What makes kids exclude other kids?

[garnierfruit]

When I was growing up I had a core group of friends however, depending on the day I would often be excluded from the group. Not allowed to play at break time, calling me names, not including me in sleepovers etc. We would always make up just for it to happen the next week yet I maintained that those were my friends and went through it until I started secondary school. I still remember being left out and it stung like a bitch.

It now seems to be happening to my daughter who is 7 (almost 8) in primary 3, in this friendship 'group' it seems to be her and two other girls and periodically the two other girls will leave her out, fall out with her etc. However, she does still have play dates with one of them and they get on fine during that.

I wonder if i am projecting my experiences on to my daughter but more frequently than not she will come home from school and say, 'me and friend had a fall out but I don't want to talk about it' so I never get details and it is always the same friend, she doesn't fall out with anyone else. Whenever I suggest playing with another group of kids she maintains that this girl is her best friend.

What causes these issues in specifically girls? Is it an issue with the person that's being left out? Or an issue with the person leaving them out? Do ALL children go through this? I just find it strange that we've both had the same type of experience.

'Why the hell are people accusing Sonny of being horrible? '

Not 'horrible' just rather naive, blinkered and simplistic. 'Buy deodorant' 🙄

Sonny, and others congratulating their list here's a tip, stop blaming the excluded and start blaming the excluders. I bet we all have stories of how the mouthy, attention seeking little shits get the leads in school plays for example. Stop enabling it.

If a child or adult is unaware of bad BO and doesn’t have a family member’s support to resolve it, how can this be tackled? Can a teacher pull a child aside for a discreet chat or is that overstepping a boundary? It can be an issue in the workplace too?

@GreyhoundG1rl

How have you been insulted, op?

Very interested in this also.

Also amused by the double standard of insulting a poster (horrible woman) while claiming to have been insulted herself.

@GreyhoundG1rl well she's lying for one. I never admitted that my daughter excluded another girl, I simply repeated what she'd said to me in a private conversation, the girl is none the wiser and she certainly isn't excluding her as she's too preoccupied with these two other girls and the drama that comes with. The OPs 'little angel' I never said or insinuated that my child is a little angel, I also stated in my OP that I am aware I am only hearing my child's side of the story so yes, she may be doing something to get excluded, but since the teacher says everything is fine how am I meant to know it? It's just passive aggressive bullshit I don't need on a thread about my child being excluded and especially not from a teacher.

@pinkmagnolias

If a child or adult is unaware of bad BO and doesn’t have a family member’s support to resolve it, how can this be tackled? Can a teacher pull a child aside for a discreet chat or is that overstepping a boundary? It can be an issue in the workplace too?

Sometimes in the senior classes a general class chat can work - you know, after PE or something reminding them about how important it is to use deodorant. You can sometimes see it click with certain children who just haven't heard that before.

If that didn't do it, I'd get in touch with the parents. Common enough problem in older primary tbqh.

@SionnachRua it's an observation much like her list.

One of my dd's ex-friends is probably feeling very excluded at the moment. I'm sure that her mum has been told that all of her friends are ignoring her and leaving her out of stuff, because that is how the kid perceives the situation.

The reality is a bit more complex. The girl in question is sadly very insecure, and this leads her to be very possessive and controlling towards her friends. She cannot bear them talking to other people and wants 100% of their attention 100% of the time. DD tried to explain a couple of years ago that she really liked x, and wanted to be her friend, but that she liked other people too and wanted to maintain other friendships too. DD wasn't ditching her friend to spend time with these other kids, she encouraged her friend to join in with the wider group. Her friend didn't like that, though, and felt that dd was being disloyal by wanting to spend time with other people. Ultimately, she claimed that dd wasn't "prioritising" her enough, and they grew apart. Since then, she has managed to alienate the only other friends she had, by attempting to control their access to other people. I'm pretty sure that her mum probably thinks that the other kids are being mean and leaving her dd out, but sadly, it's the dd's own behaviour that is driving the situation.

Your child said another child was weird, and declined to play with her on that basis 🤷🏻‍♀️
It doesn't really matter whether it led to an excluding event in this instance, does it? You have a reason why it might, right there on your own doorstep.
How are you not seeing this? And calling someone a "horrible woman" for pointing it out?

We always instilled in our dc the importance of not being controlling with friendships and they have never had any issues. I monitored their sm when younger and saw exactly how they interacted so am 100% sure they haven't ever excluded others.

