To ask what you think makes children popular?

[HoneyandHaycorns]

or unpopular?

Kind of inspired by the other thread about the little boy who was being excluded.

I wasn't a popular kid - had a small circle of good friends, but was never one of the in-crowd. My dd, on the other hand, has kids lining up to play with her.

I often wonder what that magic ingredient is that makes some kids popular and others not. Obviously, I think dd is adorable, but I'm pretty sure my mum thought that about me too.

Is it really just about good social skills? Or is it something else?

I think it's mostly down to confidence, leadership skills, charm and an ability to manipulate people.

I think some children in primary school are less popular because the others just don't 'get' them yet. Those with a quirky sense of humour particularly. They are usually much happier as those around them grow up and appreciate their qualities! My DC's are very different from one another, one who was quite isolated at primary is now very popular. Interestingly the one who tried to be something she wasn't to fit in with the herd had loads of problems. My DS had great advice for Secondary, just be yourself and you'll find at least one person who you really like and who likes you.

My DS seems quite popular, he is abit behind his peers with his speech and I worried when he started nursery, but a year n half in he is just the same and everyone flocks to him. He's like the frikkin the 'Fonz' He walks about a bit oblivious to the trail of kids following behind him, generally laid back and cheerful...although he has many a moment!

Ive always been in the in crowd but always looked like i shouldnt have been, looks wise I didnt really match the other popular girls, or care to tbh, but i was always wanted and followed about. I was, and am quite the clown, self assured, and willing to take the first step when others sit about dithering (importantly not minding if i get it wrong sometimes).

My older sis was the exact oposite of me, and watching her be one of lifes victims (her words) no doubt led me into these attributes subconciously perhaps?

I think I went to a similar school to Molly - for girls, "popular" seemed to equate to "losing your virginity at a young age".

Being academic or hardworking was a definite no-no.

It was also very very important to fit in - you had to have the right bag, the right trainers etc. I expect that is still the case, but haven't seen it with my boys yet, they are in year 2 and year 1.

getthehelp - that's interesting. I think DS1 is just coming out of his shell now, and also accepting that he and some of his friends have different interests and are therefore growing apart in Year 6. He's happier though. He's not striving to be anything other than himself. I think he'll be happier in Secondary

LeQueen, you are totally right. The amount of people I see who just dont get social norms for interaction...often painful encounters with awkward scilences etc...it does make interaction less enjoyable I find.

When I started reception a girl who seemed to have the others flocking round her took against me and I was straight to the bottom of the social pile from then on (I never found out why she didn't like me). In year 4 I changed school when we moved and I never had a social problem there. I wasn't wildly popular, just average. Then in secondary school I met up with my former bullies again and they carried on where they left off. I was friends with a couple of other misfit types but had a miserable time socially in general. Come college I met a much bigger peer group and made friends easily. I got a boyfriend who was an ordinary and nice lad and everything was fine (though we did subsequently break up!). Same at university and now although I'm not close to any of them I get on with my colleagues OK. I managed to persuade someone to marry me after all and have the DS's! So how was my experience so varied according to where I was? I am a self confessed geek but some places seemed to mind more than others. My younger brother has always been popular and doesn't seem to do anything specifically to earn it but the absence of bullying in his life has massively helped his confidence. He approaches people assuming he won't have to try had and they will want to be friends whereas I still sort of expect to be laughed at and mocked.

I was definitely always the excluded child at school - had 1 or 2 close friends at primary school, but when we tried to integrate with the bigger groups of girls we'd always be accepted very warily and sometimes pushed away. Always the last to be picked for games or anything when people were choosing teams (e.g. British Bulldog).

I always wondered why the teachers didn't pick up on this - seeing the same old faces left at the end when teams were being picked, why didn't they make someone like me team captain for a change and let me do the picking, just to make it fair? No, it was always the sporty kids who were team captain.

The worst moment was when I did a tennis club one summer holiday and there was an odd number of children taking part...so, rather than than mix things up so everyone got a chance to play against each other, everyone else was paired off to play against each other and I was told to practice my serve on my own and hit balls against a wall!

