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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to want my DCs to be the super popular, "alpha" children at school

489 replies

dirtyface · 27/08/2013 16:55

partly inspired by the thread about do you buy your kids certain stuff so they can fit in (but not a thread about a thread i promise)

...it just got me thinking. i REALLY want my dcs to not just "fit in" (although i will be happy with that of course) but to be actively, super popular

they are only 4 (dd) and 7 (ds) at the moment so in year 1 and year 4 so just starting out really

but i think it starts young. tbh i can already see in DS's class who the in crowd are :o and luckily ds is friends with some of them but seems a bit on the periphery iyswim. popularity at junior school breeds confidence and a "popular reputation" and a casual expectation that people will like them which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy i think teachers tend to prefer the popular ones as well IME

it then IMO tends leads to success as an adult even if they dont do particularly well at school. for example, DH was very popular at school and although he left before even taking his GCSE's he has done very well at work, and always tends to be very popular where he has worked and ends up getting promoted a lot

so, those of you who have very popular DCs, whats their secret? and am a bit Blush asking this, but is it / has it been anything you do as a mum / parent to help them along a bit?

OP posts:
Caff2 · 27/08/2013 21:09

We have more books than him though, which probably gives us mumsnet points ;)

Caff2 · 27/08/2013 21:13

This is why mumsnet is not so great for those of us with less than able children though. It feeds on the insecurities we have already and which are emphasised by people lamenting their child's less than level whatever at whatever key stage. Because children who may struggle to fit in socially as youngsters can indeed blossom socially as adults and also still have that academic ability to go on and succeed in the way that that word is used. But not all children do blossom academically. Some of those early strugglers continue to struggle. (Even though my ds1 hit all milestones before three very early and talked in sentences at eighteen months. Go figure.)

Abra1d · 27/08/2013 21:15

The thing is, some of the people we actually need as a society because they are brilliant scientists or great thinkers and innovators or thought-provoking writers were not necessarily the kind of people who would have been popular at school. They were quite probably quiet or a bit eccentric or with poor social skills. Not all of them, of course, but some of them.

And to those who say that children learn sociability from their parents--this is only true to a certain degree. I have one very sociable and 'easy' child and one who's not either of these things and has to had to work hard on social skills. My husband and I have lots of friends and socialise a lot, but I had to 'learn' these skills, because, despite having sociable parents, I was born finding social life very difficult.

Caff2 · 27/08/2013 21:18

Barring disorders that make social interaction impossible though, those are generally skills that can be learnt outside school as an adult when playground cliques have been,left behind. You actually can't make an IQ or CAT score of average,but no more, anything other than what it is.

Thaumatrope · 27/08/2013 21:21

Alpha is definitely about comparing people to others, it is a rank fgs.
That's what's unpleasant. OK perhaps it's realistic: this is how tribes work. But it's crass.
Being a genuinely fun, good person and having lots of true friends is great.

Caff2 · 27/08/2013 21:21

Yes, you can support, you can tutor you can do the very best with what you've got academically. But not every child can, in fact, become "cleverer". My son is instinctively cleverer than me socially. He instinctively "reads" a sporting or spatial situation better than me. He builds all our flat pack furniture without the instructions because we're "hopeless, God mum!". He's still going to struggle to get a c grade at gcse, it'll probably take a few gos, and he still might not do it. Sad

Caff2 · 27/08/2013 21:22

So his alpha popularity is great afaic.

AmazingBouncingFerret · 27/08/2013 21:23

Ha! Nice work insummeritrains. Not only do you make a bitchy comment about so called popular people not being successful but you also make a huge (and incredibly wrong) judgement about me because of my response! Yet again you've been incredibly insulting. Were you popular at school with that sort of attitude?

ArtexMonkey · 27/08/2013 21:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mrsrhodgilbert · 27/08/2013 21:30

Any teachers care to comment? I would be interested to know if they recognise these different groups, the alpha group, the mean girls, the easy going nice kids, whether they be very clever or not.

