Children picking their own teams

People pick who they like - that’s just life. Not sure that makes them sociopaths, unless the word sociopath means something entirely different to what it actually means.

Utterly unnecessary ‘life lesson ‘ in performative cruelty . Not v useful unless you’re planning to spend your life amongst sociopaths .

It is beyond belief that in 2025 teachers are still doing something so damaging and pointless to children . Unnecessary misery .

Wendy Cope wrote a poem about the sense of bleakness this gave her at school in the 1960s .
I went to school in the 1970s where they used as a method of punishment for students with dyslexia getting them to stand up in assembly and try to spell words whilst everyone laughed at them . Allowing kids to pick teams should be as obsolete and shocking as this …
If you mix people up randomly (using something like the lolly stick method) they get a chance to work/ talk to with those they don’t normally gravitate toward .

And the end of year play in year 6. And the mathematician competition which is based on kids doing well in maths. And the other school teams. And head of house. And head of year.

Not just sports - lots of things to be disappointed for not being chosen.

I can't eye roll my eyes more, are adults still dividing kids between "popular" and "non popular" ones?

What are you talking about? It's the kids who are doing the dividing, not the adults. I think your comment is disingenuous, you can't be oblivious to the fact that popularity-based segregation at school is a thing.

Elsewhere you claim it's 'nasty' and 'shitty' for adults to talk about 'popular' kids. I fail to see how it is nasty or shitty to acknowledge that yes, unfortunately, in every school class some kids are regarded as popular and others not. It shouldn't be that way, but it just seems to be how the dynamics work among kids and teens.

Speaking as someone who was considered part of the unpopular crew at school for years, I didn't have any kind of bone to pick with the popular ones unless they picked on me and bullied me, which some did. Let's not pretend some popular kids aren't also bullies, because they are, just like some unpopular kids.

I'm sensing this thread has touched some kind of nerve with you, I could be wrong of course, but your posts are coming off quite belligerent tbh.

I am ND, was always last picked. Now I run large teams, I hire people and I pick people to be in the teams. I like to think those moments where you see what goes on, see the popular girls and decide you don't want to be in their little clique anyway, shape a person. When I hire, I hire for excellence in the skills, kindness, a good heart, good team working skills and definitely look for people who are not a twat.
It does hurt at that age though, but ND people forge their own path separate from the crowd anyway.
I absolutely love seeing old school people check me out on linked in 😂
Good luck Sandra with your shit life, I am out here killing it, while you are selling wax melts for pennies. Who's picking now!
I always tell my kids, don't dare make fun of the nerdy kids, they will be the ones in power, the bosses and the decision makers.

Not school, but a youth group. We often ask the children to get into a pair/3, and then put that pair with another pair so they always have a friend but also get to work with some different people on activities. Group is aged 5-8 years.
I wonder what opinions are on this?

you know you can win as team, ever heard of team sport? Yes, in sport it's about winning.

I live in the real world. Kids who train and spend a lot of time and effort do it to .. win?

Of course you need to learn to work with others, but because you are all working towards the same goal, again winning.

Kids are very happy and have a healthy attitude, thanks!

But it is the one instance where we insist they are doing it by being humiliated in front of others. That does nothing for building resilience (hence the quotation marks in my post) We stopped academically embarrassing kids in front of their peers decades ago but we still persist in doing it in school sports. We don’t let them choose where they sit in class, or who they work with in groups because we realised it didn’t help a whole bunch of kids to do that. We discovered it was better for less able kids to be grouped with more able kids. We introduced playground rules which stopped kids being left out, we work on friendships and respect etc. Yet when it comes to sports, we still insist on letting them choose who is on their team and leaving the less able kids feeling humiliated. Why is that ok?

But it is. Nobody says only their child suffers. We’ve had many conversations about how despite her disability, some other children will be worse off than my daughter in different ways. Life is unfair, and there are kids who have a much easier ride of it, to pretend otherwise is ridiculous. But that isn’t what this is about.

Can you point to any other aspect of school where we insist the less able kids are singled out when they are forced to take part and told they just need to be resilient when they are being humiliated? We don’t make them choose teams for maths and have to compete in front of everyone else. We don’t make dyslexic children read aloud in front of the entire class. We don’t put a dunce’s cap on the child who got the lowest mark. All those things would surely “build resilience” in the humiliation? But we still insist the ones who are never picked for sports or do badly at sports days have to take part whether they like it or not, and we don’t reward effort in them at all.

No all kids need to build resilience- it isn’t just for the not picked kids. That lesson appears to every child at different times in different ways. We are speaking specifically about one instance here in this post.

Nope. These kids get the “star of the week” “most improved” or “best behaved” or “good team player” “outstanding attendance” participation certificates they hand out for academics. So the smart but not sporty kids rarely get those certificates either.

My daughter got top marks in all academic things in primary. She won non-school competitions for her writing skills. She had never (and I mean NEVER) got in trouble from the teachers. She took part in anything she was given the chance to, she was a school team captain. All though primary school she never won a single award. Until the P7 they gave her a bullshit “inspiration” award, just because she happens to be disabled.