What a waste of my parents money sending me to tennis lessons where I didn't even get to play against anyone else. ...my abiding memory is not so much resenting the other children for being more popular, more feeling aggrieved that adults who were in a position to try and even things out a bit in favour of children like me, seemingly didn't bother. I can also remember my ballet teachers openly laughing at me in front of other children at how clumsy my dancing was (my mum sent me to ballet in a doomed attempt to improve my posture...)

Did it continue into adult life? I've done 3 long-term jobs in my working career, and 2 out of those 3 companies had a definite 'clique' that I wasn't in (people that hung out together at weekends, went to the pub after work, etc) but at my second job, we had a wonderful team in my dept where the whole team WAS the clique.

We all liked each other, went to the pub together, had in-jokes and team nicknames that no-one else in the company got, and some of those people are still my best friends. The good thing is that at the time we had it, we KNEW it was a good thing and that we were lucky to have it, we never took it for granted.

We had a really strong team spirit and a closeness that was way above anything I felt at school and I really feel those years with those people were the formative years that shaped me as an adult. Of course it didn't last, people left and the company ethos changed, but I still feel glad I had the experience of what it was like to bond with people in a way I never had at school.

I agree - it is 'random'

My eldest is naturally gregarious and acquires friends easily and chat the hind leg off a donkey. He's much loved by the old folks locally because he will carry bags and talk them to death and have a naturally sunny disposition. But he's a sheep.

The Middle one has only just developed the ability to talk to adults on the same level - he used to gaze at them as though they were some alien species .....and if I'm honest he looked at them much the same way I did when you know you are being vaguely patronised by someone older..... again he was quite lonely at primary school because there was no one who had the same interests. Secondry school allowed a whole different personality to develop. Popular, but not a leader, nor a sheep.

The youngest is sadly >sigh< the class clown, which is a cover for his HFA. Damned annoying because on paper he is very bright but dumbs down to the lowest denominator in an effort to fit in. Now he's older, he has bcome a people collector - people want his company and I have an endless stream of kids lnocking for him. But not a natural leader.

LeQueen that's not true in our case. I'm socially inadequate. My husband is worse. Our second boy has lots of friends. His two best friends are offspring of Alpha Mums 1 and 2.

I never outstay my welcome at parties, I'm more likely to leave early so I don't have to talk to anyone!

marshmallow - you are absolutely right that the adults let you down. It makes me very sad to read. I do think, IME that most teachers are much more aware of bullying and exclusion, and less taken in by bullies. However, the trouble is that what goes on in the playground can be so radically different from what they see in class that their attention has to be drawn to some of it. It also takes very skillful playground staff to be aware of these issues.

Hmm, I strongly disagree that it's about being ok with being laughed at/with. My experience at school was that people would not laugh at you if you were popular in the first place, whereas if you were unpopular you were supposed to be ok with people making really malicious jokes at your expense and just 'deal with it' or you had 'no sense of humour'. I know kids who had amazing, understated senses of humour but were unpopular because people thought they were 'gay' or 'uncool' or whatever nonsense. I was very unpopular myself but that's most likely due to aspergers, and I didn't really care that much as long as people left me alone (they didn't but eh). I have plenty of good friends now as an adult though, so I just think kids can be pretty unpleasant and take out their home issues on others in a way that's harder to avoid than when you're an adult (bullying bosses etc aside, they are presumably equally difficult to avoid). Also most people, as children and adults, are pretty shallow so just want to be friends with people they can get something out of or who look good. Therefore it's pretty irrational to care about popularity as it's merely appealing to the lowest common denominator.

My older daughter has friends but I wouldn't say is super-popular. She is friends with girls who are like her- intelligent, not especially girly, bookish and/or animal lovers. She's only had issues with a tiny minority of unpleasant kids as her school is very good at picking up on bullying (mine wasn't), and of course we just encourage her to ignore stupid comments e.g. one kid said she was fat (she's not), in retaliation for dd being a bit tactless in bringing up environmental issues about the other child wasting energy by leaving a door open. She'd be more popular I guess if she didn't care about things like that but I think it is nice that she does, though we did discuss more tactful ways to intervene in future as well as saying the other girl was probably just embarrassed to be told she'd done something wrong which was why she said it.

