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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

178 replies

borednostalgia · 21/11/2018 15:39

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.

OP posts:
juneau · 22/11/2018 14:37

I think it's slightly different with boys and girls.

Girls: pretty, kind, outgoing, confident, friendly, funny.

Boys: confident, leader not follower, funny, sporty, loud.

BeautifulBlue · 22/11/2018 14:45

The 2 girls in my year known for being ‘hard’ (wouldn’t be afraid to smack you in the face in front of the whole school if you looked at them funny) are the only 2 girls I know now that have had their kids taken away by social services (all kids are with the grandparents) It’s very sad. I don’t think they were popular, but they were feared. Part of me feels their lives now are the backlash of years of being horrible bastards to everyone - The other part of me feels desperately sorry for their kids though.

aroundanothercorner · 22/11/2018 14:50

DS yr9 report said he gets on with everyone in the class. So I think he falls into the well-liked category. He is sporty, fairly academic and funny. He's not alpha or loud though, more of a follower. He qualifies for invitations to the cool kids' parties but nine times out of ten chooses not to go probably petrified his mother will embarrass him at pick up time.

Biologifemini · 22/11/2018 14:55

The clever ones who just got on with it at school all did well.
The ones who spent time on being popular (‘socialising’ down the park) generally suffered later on.
Some popular kids were generally well liked for good reason but I agree that others were to be feared and humoured to keep them quiet and on side.

Titsywoo · 22/11/2018 14:59

It's a mixture of many things I assume. I have two children who aren't popular, if anything they are deliberately excluded. My dd is kind, fairly pretty, quiet and awkward (mainly in her mannerisms). DS is HFA and is very confident, clever, funny and socially awkward (as tends to come with the territory with autism!). From what they have both experienced the kids who follow the crowd (at whatever cost) are popular and the most popular at the top of the chain are mainly the nastier kids.

At my secondary school (all girls) the popular girls weren't horrible just very sporty and confident.

So maybe it depends on the school.

elliejjtiny · 22/11/2018 15:08

My eldest dc (aged 12) is popular. Not really sure why as he is autistic, had at sports and geeky. If he'd been at my school in the 1990's he would have been bullied for definite. Dh thinks it's because he smiled a lot and is nice to everyone. Dc2 and dc3 are in the middle, not hugely popular but they have friends. Dc4 has learning difficulties and is popular. He is in year 1 and plods along miles behind the other children in his class academically but he always has a smile on his face and loves to help people. Dc5 isn't popular and says his best friend at school is his brother but he doesn't seem to be bothered about it.

arethereanyleftatall · 22/11/2018 15:12

I think there's popular (well-liked), and 'popular' (the it crowd).

TinklyLittleLaugh · 22/11/2018 16:31

Tiger et al

My slightly idle charmer DS is 25 now and going absolutely great guns in his career after being fairly shakey with his academics. Charm and being a good guy go an awful long way in the world of work.

DoAsYouWouldBeMumBy · 22/11/2018 17:40

@Cambalamb actually, the smiley thing explains it. DS and I are both smilers, we often get comments about our smiles. We do both generally like people, it's true.

easielouisie · 22/11/2018 18:06

I read a study a while ago that concluded being 'popular' doesn't equate to 'being liked', and students who were genuinely nice but not popular in that sense were actually more liked by other students.

RebeccaWrongDaily · 22/11/2018 18:39

i opened this thread knowing that it would be full of people suggesting that anyone at school who wasn't geeky / weird /friendless etc ended up as a druggie, pregnant at sixteen and was actually a horrible bully.
Mumsnet, you've not disappointed

Yerroblemom1923 · 22/11/2018 18:41

I remember when I was at school the girls who were in the popular gang seemed to be the ones whose parents had money. The girls were clever but managed to not be geeky by wearing the coolest clothes, make up, going to the coolest places (obviously funded by rich parents) and seemed to have a bit more freedom than the rest of us so were going to clubs etc which we weren't allowed to. They didn't seem to realise they were living a privileged life and would be mean and snidey to girls they deemed as inferior e.g. they went skiing for their hols and we'd go somewhere in the UK and they'd look down their noses at us.

RedToothBrush · 22/11/2018 22:38

I remember seeing something on school social hierarchy on tv a while back, in the middle of a programme about something else.

The jist of it was that its been researched throughout the world, and different cultures and the same pattern emerges.

Top of the tree are the sporty ones and the beautiful ones, with the geeks and the smart ones near the bottom.

I wish I could recall more about it, because it was fascinating and deserves a whole programme of its own.

