To ask if school mum cliques upset you, or how do you deal with cliques?

[facefit]

I'm new to school, my child is in reception. I've noticed that there are cliques forming.

How do you deal with it? Or just completely ignore?

In any other situation no one would have an issue with a group of friends not including people they didn’t know.

I don't have any qualms about people building friendship groups and not inviting others in. I did say that in my first post. The post you quoted was in response to the accusation of, snobbery I suppose, that people look down on school friendship groups. I don't do that either.

Although it is my experience that these friendships are time limited and they drift apart. Now maybe you have a group of mum friends who continue to invest in that friendship when the kids move to secondary - I'd say that wasn't the norm at all.

Once people get beyond the convenience of picking each others kids up from school, needing to facilitate their children's friendships in a more concrete hosting and ferrying about manner, helping each other remember key dates or forgotten homework - it fades. That's fine too, but if you think this is a friends for life situation - you might find yourself a bit cheated by the time y7 comes around.

There is a vast difference between people who are genuine friends and people who make WhatsApp groups and then bitch about other people or try to shut others out. There are frequently threads about those sorts of situations.

I totally get you!

I tended to talk to loads of different mums at the school gates as opposed to getting into a “friendship group”, I just felt I wasn’t one of those who needed to be part of a group. I also looked out for the ones often standing on their own and befriended them.

Some groups were just so huddled up together it wasn’t always easy to try and join…

A friend belongs to a health spa and often finds she’s outside of the friendship groups coz she feels more comfortable not being part of the weekly coffee mornings, meals out, etc..It can all get quite intense and it feels good to be independent of that.

Thet are not cliques, they are just people who already know each other, maybe the kids were at nursery together, or other toddler groupss or perhaps they have older kids at the school. Or maybe they didn't know each other before but are making an effort to get to know their kid's new friend's parents.

So you either make an effort to ingratiate yourself with the other parents, which makes school life easier, friendship groups easier for your kids, play dates, info re school, help with picking up, organising parties, finding out about clubs after school, lift sharing or just passing the time. Or don't bother and keep yourself to yourself.

I moved to a new area for schools for my kids and my best friends are parents from school.

@FourTeaFallOut well we’ve got to year 6 from reception so we’re not doing too badly, and our kids will probably all go to the same senior school. However our DC aren’t all friends now, they’ve branched out into different friendships in their year. We’re still friends as mums regardless of who our DC are friends with. I don’t see why my kids being in year 7 would stop any of us socialising outside of school.

There is a a snobbishness about mum groups. ‘I just keep my head down and drop off’, ‘I don’t need to make new friends, I’ve got friends already’. Wtf is that about? It’s so unnecessary.

I find making friends bloody hard, I hate small talk and really had to put myself out there, it paid off. Maybe some playgrounds are worse than others.

Thet are not cliques, they are just people who already know each other, maybe the kids were at nursery together, or other toddler groupss or perhaps they have older kids at the school.

A clique isn’t people who already know each other or are already friends though. It’s people who still behave like school children and it absolutely does go on in all areas of life. So I don’t know why some people are so determined to undermine the experiences of others. (Maybe they are the sort of people who do this and reading about it touches a nerve?)

Although the OP hasn’t clarified what she means.

I think if you think this you have never actually encountered a clique.

I'm a pretty straightforward person as able as the next person to smooth over behaviour I might find uncomfortable in the moment but which probably has other causes. I've also been subject to some really childish and bitchy behaviour at the school gate. As an example of something quite conclusive I think that if someone asks you a small-talk based question it's not polite to laugh hysterically and call your mates over, repeat the question and laugh together over what is clearly an in-joke. I didn't care on a deep level because I already had older kids and had made friends at school when they were little, but it was bloody offensive in the moment. Had I been feeling more delicate at the time it would have really upset me. As it stood it was just evidence it was them, not me.

Why do you care?

Just a bunch of losers with too much time on their hands.

A couple of years ago my daughter heard a 'parent' exclaim "OMG I can't believe she's expecting again, she's only got a three bedroom semi."

This was about my daughter who was just starting to show with her third child.

That is from a clique.

Don't know whether the comment was from a 'parent' or an out and out bitch.

Cliques are more common than people here are admitting.

My daughter passes the time of day with others who are stood on their own at the school gates and now knows quite a few mums who she will go to talk to if they are there.

My daughter also now has a loft extension which turned her house into a 4 bedroom/two en-suite/additional work room, semi detached family home and her children now have a bedroom each.

Meanwhile clique bitch is expecting a fourth child and lives in a three bedroom semi. 🙄

You'll find plenty at the school gates who you will be able to pass the time of day with OP. Avoid the cliques.

Spot on.