I have no idea about the dynamics at ds1's school. Well almost no idea. There are a couple of children who are more forthright and this gets results.

Other than that the children all seem very happy, bright and sunny and able to interact with another easily. It's a small class however.

But looking back at school. There was an almost a distinct hierarchy with those at the top with lots of the valued attributes. This changed over the years. I can't really see it with my children, ds1 is happy and has friends. Ds2 is only two, too young to tell.

Off the top of my head?

Popular

Good looking.
Sporty.
Kind.
Cheerful.
Charming.
Funny.
Confident.
Easy going.

bringback - I don't disagree that genuinely popular children have these attributes.

Other children appear popular but lack kindness. I know several children who have bought popularity at the expense of other children, and they maintain it because others fear being the butt of their teasing, or are getting something out of being part of the in-group

I think the truly popular kids were never the Bullies when i was growing up. They were confident enough in themselves to actually confront the Bullies, who often backed down when picking on someone else.

So Confidence and Kindness are key i think!

endo - yeah sound like my school. Definitely wasnt seen as good to be hardworking or clever also definitely the more bullying mentality you had the better because people are scared of you and then hang around with you. Being on the right side of them then your ok but I know people on the wrong side of them that got terrorised on the surrounding estates right from a very young age all the way up to school leavers.

The class i work in, the popular girls are very girly, squealy, pink, pony tails, love making cards saying how much they love each other etc.

Boys, the popular ones are the lower achievers who are need to be told to sit down/pay attention/stop talking constantly. The ones that don't make noises in class seem to get overlooked and not included as much with the social side of things.

I work in year 2.

Yy to team sport 'picking'
If you were chubby and bookish, games was an absolute siege

I take satisfaction in the fact that many if the overlooked, the geeky and bullied
are now the most successful in adult life - yes it's a cliche but it's true!

To be quietly confident enough in themselves to inspire confidence in others. Sorry if that sounds trite.

I agree NormanTebbit. At our godawful school reunion recently the geeks had the most interesting/cool/creative jobs.

Speaking as an ex teacher I think it can vary.

In the early days I think re girls it's mum organising said child's social life that has a lot to do with it.Often bossiness/strange kind of manipulation can also come into play.

Personality obviously plays a huge part too eventually.By year 2/3 I think things start to shake down a bit with kids thinking for themselves more and beginning to value kindness,fairness etc.

Re boys they just seem to play together and sort things out for themselves more.I think boys that whine,are too rough or not rough enough,won't sort things out themselves,fuss can often feel a little excluded.

I think the worse thing any parent can do is worry too much and vocalise it or try to do it for their kids.

My 3 are all v different with degrees of popularity.I've tried to make them value themselves and look for good qualities in others(ie it's quality not quantity),be kind to others.I've purposely not got involved in the exhausting frantic mum socialising thing(ie if I like someone I'll be friends with them,if my dc genuinely like their dc I'll do the rare tea date etc but I hate all the fakery and desperate inviting in order to be popular,attempt to make dc popular you often see).

I don't know if my kids are uber popular(I wasn't hockey team type of popular but I always made friends fairly easily and had a few valued friends rather than hoards for the sake of it) and I don't care. They're happy,have a few/several nice friends and don't seem to want/need any more.

So sorry I think uabu.If you ask the question you obviously care and will put pressure on your dc(and other dc) to be/remain uber popular.Can't kids just play,why do they have to be popular?

MrsHeffley - you are so right. DS1 wasn't rough enough and I did worry.

I agree with Norman.Popularity is often worked hard for when actually focusing on getting an education,finding a career you enjoy and maybe a partner are more important.

I also know a lot of the uber popular girls/boys at my school going by FR are the less successful in relationships,life etc.

It's horses for courses of course.If being popular makes you happy and is the be all and end all of life to you then great but I really don't think it's necessarily a good thing to want or to waste time worrying about.

I think becoming fully independent and not worrying about needing hoards of people in your life just because is far more desirable.