to ask what makes a child or teenager ‘popular?’

[borednostalgia]

I’ve always been really curious as DD1 (year 10) has always been part of a popular, well liked group of friends since year 1 ish but to a lesser degree until they turned 11/12. She’s a lovely girl in general but can be very hard to get along with as she likes to take control and can be rather mean to the less outgoing types of people. Whereas DS (year 12) and DD2 (year 8) are much more generally nice to everyone but have never really fitted in with the ‘popular’, well liked people. This is find odd and was just wondering why the popular groups are popular when they have many, many flaws.

Please ignore the typos, I’m on the train hence the shaky typing!

Generally with girls being attractive and with boys being good at sport. Being outgoing also helps.

I think it's confidence. I was popular during primary school and as soon as I started secondary school I faded into the background. The popular ones were the confident, pretty, loud people who weren't afraid to stand up for themselves or put someone in there place.

It could be that your DD is part of a group that is intimidating rather than popular. Other kids defer to them out of fear rather than liking them?

I agree with Quentin I was intimidated by the popular crowd.

If she's mean to people she's probably not that well liked.

One of my DSs age 10 is popular. He isnt particularly good at sports and is quite quirky but he has a gang of friends of all types who follow him around wanting to talk to him.

I think its because he is constantly talking and making jokes. He smiles and laughs a lot.
I hope this continues at secondary school, he isnt particularly 'cool' but has a knack for making friends by being entertaining.

My DD is smart, funny, pretty etc (I’m biased, of course!) but is not popular. She says the popular kids are more bothered by what other kids think and do whereas she’s more bothered with how she is perceived by her teachers. She’s a performing arts kid and won’t switch her rucksack (that she wears on both shoulders!) for an oversized handbag like the other girls as she values her posture.
DS IS popular but doesn’t appear to have noticed. He’s completely in a world of his own. It’s different for boys, I think!

I think being mean to the quieter kids and popularity are linked tbh. Maybe I’m just cynical from my school days, but it always seemed to me that the really popular kids were the ones who knew how to assert their status.

Being the same as everyone else.

Tallace that’s exactly the same as my DS!

It is intimidating kids that are popular

My DD’s are 1 school year apart and DD1 is in the scary popular group and DD2 is a low key under the radar type who has no desire to be popular

And they actually are called The Populars 😂

It’s kind of like a hierarchy but doesn’t seem based on social class at all

When I was at school the 'popular' girls where known for being mean and the popular boys where good at sports. There were far fewer that fell into the popular category just for being smart, funny and friendly unfortunately but they did exist.

a swimming pool or a pony

It’s weird. I could never work it out - both my 2 are like I was at school, fairly under-the-radar but have lots of friends. The popular girls all ended up staying local, getting married young, having loads of kids and now look about 15 older than me & my friends!

There is a really interesting podcast episode about this phenomenon of ‘mean’ kids being more popular. (Please note I am not calling any of your kids mean! I’m just referring to the podcast)

The show is called This American Life and the episode is called Allure of the Mean Friend

www.thisamericanlife.org/245/allure-of-the-mean-friend

Confidence

I was popular at school. Both primary and secondary. I don’t know why, but I think I’m confident and friendly. I talked to everyone and was never mean to anyone as I’m quite sensitive. Interestingly though a small sub set of the larger group of girls that I hung around with (all girls school) were very mean, and although they seemed to be popular, we distanced ourselves from them quite a bit due to the things they would say. The ‘ring leader’ of that smaller group is still a horrible cow who most of us avoid like the plague. (What I’m trying to say is she seemed popular but actually wasn’t)

Being attractive, confident and having good social skills bring popularity more than kindness I would say.

It is intriguing.

DD (year 10) had two close friends at primary. She goes to school with one (A) and the other (B) goes to another school but DD regularly sees her out of school.

A is "popular" - she's a sneery sod who treats learning as uncool (and gets the grades to prove it) and conducts a reign of mild terror (under the radar of the teachers) Kids don't want to get on the wrong side of her so the weaker ones follow her around. Or they did. Now they're in Yr 10 the tide is turning and she's increasingly being seen as thick and mean.

B is an utter delight. Popular because she's welcoming, clever, witty and kind hearted and shuns the mean girls.

I think being mean to the quieter kids and popularity are linked tbh. Maybe I’m just cynical from my school days, but it always seemed to me that the really popular kids were the ones who knew how to assert their status

This.

I always found “popular” kids knew how to include/exclude others.

By excluding (being mean) to some kids the ones who are included will try hard to keep that status, even to the point of also being mean. Better to be included in games and activities than not. Which leads to the percieved popularity as everyone wants to be in that circle of friends.

The popular kids can start young with “if you don’t do x you’re not coming to my party”, or plying games like giving out tickets to play lunchtime games and getting kids to beg or do stuff to be allowed to join.

Now i remember different categories of popular people when i was at school. And the same seemed to go on when my older DDs were at school.

• There were the popular 'bully' types. The one's you were scared to walk past. Sitting on the wall outside the school ect. Never alone. Smoking. Loud. Gathered sidekicks around them like uneasy satellites who shouted ''yeah - what she said'' a lot.

• Then the 'beautiful' people. Fashionable, good looking and usually with families with a bit of cash to buy all the latest stuff. Permanently boyfriended. Again never alone. Beautiful wanna be's only allowed to hang on.

• The sporty set. Not unpleasant. (often seemed to overlap with the beautifuls) The ones who were always put in charge of picking teams in PE and them always picked each other and just eye rolled at everyone else.

• The comedians. These kids could overlap into the other groups as well but mostly were the class comedians and were usually happy go lucky types with a few good mates.

Everyone else tended to fit into the gothy kids, the studious kids, the quiet kids and the poor poor bullied ones.

(ex goth here)

I remember all the 'popular' kids being really horrible to 'unpopulars' and disruptive in class. Most of them were bullies. It's funny because a lot of the unpopular kids in my year are now stuck in dead end jobs with no aspirations and the rest of us are where they want to be. I saw the evidence at my 10 year reunion, I'm not generalising don't worry! It's not the be all and end all of childhood. I think those who are 'popular' in school might struggle in the real world more than 'unpopulars' that concentrate on their work as kindness and being professional is what gets you places, not how many friends you've got on social media or whatever.

I'm a TA in a primary school. This fascinates me too. Generally, the more smiley, easy to laugh children seem to have more friends. The shyer, slow to smile have smaller friendship groups. i do think smiling is a maker factor and it's the same with adults too. People are drawn to happy smiley people as they look friendly and a though the like us. Everyone wants to be liked essentially.

*major factor