I'm in one of these "cliques" I guess. Me and 3 other mums, we all have one child in reception and the other in Y3 so we've known each other for several years. When my DS1 started reception I didn't know many people, now my DS2 has started I know several. It doesn't mean we are unfriendly. Just go up and talk to someone on their own if you want to try making friends. It's how we all started.

My daughter passes the time of day with others who are stood on their own at the school gates and now knows quite a few mums who she will go to talk to if they are there.

So she's in a clique too now then?

No - because she doesn't stand with the same tribe day in day out.
🤔

There really is a difference between friends stood chatting and cliques that develop into "mean girls" where people are excluded for background reasons and it becomes so encompassing that children are also excluded.

By this I mean parents trying to control childrens' friendship groups so they only have play dates/socialise with those deemed acceptable within the clique. When previously friendly enough women dont really want to know you any more and you wonder what you have done (before moving on swiftly). When they isolate other parents and even staff and I have even been asked "what are you talking to her for..." or asking what we were talking about. It has escalated into staff being isolated and their appearance, dress etc openly bitched about. This level of clique usually implodes in due course but it really can become on a par with classroom bullying sadly. Some people never leave the playground.

When people talk about cliques excluding others, what are you being excluded from? Why would someone I'm not friends with include me in their plans?

My eldest is in year 4 and have about 4 parents that I'm friends with through my children, I wouldn't ignore someone but wouldn't invite a parent I wasn't friends with to the pub.

Just get on with your own school run, if you want to make friends a good place to start is chatting to parents of kids your children are friendly with, join the PTA or say hello to someone who looks friendly.

@MyOtherCarIsAPorsche why is it a bad thing if someone stands with the same people every day? Why wouldn't you catch up with friends if you're going to the same place every day?

Is it a ‘clique’ or is it just groups naturally forming because the kids are the becoming friends, the parents are similar ages, or they know each other from the neighbourhood or school?
mever understood this whole ‘clique’ thing that’s supposed to exists. At our kids schools you end up knowing some parents better than others through the kids usually…
no-one round here has time for cliques, they have jobs, lives, other kids to deal with

I've never spoken to anyone at the school gates, mine's only been there three weeks though, but I'm not interested to be honest. I have friends, I don't want to make friends at school.

Lots of dads do pick ups too… I can’t imagine someone looking at 4 dads chatting and thinking ‘clique’…

To me a clique implies specifically that they shun outsiders and don't readily let others join in their conversations or activities.

Exactly…

Yes it's sexist nonsense

@bingbummy what activities should I be including people I don't know in? If I have a party, play date or trip to the pub do I have to invite all other school parents?

@Mardyface

As an example of something quite conclusive I think that if someone asks you a small-talk based question it's not polite to laugh hysterically and call your mates over, repeat the question and laugh together over what is clearly an in-joke. I didn't care on a deep level because I already had older kids and had made friends at school when they were little, but it was bloody offensive in the moment.

I mean... obviously I wasn't there so I can't be sure. But FWIW I would be astonished if this was meant maliciously:

a) Just because people have in jokes doesn't mean they are your enemy. It means they are laughing at something with their mates which they know their mates will find funny. It's a bit gauche and childish and I probably wouldn't do it but its not evidence of a conspiracy. In jokes are bemusing to outsiders and it's mildly bad manners but they aren't evidence that someone is deliberately trying to hurt you.
b) What are the chances that some random women who you barely know actually wanted to hurt you or had the time or energy to do so? What possible purpose would that serve? Chances are they don't even know each other that well so they won't have had time to get together and say: "ooh, you know the mum of that girl in 4b, lets all gang up on her?" Human beings just aren't usually that organised.
c) In the highly unlikely event that it actually was meant maliciously the correct response is to just walk off and think screw them. Why on earth would you devote any brain space to randoms who are trying to hurt you? No one can afford to devote headspace to this sort of thing.

Some of our closest friends are from primary school and nursery still. Undoubtedly, we stood chatting together and didn't always include everyone else in our conversations. Why would we? If we were discussing our forthcoming joint family's holiday, for example, it would be inappropriate to have someone else just stood there. If someone was upset or new, we'd generally make sure we said hello and asked a few questions, but they might or might not become friends.
Now I am still in regular contact with those friends; we still meet up, go on city breaks rather than Centre Parcs and have supper parties or meals out. Some other parents I would stop and say hello to in the street and ask after the children, some I would nod and smile at and some I would cross the road to avoid. It's not cliqueness, its simply that I prefer some people to others because we have more in common, more shared values and have more regular contact so stay connected.
I don't hold with the idea that children should be told to play with everyone either - they need to learn to be a little discerning in friendships and choose people who are nice to them, who want the same sort of things from life and who want to share in various aspects of their life.