Children picking their own teams

[Alifemoreordinary123]

AIBU to think this is old fashioned and not the best way to do stuff?

My DD struggles with school, she has some ND traits and finds the girls relationships and dynamics really hard. They’re doing a challenge at school and have asked the children to self select teams of between 3-6. Immediately, the popular extroverts were selecting their people, with all the others wanting to group with the popular ones. My daughter isn’t in these little groups and actually had her own idea for a project but no one wants to be in her team, consider her project or will listen to her. It’s basically a popularity contest.

I’m supporting her to acknowledge but dial down how hard this feels for her. She’s upset, not sleeping and generally this is making her feel sad. It’s not the most important thing in the world but it feels like one thing after another atm.

Is it unreasonable to expect schools to allocate groups in this day and age given that adults of old have fed back on mass that being left out is horrible and has a detrimental impact on confidence and input from less popular kids?

They knew who the sporty or popular kids were. Nobody needed to tell them.

I mean why wouldn’t they choose the sporty kids first for a team sport?

Can't believe teachers still do the "wait of shame" as classmates choose their own teams.

Perhaps because they might like to chose who they want and know how it feels to be left out

This!! Why would you want to pick someone who can't catch a ball in a cricket team, or someone who is tone deaf if it involves singing etc.

And yet IME most times they picked the same kids in roughly the same order as the ‘popular/sporty’ kids did.

I do think in the case of popularity there’s usually equal parts wanting to fit in/hoping that the popular kid will remember notice/pressure to do what’s ’expected’. But outside of the example of picking the best friend kids by and large behaved the same.

But all the kids in the group will need to be in one of the teams so why does it matter

Because it’s not just about winning?

says no one ever 😂

Then people wonder why kids who aren't "sporty" hate physical activity and end up obese or unfit? School sports should cater for all. We need less emphasis on "team" sports and more emphasis on general keeping fit and activities - rather than team sports, kids should have the choice to do other things, like gym where they can do their own thing.

Tell that to the sporty kids who are often obsessed with winning!

Adults are dividing anyone. It’s just stating facts. Some children are naturally popular and some less so and some really struggle with social skills and end up constantly left out which is damaging to their self esteem. Teachers can easily mitigate this by selecting groups, rather than allowing children to do it themselves. Also means they can split up trouble makers and put together those who will work better with each other. It’s also good for life skills to get children working with a brush selection of people not just people they like. Especially good for those children who are popular and have good social skills to given the opportunity to develop these further by learning to work with different types if proof. So it s a win win whichever way you look at it.

Well, winning for a sporty but not smart kid might be the only win they get in school 🤷‍♀️

Totally agree

i hate team sports

but wouldn’t mind doing dance or individual sports or ice skating

I did like volleyball though

I think she needs to learn this is how the world is. She sounds autistic to me. Unfortunately she’s always going to find this stuff difficult. I don’t think teachers need to be picking groups. It’s a bit of a life lesson, even if a difficult one.

They absolutely should be picking their own teams by 8/9 it's part of development. Also by 8/9 they know their peers they know who they'll work well with and who they don't get along with.
Has a ND girl I absolutely hated it at school when the teachers chose the teams because they'd invariably split up friendship groups and we'd always end up in groups of people who we'd never interact with otherwise and had no desire to interact with. As someone who found it hard enough to talk in the friendship group I already had; being forced to work with others often sent me into what would now be described as autistic crisis.

At this age i think its easier if the teacher picks. However as kids get older its really important to teach them not to blindly chase a popular child who doesn't like them and whom they often have little in common with. Eg instead of A, B,C & D all desperately trying to get in a group with popular E, who has friends F,G & H she will usually prefer, A,B,C & D need to notice each other!!!

Parents can help with this.... they are as bad as kids for desperately chasing for a play date with the confident, popular, typically middle class kid, when perhaps their child would stand a better chance at friendship with a more overlooked other member of the class.

Ive had this from both ends. My eldest is tall, confident, popular, one of the older ones in the class. He has two friends he's been close with since age 4, they are always his first choice if picking groups etc. We constantly get random requests for playdates with children he barely knows, never plays with etc.
By contrast younger DC is short, young in year, less obviously popular. If i ask who she wants over to play, she tends to name a couple of the oldest, most popular confident girls, rather than naming the lovely slightly quieter girl the teacher says she actually plays happily with at school! This is despite her often coming out hand in hand with this quieter girl & going to the same dance classes etc.

