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?

Kitsywitsy, they're not really randoms, they're part of your community

Yes, exactly.

If I'm stood chatting with a couple of friends, at school or anywhere else, it's ok for me to exclude you, a total stranger. That's just normal everyday behavior.

The question is why you would imagine we would include you in the first place? Can anyone answer this?

The cliques at ds' school were awful and they completely controlled the kids' friendships so the fact I wasn't in one wasn't good for him. But he did other activities and made friends through those. I wasn't prepared to suck up to the Queen Bees to be admitted to some witches' coven.

It continued to some degree in secondary school, it was only when ds went to sixth form college that we were finally free of it. I think that is very unusual though, we were just unlucky - the HT at ds' secondary school said our year group had unduly fussy parents in an indiscreet moment. And I bet he's seen it all, so they must have really been bad!

If I'm stood chatting with a couple of friends, at school or anywhere else, it's ok for me to exclude you, a total stranger. That's just normal everyday behaviour

Totally agree. What isn't ok is the following (and this actually happened):

(a) sitting waiting for a school event to start talking to a mum and another mum appears and tells me to get out of the way because she wants to sit next to the mum I was talking to. I did actually move, I think I was just so nonplussed.

(b) chatting to a couple of mums when Queen Bee waltzes up, interrupts as if I wasn't there and takes over the conversation. On that occasion I made a comment about being so rudely interrupted and continued my conversation.

Neither of those behaviours is normal.

As opposed to clique bitch who parks on her friend's drive so that they both wait for a further half dozen people before setting off en mass in order to claim their clique spot - because they stand in the same place day in day out.

You sound bitchier than the people you're talking about. Ironic!

One friendship group contained a mum who refused to smile/nod/wave/say hello to me, despite us living four doors away, with the same age children and the same walking route to school. She would always look away/look through me or start talking to her kiddies. Used to see her most days!

It just made me feel unsure about the other mums in her close-knit group …

I can relate to this and I was hoping to be free of this nonsense by secondary. Although the way some of the parents are still carrying on, I think we may be unlucky too.

We have experienced this. The children are now falling out and being quite unpleasant to each other. It is getting very awkward among the clique members now as the relationships are cordial, on the surface, but with a strained undercurrent.

I have literally never come across behaviour like this.

I wonder if its a small town thing? In cities people just don't have the luxury of behaving like this.

smile and say hi! I think you're going to have a more pleasant time if you don't overthink this. Start a conversation

All these people saying put yourself out there... have perhaps not had the experience of putting themselves out there continuously, smiling and nodding and being totally blanked.

I do not really care about making friends with the other mums. But I do care about my DC being excluded because the parental clique extends to the children.

And you are either lucky or niave to have never encountered a queen bee dynamic in your own life and think that these awful personalities do not relish in trying to manipulate playground friendships and encourage their children to do the same.

But smiling and nodding isn’t putting yourself out there. I think this is the key issue, you’re not the first to say it. I smile and nod, they don’t approach me. You need to make the effort. They are not going to come up to uou and say hey come talk to us you smiled and nodded.

Exclusion can be a form of bullying. However, by its very nature it's hard to prove and easy to deny. No one thinks you must talk to everyone. But I would say blanking someone who says hi to you is exclusion. Not inviting your child's friend to their party because you don't know or like the parent is exclusion too.

Agree with they're just forming a friendship group not a clique.

However some parents do end up friendly than other. At DS's school this ranged from only playdates with one or two - obviously suited the parents to some people going on holiday together. I made one good friend and several other friends at primary.

DS went to a different secondary from most of his class so I don't know if it still goes on.

Interestingly DS2 goes to a SN school and I don't know any of the parents! And he's never had a play date.

Merely commenting on the people and the behaviour which made my daughter's life very difficult for quite a long time.

They appear to have herd mentality.

Hmmm - herds of women who make bitchy comments about some women for other women to laugh about.

There's a lot on here that are denying this exists.

Hmmm 🤨 Safety in herds?

In terms of exclusion, there’s a big difference between ignoring someone when you don’t know who they are, and ignoring someone when you know exactly who they are - I actually don’t think this is ok in any social context but maybe I’m just old fashioned…

So how do you manage this, do you run around the school yard talking to every single child and adult? I’ve never seen anyone behave like that. And if you don’t then arguably you’re ignoring them as you know them and are not talking to them. What about in the supermarket. Do you run round every cashier you know.

It takes 2 seconds to say ‘hi’ to someone and smile 🙄

I agree. When mine have been in reception, we always invited everyone in the class to a party. As they get older they chose their own friends which is of course the norm. But certainly in reception I was always inclusive.

But most of the time people aren't deliberately "ignoring" someone. They're busy or they're talking to someone else or they are short-sighted or tired or depressed or they just have to get home. There are a thousand reasons someone might not smile or chat to you, most of which have nothing to do with you.

People always assume the worst possible motives to these little interactions. To suggest that someone blanking you amounts to "bullying", as someone else did upthread, is just an absurdly paranoid way of looking at the world.

Most people just wouldn't be able to get through the day if they were required to comply with the rules people demand in order not to be seen as "cliquey".

THIS!

I don't even notice, say hello, have a chat if anyone wants one, then go on with my day.

I don't even notice, and I couldn't care less...

Strongly agree with all of this. In fact, I’m sure I’ve agree with you before on this topic, @Thepeopleversuswork (I’m a regular name changer).

Some of the words being used on here - ‘cliques’, ‘bitches’, ‘bullies’, ‘witches’, ‘covens’, ‘queen bees’, ‘awful personalities’. And people wonder why others aren’t rushing to welcome them with open arms.

I’ve been doing kindy and school pick-ups for more than a decade and have moved on from the school gate, but I don’t recognise the behaviour described here by the so-called ‘excluded’ people at all.

Yes, of course I have witnessed groups of friends talking. But I haven’t viewed them as ‘witches’, ‘bitches’, ‘cliques’ or ‘covens’, any more than I would describe people meeting in the kitchen at work to chat in this way.

It is so bitter and, well, unfriendly.

It took me a good few years of persistently being friendly, and yes - actually putting myself out there with offers of play dates and birthday parties to really get to know people.

I now have some genuine friends who’ve gone from helping each other when needed, to being there for each other through some truly challenging times and who I think the world of. I wouldn’t be without them, and the school gates are a thing of the past.

But by all means, continue to think the worst of people, if it helps you to feel better about the situation.

Tbh i found school gate mums the most boring people to be friends with. Who wants to have competitive conversations about their offspring ?...so glad i don't have to stand around like a lemon making small talk nowadays.