I don't think academic intelligence has anything to do with popularity either.

superstarheartbreaker · 27/08/2013 21:37

Well it depends what you mean by popular dosn't it? Alpha children as you put it (grotesque term but there you are) can often be super mean. They are feared rather than liked; take the Queen Bee type. So if you are refering to such children then no; I want dd to be liked rather than feared.
Having said that I was very unpopular at my snooty private school. This damaged my self-esteem beyonde repair , however people outside of school seem to like me. I would consider myself as ''too nice'' and I hope dd isn't like this either. Confident and assertive is what I am aiming for but as I was a hy geek it will take some work from me!

superstarheartbreaker · 27/08/2013 21:40

I would alos like to point out that many of the popular people were thick, on drugs and shagging around with six formers whilst in year 9. One of the most popular girls in our year , at the age of 13 was passing round a pasket of pills and discussing how she was going to use them to sleep with her popular 6th form boyfriend. The teacher didn't blink an eyelid! Shock
She also criticised me for never having had a boyfriend (I had but hadn't shagged him) At the time she made me feel like I was uncool but in hindsight I can see she was being abused by this 6th former and was an immature slapper to boot.

insummeritrains · 27/08/2013 21:43

Amazingbouncingferret - you quoted my saying that the popular kids I knew didn't have successful careers and then said that I was insulting you because you had worked in a toy shop for 10 years. Confused Confused Confused at why you took my comment personally.

Littleen · 27/08/2013 21:44

Whilst I am not going to argue your wish for your children to be the super popular ones - I just want to point out that they are normally the ones with the least successful relationships and careers, and end up absolutely nowhere once they finish school, because suddenly nobody cares that they were popular somewhere else.

I think it's better to be right in the middle, with good friends and good goals, more than just "I'm popular, everyone likes me, that's all that's important" which is often the case with those kids.

Caff2 · 27/08/2013 21:44

See. Post above. Popular obviously equals failure in later life. Fabulous.

TheSecondComing · 27/08/2013 21:44

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Caff2 · 27/08/2013 21:45

And another one. Popular equals end up nowhere when they finish school. Great. This is making me feel a whole heap better about son one's future.

Littleen · 27/08/2013 21:46

Also, the super popular "alpha" kids are normally as someone else pointed out, feared rather than liked. Then when the rest of the kids get confidence, they have nobody left :) They are popular because they are dominant and mean :P

Caff2 · 27/08/2013 21:46

Oh, and whoever wrote "immature slapped" about a girl they themselves said was abused - I really hope my children don't come out with THAT kind of thing. Sheesh.

Littleen · 27/08/2013 21:46

not popular as in "have lots of friends" - popular as in "will bully people in to their fan club".

AmazingBouncingFerret · 27/08/2013 21:49

You're pulling the confused face now but your original comment was basically saying 'why would you want your children to be popular, they all ended up not leaving town, no career, etc etc' like it was a negative thing. A thing to look down upon. I'm telling you it is not.

And my 10 year stint at a toy shop was not a career. It was a part time job, that is all.

So yes. I took it personally. You were implying people like me haven't been successful. I consider myself very successful.

superstarheartbreaker · 27/08/2013 21:50

This thread has bought back some really awful memories of school for me! I like to think that I was not unpopular because I am a bad or boring person but rather I wasn't rich enough to fit in with the 'in' crowd.

I hate any kind of cliques now and I inwardly smile at the way that certain groups feel that they all have to dress the same way. I try to find my own identity. I try and pick friends from all walks of life and I shy away from getting too close to any particular group. I feel very suffocated by the small town clique thing and hate feeling pigeon holed ; mabe as a result of my youth.

StarfishEnterprise · 27/08/2013 21:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

superstarheartbreaker · 27/08/2013 21:52

Well I think it went both ways really; yes she was being abused by her boyfriend in the way that he shouldn't have been shagging a 13 year old girl (he was 18) but she was an immature slapper for thinking that sleeping with an 18 year old boy at her age and throwing a packet of pills around a classroom was 'cool'.

Oh and btw; mumsnet is very cliquey at times too!

usualsuspect · 27/08/2013 21:53

'Immature slapper' WTF?

So she was being abused by an older boy but she was a 'slapper'

Fucking hell, that's a disgusting thing to.post.