It took her easily a year or two to stop gravitating to girls who never actually played with her and weren't especially nice to her, purely because they were confident "leaders". I did a lot of talking ti her about who she actually enjoyed playing with, found fun, who was kind to her etc. I also asked the teacher who she played with and tried to invite those kids to play rather than simply inviting the obvious popular kids.

I hate this for your daughter. I think it's the kind of thing that old school teachers say "prepares them for life" but it doesn't does it, because A) they don't have the emotional resilience of adults so it leaves them feeling fearful of group projects, not prepared for them and B) actually, when as an adult have you been in a situation at work where everyone picks their best mates to work with - never! Project teams are always selected based on skill and competence, not popularity.
I have the same thing with pe, my son is dyspraxic and I want him to learn that sport keeps us fit, healthy (physically and mentally) and it doesn't matter if you're bad at it, it matters that you have fun. School pe at his primary school was basically a massive competition with him constantly being last - and it just doesn't reflect the real world, lots of people walk the park run and chat with their friends and don't care that they're last, nobody at geriatric walking football gets ranked by ability or picks their team or excludes anyone, nobody in the gym is logging your times. It's all about enjoying it and being as healthy as you can be.
It's mad that children get treated worse than adults when they're less able to cope with it.
I don't think there's a lot you can do about it, the school will say it's teaching them life skills, you could ask them to encourage any left out other children to join her, or do some social engineering to support her a bit.

Yes it’s tricky and unpleasant but it’s also how the world works - everything is some kind of popularity contest and making your peace with it and learning how to cope and learning how to sell the skills you do have are all important skills

editing to add - if you don’t learn these skills at school you won’t become a resilient adult

Not disagreeing on that either.

But in reality the kids who weren't going to be picked are generally ignored by the rest of the group who don't want them there. You can " force" these groups together but you cannot make them interact well

I'm in my forties and still hate when at work events we are told to group ourselves into teams. I can imagine a 17 year old struggling as much with this as an 8 year old. Maybe even more.

I really feel for your daughter (and for you... I feel so bad for my dd when I see her being left out).

Is your dd not in a team now? I'd have thought if she couldn't find a team the teacher would allocate her to one or how else would she do her work? She might not be able to work on the topic she wanted but even if the team selection had been done differently or by the teacher her allocated team might not have wanted to adopt her idea.

Apologies. I posted before reading your replies. I'm glad she has found a team.

I totally agree with you. I don't think this is needed. On the contrary. At work you more often than not have to get along and collaborate with people you haven't chosen yourself so it's not like it's a great learning experience.

I also don't think there is anything wrong with saying that some kids are more popular than others and that school is a lot more pleasant and easier if you are one of the popular kids. It doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the popular kids or that they shouldn't be popular. Popular kids often have good social skills, are confident and extroverted and all these are qualities to be lauded and shouldn't be discouraged but the school has to operate in a way that kids who lack these skills or for whatever reason struggle with their classmates can also thrive.

Yanbu it's always going to make it difficult and embarrassing and stressful for the unpopular children.

The more malicious posters won't understand this though. It's quite often the nasty kids who are most popular because the other children don't want to be on the wrong side of them. They grow but they don't change!

You've sort of proved my point there. School sports shouldn't be entirely about winning imo.

I'm not referring to things like inter-school sports fixtures, where obviously those who are talented and keen can get the opportunity to develop their abilities. That's very important. But day-to-day lessons also provide the opportunity to learn the true value of teamwork, including acceptance that everyone has different levels of ability, and how to encourage those who are less talented to develop whatever ability they do have. Instead of which (unless things have drastically changed since I was at school) the popular/sporty are allowed to clique up and a blind eye is turned to humiliation/bullying of the less able. I and other kids used to regularly get screamed at by classmates in sports lessons over our shortcomings and the teachers would be aware but do precisely nothing about it. Is that really the way to model the value of teamwork?

If you ask me, the ethos should be 'play to win, but try to learn from it if you don't.' Teachers can do a lot to facilitate this, but unless things have changed since my school days, they simply don't bother. There are all sorts of learning opportunities in team sports, but all my experiences gave me was a lifelong hatred of sport, alongside (until I left school anyway) low self-esteem due to teachers allowing me to be bullied for my shortcomings.