Popular children

[mysticpistachio]

My daughter is 12. She is lovely, but can be a bit intense and has a tendency to talk at you. That aside, she is very funny, bright and has lots of normal 12 year old interests.

Over the years she has had a few friendship issues which are rearing their head again in secondary school. I think these are mainly because she's not great in groups and prefers to have close one on one friendships. At school currently she has 4 of these friendships and spends a lot of time at their houses and vice versa. The 4 are friends with each other but less so than friends with my daughter (i.e they are not a pack of 4).

One of the girls has been spending a lot of time with another group of girls and ignoring dd a bit and she has managed to get herself in a text argument with one of the other girls who she has accused of stealing her friend.

I've tried to explain to her that this is normal, that friendships wax and wain and that she's not put herself in the best light by sending such a controlling message. I've also explained that I'm there for her and I think she needs to chill out a little bit and stop thinking people are against her. She was bullied in year 3 but she can't let what happened to her when she was 7 effect her whole life.

She commented tonight that she doesn't know what it is but she finds it really hard to make friends but once she has she doesn't want to let them go.

I feel like I need to increase her self confidence but also put her on a bit of a crash course in making friends. If you have a popular child what part of their personality do you think makes them popular and can it be replicated?

Being a controlling, clingy friend is a real turn-off for many girls; who wants to be treated that way?

I agree it is important for your DD to learn that friends will come and go. Having self confidence and self esteem is probably the number one attribute that makes popular girls successful.

It's very helpful at this age to have some friends outside school. Expanding existing activities or trying new hobbies can be a great way to make friends.

I don't know about 'having a popular child' but someone tat has lots of friends is often someone that other people want to be friends with, but also, it means you are relaxed and not intense with your friends. A "friend" who is needy is not an attractive proposition.

My suggestion would be to encourage er to do different things, outside of school, and therefore have several friendship circles. Okay, not so easy to start now, but as a longer term policy it makes sense. Both because they know lots more people so have lots more friends, but also because they are occupied doing stuff they enjoy, and not sitting at home stewing about the fact that Friend B might be chatting with Friend C and they aren't included.

I agree completely. She just doesn't seem to get it. It also doesn't seem to apply to her, so she is happy to leave a friend and float off with someone else (although she would never be mean).

She does have separate friends outside of school.

Can anyone recommend anything I can get her to read to help her with this stuff. She has such a short fuse and I don't know why or how to help her.

My children have both been described by their teachers as popular. They have very different personalities.

Ds1 (12) is reserved, quiet and calm. He can be standoffish. He has no problem walking away from his friends if he doesn't like what they are doing. He does have an outgoing side as he attends drama school. School describes him as calming and reliable with his friends and welcoming to new children.

Ds2 (9) is a bit of a class clown, he makes people laugh. He is also very good friends with a boy with severe autism in his class, he is very loyal and won't allow anyone to be mean to his friends.

I think it's the consistency that means they have plenty of friends. They would both also walk away rather than get into an argument.