DS is in Year 3 of a one form entry village school. There are 30 children in the class, 20 of them boys. The most popular child seems to change each year, but the child is drawn from a small group of the popular ones. DS is on the fringes of the cool and popular group. They put up with him, but he never gets invited round and never gets party invites.
There was a group of them in the playground today excitedly discussing the latest party and DS went up to them as he considers them all his friends, but was completely blanked as they shouted for the more popular boy, on his way over to them, to give him his invite.
So DS fits in alright, he says he's not left alone to play and that they include him. He plays football with the group after school once a week. Is there actually any way to make him more popular with them so he is part of the group more, or is it just completely arbitrary and nothing I can do to help?
Have tried inviting them round to play but the 'cool' kids DS really likes won't come. And I don't know how to make sure the play time is 'cool' enough as we don't have anything 'extra' to offer - they all have playstations/wiis/DSs/own TVs etc which we don't. I think we are not a 'cool' family so do I have to accept that DS will always be like this on the fringes not quite accepted?