the face of difficult social situations. For school-age kids, books like Blubber by Judy Blume illustrate how quickly cliques can change. *Foster out-of-school friendships. Get kids involved in extracurricular activities (if they aren’t already) — art class, sports, martial arts, horse riding, language study — any opportunity to create another social group and learn new skills.
If your child is part of a clique and one of the kids is teasing or rejecting others, it’s important to address that right away. With popular TV shows and reality series glorifying rude behavior, it’s an uphill battle for families to promote kindness, respect, and compassion.
Thank you for helping us foster positive friendships at school!
Mychael Irwin, Principal