If other parents did this, cast a cursory eye over their dc sm they would see how their dc behave and interact. It isn’t hard.

some of it is just being kids, they don't have the experience or emotional maturity do deal with disagreements or socially challenging situations and so they fall out and make up because they haven't learned balance and compromise, and also just trying things on, either modelling adults or experimenting with the reactions they get from behaving certain ways

[quote garnierfruit]@SionnachRua it's an observation much like her list. [/quote]
Now that's just ridiculous .

@GreyhoundG1rl yes of course it matters whether it leads to an excluding event. Are you telling me my child telling me in a private conversation that she finds another girl weird as just as bad as bullying said girl? Of course it's not. Also unsure why I'm explaining myself to you  I'm sure @SonnyWinds can speak for herself.

'The OPs 'little angel' I never said or insinuated that my child is a little angel, '

It was an awful sneering comment op, an example of how some teachers view our kids. We can only hope the pp is a minority and not representative of secondary school teacher's very basic critical thinking.

[quote garnierfruit]**@GreyhoundG1rl* yes of course it matters whether it leads to an excluding event. Are you telling me my child telling me in a private conversation that she finds another girl weird as just as bad as bullying said girl? Of course it's not. Also unsure why I'm explaining myself to you  I'm sure @SonnyWinds* can speak for herself. [/quote]
You're just not getting it, are you?

@GreyhoundG1rl are you actually sonnywinds? If not, are you okay? You seem very protective over an anonymous poster.

I'd get in touch with the parents
What reaction do you get? The issue can be with (lack of) laundry and not enough shirts/tops though to enable frequent/daily change of clothes.
Then they try to mask smells with strong smelling body sprays....

Sonny's list is based on observation.

As someone else who' worked with teenagers and also was one, I think it's pretty accurate. If you think it isn't you really are fooling yourself.

Look, I think it's perfectly obvious that @SonnyWinds was giving a list of reasons that she has heard from excluders that they have excluded an excludee. She wasn't victim blaming, she was saying, "This is what the excluders have told me." I've reported some posts I think are just name calling and don't add anything productive to the discussion for MNHQ to have a look at.

Sadly, I think there is a lot of truth in @SonnyWinds' list. It doesn't make for great reading, and it can be hard as a parent to face the reality that your dc might be doing something to contribute to the problem, but sometimes that truth needs to be faced in order to help them effectively.

Back to the discussion... I'd be really interested to hear from parents about tricky instances of navigating the line of allowing their kids to do something just to fit in. My kids are very young but I know I'll struggle with where to draw the line in the future. I'm not having them watching 18 films at 13 just because "everybody does it" or going out in their underwear, but there will obviously be some times when they want to do something that I don't really think they should but maybe I should let it go so they don't stand out. Like watching a sweary but non-sexual 15 film at 13 with their friends, or dressing in somewhat revealing clothes.

I agree with pp that a “classic” reason for exclusion is right infront of you

Your daughter doesn’t want to play with a girl who is “weird”.

So do you need to address this?
Does she need to play with “weird” girl?

Or are you not going to convince/force her to? In which case, I think you have the perfect example of you and your daughter being complicit in the cycle of exclusion.

Sonnywinds listed her observations.

Good grief JaniieJones. Try reading what is actually written, and not putting some sort of odd interpretation on to it.

This thread is turning into Groundhog Day.

GreyhoundG1rl is right.
Not sure why you ( garnierfruit ) are implying anything about who she is, just because she is defending another poster who has made some valuable contributions to this thread.

Obviously none of us have any idea about your particular dd nor her friends. People are offering their experiences of life - people whose dc have been through this stage and people who deal with it year in and year out as teachers or other school staff. There are almost always at least two sides to any story. Often, a parents will only see it from the side of their dc and not realise there are other factors at play.

@pinkmagnolias

I'd get in touch with the parents What reaction do you get? The issue can be with (lack of) laundry and not enough shirts/tops though to enable frequent/daily change of clothes. Then they try to mask smells with strong smelling body sprays....

Oh like almost anything school related, it depends on the parents tbqh. It's a sensitive subject for sure but I've had to contact parents about a few awkward topics over the years (a child getting into online fanfiction writing was a recent highlight). They'll either be open to hearing what you say and work on the issue or kick up a fuss. But usually a class chat is all I'd need.

In the age group I teach, it's generally been that they just aren't using deodorants rather than not washing clothes. During the year they just start to develop BO, which would be more noticeable after PE and parents may not realize the change. Haven't had issues with them not washing clothes myself but I know it's a problem in other schools.

Most of time it's jockeying for position and ime boys do this as much as girls.

Re body odour, it doesn't help. It certainly didn't help a friend's DD when friend thought her DD was "too young to be exposed to chemicals". By the time friend considered her old enough the social damage had been done.