TinklyLittleLaugh · 22/11/2018 23:15

I think sporty equals thick is a bit of a cliche. DS is on the school football team and at least half of them are in the very top form.

Titsywoo · 22/11/2018 23:33

I remember that redtoothbrush. It said all school basically have the same groups and the kids most successful after school were the geeks (aka the clever kids) and the "alternative" kids.

LuvSmallDogs · 23/11/2018 00:31

Gobbiness and/or humour. Out of all of us, my Dbro was the popular one right through Primary and Secondary and he’s always been a gobby (but funny) little shit.

In Reception he mooned a Y4 boy for picking on DSis1 (also in Y4) and in Y1 his teacher ducked out to get something and came back to him sat at her desk taking the lesson while putting on her voice.Grin

LuvSmallDogs · 23/11/2018 00:33

Oh, I’m not counting the really nasty bully kids in this - those weren’t genuinely popular, more feared and their friendships seemed more like collaboration towards their goal of cuntishness.

Fresta · 23/11/2018 09:16

I think what makes a child popular is not usually a tangible thing.

My theory is that it's generally those children with a lot of natural charisma- confidence, physical attractiveness, advanced social skills etc. combined with other skills like sportiness, performing arts abilities etc. that are the most popular. Other kids admire them and want to be like them and are a little awe of their all-round amazingness.

The main factor in my eyes though seems to be the possession of great social skills which allows them to 'read' other kids and behave in a favourable way- it might be they are witty, can make other kids laugh, get away with being a bit cheeky to adults because they are naturally charming, the can lie successfully, manipulate adults better, they can also manipulate other children and keep them on side.

I think the observation that the popular kids can be a bit mean to others is a common one too. I think that this trait is born of being popular though, rather than it being something which makes them popular. It is the same children who are popular at pre-school who are still popular at secondary school. They probably realised from being a toddler that they had a certain power over others, and have learnt that being a bit of a bully gives them even more power- it's usually just very mild and subtle things to help maintain their own status- true bullies rarely remain popular in the long-term.

caroloro · 23/11/2018 09:24

It's very rare that the popular kids are the kids everyone likes. It's more that they're the kids noone wants to be on the wrong side of.

James0511 · 23/11/2018 10:14

I am 19, so was in her position a few years ago and I have to say that the popular girls tend to more confident and normally very attractive. They also were usually intimidating to other people and ‘bit**y’ towards anyone not in their crowd, and even people in their social group.

The popular boys were those who were confident and good at sport.

I often found that A LOT of the popular group (not all) were nasty people in school, but the majority have mellowed our since not having their clique to back them now they’re at uni.

qumquat · 23/11/2018 11:46

'popular' kids aren't really any more popular than anyone else, what they are is high status. This normally involves a combination of good looks, money for the latest fashions, and policing those who don't live up to their standards through sneering, unkind comments and looking down on others. I made a conscious decision to leave my 'popular' groups of friends in Yr 9 and become 'unpopular'. I ended up with just as many friends as before, but my new 'unpopular' friends were actually nice people.

Mumminmum · 23/11/2018 17:08

When I was 16-17 some of the girls from my class tried to become the "popular clique" like in American highschool movies. They wore fashionable clothes, slept around and talked loudly about the "cool" parties they had been to, that the rest of us hadn't been invited to. It didn't exactly work. But it was amusing.

Almondio · 23/11/2018 17:14

In my experience, the boys who are quieter, more bookish, perhaps a little introverted, tend to take longer to make friends but those friendships are lasting, non-confrontational and solid. They become popular within their own friendship group/personality type.

I have two DSs going through high school, neither is sporty nor 'cool' but once they've found their tribe, they've discovered a lovely group of friends who just get on.

As a parent it's hard to watch kids struggle to find their kindred spirits, but when they do, it's delightful.

Titsywoo · 23/11/2018 18:27

So many saying social skills yet I'm not sure being nasty to others is a great social skill? It's usually an insecurity thing - put others down to make yourself feel better. I know there are some popular kids who are nice but the majority are the ones who are desperate to hang on to their "status" and putting others down seems to be the way they do that.

Snog · 23/11/2018 20:10

Popular kids are often the ones who really want to be popular. There's a lot of power play.

For girls, being attractive and a risk taker and good at sport are helpful. Social skills are also important but it's not about being nice, it's about playing politics. Keeping an appearance of being nice is good though.

Agree that popularity at school very often doesn't correlate with what many people would think of as "success" once you leave school. My dd is often shocked that people who had exhalted status at her secondary school have very ordinary seeming lives and jobs afterwards.