We always made it clear that she shouldn’t expect awards for anything, the most important thing was she did her best at whatever she did. Now she’s in high school she doesn’t even bother attending any of the awards ceremonies even if she has had a certificate for something. She knows it’s all a heap of nonsense.

I don't know what kind of society you live in that makes you think everything is just about winning but it's not a society I want to live in or one that I want my kids to live in.

It's not all about winning. In fact when it comes to learning very little should be about winning or at least winning against others. Being able to work collaboratively, encouraging others, working out your differences, and most importantly, learning how to benefit and enjoy any experience are much more valuable skills when it comes to achieving both your own personal goals and groups goals (like at work)

If you make everything about winning you are going to raise some very unhappy children because most of us don't go through life winning all the time.

Why is it only the kids who are never picked who have to “build resilience?”

it's not. It's only what some parent pretend, that only their child suffer, that some "popular' and successful children have an easy life and they get everything without asking for it. Some people like to pretend life is just so unfair, and they are the victim of the world. (now some kids have it easier than others, undoubtedly, but I was just replying to your question, it's not a black and white scenario).

It's nothing like that in real life.

I know exactly what you mean OP

It’s not just about the popular kids vs less popular. What happens if there is a friendship group of 6 say but teams of 5 - one will get left out and upset if they are left to their own devices - whereas if adults organise it they will likely split them into 2s or 3s across different groups so everyone has a friend with them.

Our school recently proposed an event in teams of 4 and told the kids to find their own team. It’s caused so many fallings out and upsets.

The stupid thing is the school is usually very much in control of groups, as they know how many issues self selection causes, but has seemingly abandoned that principle for this one event. Bizarre.

Why is it only the kids who are never picked who have to “build resilience?”

My disabled child already has buckets more resilience than the other kids. But she also had to face the embarrassment of never being picked for a team. This is why we took her out of PE. No child needs that shit in their life.

Completely agree. I've touched on that in a response I just wrote to another pp. It's totally possible to encourage/nurture the sporty kids without subjecting the un-sporty ones to unnecessary embarrassment, though.

I don't think kids get picked primarily on ability but more based on friendships and popularity.

I was always picked last because I was a fat and unsporty child. However, there was one team sport I excelled at and over the years became better and better at and I still got picked last even for that because everyone just assumed that I sucked at all games.

You've sort of proved my point there. School sports shouldn't be entirely about winning imo.

I'm not referring to things like inter-school sports fixtures, where obviously those who are talented and keen can get the opportunity to develop their abilities. That's very important. But day-to-day lessons also provide the opportunity to learn the true value of teamwork, including acceptance that everyone has different levels of ability, and how to encourage those who are less talented to develop whatever ability they do have. Instead of which (unless things have drastically changed since I was at school) the popular/sporty are allowed to clique up and a blind eye is turned to humiliation/bullying of the less able. I and other kids used to regularly get screamed at by classmates in sports lessons over our shortcomings and the teachers would be aware but do precisely nothing about it. Is that really the way to model the value of teamwork?

If you ask me, the ethos should be 'play to win, but try to learn from it if you don't.' Teachers can do a lot to facilitate this, but unless things have changed since my school days, they simply don't bother. There are all sorts of learning opportunities in team sports, but all my experiences gave me was a lifelong hatred of sport, alongside (until I left school anyway) low self-esteem due to teachers allowing me to be bullied for my shortcomings.

The more malicious posters won't understand this though. It's quite often the nasty kids who are most popular because the other children don't want to be on the wrong side of them. They grow but they don't change!

Yanbu it's always going to make it difficult and embarrassing and stressful for the unpopular children.

Apologies. I posted before reading your replies. I'm glad she has found a team.

I totally agree with you. I don't think this is needed. On the contrary. At work you more often than not have to get along and collaborate with people you haven't chosen yourself so it's not like it's a great learning experience.

I also don't think there is anything wrong with saying that some kids are more popular than others and that school is a lot more pleasant and easier if you are one of the popular kids. It doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the popular kids or that they shouldn't be popular. Popular kids often have good social skills, are confident and extroverted and all these are qualities to be lauded and shouldn't be discouraged but the school has to operate in a way that kids who lack these skills or for whatever reason struggle with their classmates can also thrive.

I'm in my forties and still hate when at work events we are told to group ourselves into teams. I can imagine a 17 year old struggling as much with this as an 8 year old. Maybe even more.

I really feel for your daughter (and for you... I feel so bad for my dd when I see her being left out).

Is your dd not in a team now? I'd have thought if she couldn't find a team the teacher would allocate her to one or how else would she do her work? She might not be able to work on the topic she wanted but even if the team selection had been done differently or by the teacher her allocated team might not have wanted to adopt her idea.

But in reality the kids who weren't going to be picked are generally ignored by the rest of the group who don't want them there. You can " force" these groups together but you cannot make them interact well

Not disagreeing on that either.