Why is my son unpopular

[Whatfreshhorrorstoday]

My son is 6 and a half. He loves other kids and playing with friends but I’ve noticed other kids tend to pull away from him. In the school playground and at parties. They play with him a bit but he’s never the one being called to do something, or being asked to sit next to them. I can see my son is sad when it happens.

I’m not sure why he isn’t popular. He has similar interests to the other kids, dresses like them etc. He doesn’t seem to brag more than the others or whinge more.

I know people will tell me it’s normal and I can’t do anything but maybe my question is, how do I support him? and get through this myself? I feel so sad when I see him upset.

It might just be a passing thing, part of him and the other children growing and learning how to socialise and interact, but I do understand how hard it can be to watch a child struggle.

There's some articles here that might be of use.

https://www.ahaparenting.com/read/elementary-schoolers

https://www.ahaparenting.com/read/when-your-child-isnt-making-friends-in-school

Maybe arrange small play groups in your home (invite maybe 2 kids) as in a group that small it’s hard to exclude someone and you can observe how he interacts then.

Playdates is a great idea but as Theblacksheepandme and EliflurtleTripanInfinite suggest, keep to inviting one child only, at least to begin with. The two children will get to know each other better and there isn't the risk that two will band together against the third, which can happen.

He's very young still and learning all the time, he'll pick up more social graces as he gets older and more experienced.

My DS is an only but never had any problem sharing or taking turns as that's what I, as primary carer, did with him when he was tiny. He's autistic so has social communication issues because of that, but nothing to do with his being an only. Probably all children can have their moments depending on how they're feeling at the time?

When my son was younger I felt the same way. There was one boy "J" who was the most popular boy. Always invited to parties, always picked for sports, always had other kids hanging round with him. One day I was chatting his mum and she said she was so worried that he didn't have any friends, and felt he was on the outside of things. The exact opposite to what I saw! So I think it is a normal feeling.

My boy is 6, an only child, and very popular. I think this is because he is confident, funny, loud but sweet too. He loves football which helps.

I really put in the effort to maintain friendships for him ie play dates, class meet ups etc, hobby clubs.

I would definitely suggest organising some 121 play dates. Maybe get out of the house so less intense ie the park/soft play.

Try him out with some hobbies.

Also I think adults company helps too with confidence and socialising.

I’m sure he’ll be fine OP 💙

It’s a minefield op, sometimes kids don’t like if they ask can they play, sometimes kids assume they will. It could just be he’s going for kids who already had best friends- my son always headed for two boys who were cousins and neighbours! I’ve 4 kids, one knew nobody starting school and ended up a class favourite within weeks, one knew loads and only ‘found‘ his best friends When he was 8/9. This was after trying everything under the sun. Hugs op, it’s tough to watch but hopefully something will just click. Agree with some play dates/joining something other kids are in if he has any interest etc x

Out of interest, what do you mean by "certain children"? Interesting to see a TA putting children in boxes. How very professional of you.

@Theblacksheepandme you have a horrible attitude on this thread to people who don't agree with you.

I am around a lot of children for my career and get a feel to who is an only child with the majority of the time being correct.

That is my experience.

Hi op. I teach children of a similar age and wanted to reassure you that it actually quite rare for a child to be truly popular and it never really has anything to do with their clothes or how clever/sporty they are. There might be one such child in a class each year and the only way I can describe their success is that they're always always always laid back.

By this I mean - they don't enjoy other kids getting into trouble, they don't tell tales or even necessarily notice if someone does something 'wrong', they shrug off anything negative that happens to them (minor injury, someone calling them a name), they cheerfully take the broken biscuit or the short pencil or whatever.

Most kids just sit somewhere in the middle with a loose group of friends that they gravitate towards, sometimes falling out, sometimes playing with other people.

The genuinely unpopular kids, the ones where I have to make sure they're not alone at playtime, are usually demanding, sensitive, tell tales, complain about everything, expect to be everyone's priority.

But every child is an only child at some point so I don't understand this argument. The sentence really doesn't need the "only" bit in it!

@Icequeen01 no they're not. Only first children are an old child for a bit and for many first children they'll have a sibling before school age.

I went through similar with my oldest. I don't know if this will help, but, while he always struggled with friendships at primary school (it really is such a small pool of people who they are with for 7 years) he absolutely thrived when he got to secondary school with regards to friendships. It's absolutely heart breaking to watch your lovely child to struggle with friendships and i lost a lot of sleep over it, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I work in a preschool. The ones that seem popular with the most friends are the louder ones who are confident in themselves and who are happy to include everyone despite the fact they have their own friends. They are usually physically competent.

Some children are naturally more self contained and just get on with things, these children tend to have one or two closer friends but aren't popular but are settled and happy.

Some children come across as younger in behaviours and are more adult focused so don't seek out making friends until much later.

And others just have traits other children find tricky to deal with such as the child will over react, not want to share, get moody if they aren't chosen or their idea is rejected or they are bossy or overwhelming in some way.

Let me guess - slightly odd child who happens to be an only, you say it’s because he’s an only Vs slightly odd child who has a sibling, oh he’s a bit odd because of x,y,z..
It sounds like confirmation bias to me.

I think there's a lot of projecting here. Many posters seem to want their dc to be the popular one, even though they have friends. Mine were never popular, they had a few friends and were fine.
I don't have experience of secondary but I volunteered for years in primary and the most popular pupils aren't necessarily the ones you'd want your dc hanging around with!

@Whatfreshhorrorstoday invite the other children to your house for one on one playdates. Thats the best way to establish friendships

In me experience - only children with emotionally mature, positive parents tend to be popular and happy in life. Buy this would also apply to children with siblings surely ?

I was a primary teacher for many years and honestly couldn't have picked out the only children with any consistency without being told their family setup.

Just my experience after teaching hundreds of pupils, for what it's worth...

Dd2 was/is like this - she's 13 now.

Looking back it was a few things. She's not great at social cues and would come on too strong quite quickly. She's quite intense. She's a definite introvert so get stressed by a lot of social interaction although generally fine in small groups now.

At 13 she's now able to articulate what she wants and how she feels much better. She is anxious though (as am I albeit in a different way). Friendships have been tricky but she has a couple of friends and people at school get her and she seems happy with her levels of socialisation.

One of the mistakes I made/make is to expect her social life and success to look like mine. I was never a list popular but always had and wanted friends and company and was socially acceptable. When I was worried she was left out, she was actually ok on the edge of things. It's very hard to balance I find and only recently have I really started to back off.

I need to put them in boxes! I have compliant children, I have children masking. These children fall through the gaps because people don’t notice them. Information is not shared as it probably should be so you have to make assumptions sometimes.

I also need to be a robot to ignore the awful language coming my way. I also put those child’s into boxes depending on their family. It helps me to be curious and question changes.

Does this answer your question?

On the sport suggestion, dd is naturally sporty and we signed her up to a football team. This has helped not in terms of making her more popular but it's given her a hobby, made her mix with other girls away from her class (not great friends but they have a laugh and a WhatsApp group) and has given her a bit of confidence. She's learned a bit more about functioning in a group.

Wouldn't have worked if she wasn't sporty though, it only benefitted because her ability meant she fitted in. If she would have struggled it would have made things worse.

Oh and she's a twin. Had to learn to socialise and share since conception and still struggled

Completely agree with you.

The one word that's coming up a lot though is popular. My daughter when she was OP"s sons age would say to me "I really want to be popular". She would say it quite a lot, even though she had friends. I would just say to focus on being kind and inclusive towards everyone, and being popular wasn't the most important thing in life. I think even after our chats that she still just wanted to be popular.

She's now a teen and in secondary school the last few years She recognises a lot of the popular kids are definitely not the nicest. I think now she is older, she truly gets what I was trying to get her to understand.

It is more important for your children to focus on having good kind considerate friends and to also be good, kind and considerate themselves. The hell with being popular.

We all know even as adults that the popular people at work or other situations aren't necessarily the ones that make good friends. They tend to be great crack on a night out but are never there when you truly need them.

My daughter may not be popular but she is the first person her friends want to contact when they're upset. In fact she's thinking of going into Psychology because she wants to help people.

I have a friend that has twins, and she gets the outdated ideas of what twins should be like from people all the time. We understand the frustrations of people constantly wanting to label our kids and place them in boxes.

As a quieter child I can assure you I was never "in awe" of the loud, boisterous types at school. More like I felt mild disdain for them.

It's startling how much emphasis some parents put on their children being a) A-list popular, b) as early as primary school. It doesn't matter. What matters is how they turn out as adults, and honestly most of the "less popular" kids at my school are the ones who absolutely blossomed once they left school, and are still thriving (including me).

As PP have said, being popular in school is more about how loud and sporty you are - not how intelligent, kind or interesting you are. If you're not loud or sporty you won't be the most popular kid at school, but most of us were biding our time to leave all the loud, sporty kids behind and find our own people as adults. It's fine. Once you become an adult you realise that being popular at school didn't matter even a little bit. I'm surprised some parents haven't realised this themselves.

@gannett
You just answered my daughters question, on her not being popular in Primary School. She wasn't in awe of the loud boisterous types at school. She still isn't and pulls back from people like that.

People are getting very touchy over innocent comments on this thread!