Coping with Cliques
Conformity rules for 9 year olds, who just want to fit in.
In 4th grade, groups rule. They drive the culture at school dictating the styles kids wear, language (the words they use), the shows they watch, and the magazines they read. Cliques start forming in 4th and 5th grade, with their power peaking in middle school. Individuality is not rewarded or encouraged in upper elementary school (that won’t happen until high school), and being part of a group — the idea of safety in numbers — provides a degree of security.
The Quest to Belong
Degrees of Friendship
Kids Helping Kids
The Quest to Belong
Experts say human beings hate the experience of being left out or feeling different. As a result, kids that share ethnicity, gender, intellectual ability, and/or family background tend to flock together. Their conversations help them figure out the standards of their group and how to meet them.
According to psychologist Michael Thompson, Ph.D., the message of the group is this: You have to look and act this way or else we’ll reject you. And we might reject you even if you do it right. Younger children don’t see the diversity. To them, the entire class is a group. But older kids see differences in their classmates, and actively seek friendships with those most like themselves. “Groups can turn mean because defining other people as ‘different’ or ‘not like us’ helps their own group cohere,” says Thompson, who is also author of Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children (Ballantine). “It’s exciting to feel collectively powerful. That’s why friendship groups turn into cliques, and why cliques can be mean.”
Research conducted by professors John Coie of Duke University and Ken Dodge at Vanderbilt University established five types of kids: popular, accepted, rejected, controversial, and neglected. Although these distinctions begin to emerge in 3rd grade, they really take hold in 4th:
- Popular kids are socially skilled, academically strong, and well-rounded. Everyone wants to be their friend.
- Accepted kids are where the majority of children fit in. They are liked by their peers and do well academically.
- Rejected children are openly disliked and tend to be aggressive. They lack social skills and often have academic and family problems (e.g. divorce, alcoholism, and depression). School bullies come from this group.
- Controversial kids are liked by some but intensely disliked by others. They bring out divisiveness. As adolescents they engage in risky behavior — girls tend to be sexually active earlier; boys get into trouble with vandalism and truancy.
- Neglected kids aren’t liked or disliked. They fade into the background and have little social impact. They are, in a sense, invisible. Kids in this category tend to be academically high-achieving, but socially withdrawn. The more socially skilled have one or two friends, but are just as likely to be loners.
Degrees of Friendship
Since mutual respect and affirmation is so important at this age, group members constantly assess themselves against what’s acceptable by the group. “They need to know if they have what they’re supposed to have; if they’re all right,” says Thompson.
There’s an urgency in 4th grade — particularly among the girls — to know where they stand at all times. “They’re friends one day and not the next and their friendships have different levels,” says Mary Pat McCartney, elementary-level vice president of the American School Counselors Association. “Being friends isn’t enough. It’s more like: ‘Okay, we’re friends but exactly how much do you like me? Preteen girls base their self-esteem on the opinion of others.”
Boys use a different language to establish themselves socially. The language of the verbal put down — being quick-witted at the expense of your friends—wins boys popularity points. Being athletic doesn’t hurt, either. Even though 9 year olds are still little boys, crying in public is definitely not cool. When boys suffer socially, some act out in a physical way (pushing, shoving), and are less likely than girls to seek help from a school counselor.
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Kids Helping Kids
These days, elementary schools play an active role in teaching children the problem-solving skills they need to navigate the social seas. Some schools rely on school counselors to educate students. McCartney makes periodic classroom visits and conducts mini-lessons on everything from bullying to peer pressure, handling disappointment, and what it means to be a friend. If necessary, she pulls out small groups of children to help negotiate differences.
Training students to be mediators is another common approach. Upperclassmen (generally the 4th or 5th graders) are trained by the school’s counselor to work with younger kids when problems arise. McCartney says that student mediators have improved the social climate at her own school. “It works out wonderfully,” she says. “I’m careful not to set up peer mediators as bosses or directors. It’s not about authority. It’s about empathy. The mediators learn how to be good listeners and to brainstorm solutions.”
Other schools use outside programs to train staff in peer mediation. In the school my children attend, a program called Peace Pals targets kindergartners, 2nd, and 4th graders. Developed by the Princeton Center for Leadership Training, Peace Pals has several goals, among them: giving students greater competence in handling day-to-day dilemmas and creating a strong sense of community.
Program director Scott Albert says Peace Pals promotes kindness, cooperation, and communication. “It’s wonderful to see older children helping younger ones deal with difficult issues like disappointment and rejection. The younger children gain confidence from connecting with the older ones, and the older children get an early leadership experience. Everybody wins.”
In spite of the social drama teachers and counselors see played out in their schools every day, Yelena Malysheva, a special education teacher in the Los Angeles United School System, notes that a deeply felt altruism also manages to exist among the cliques, the peer pressure, and the competition. “There can be such a sweetness,” she says. “The girls empathize with each other. If a friend is in a bad mood, the others want to know what happened and what they can do to help.”
Thompson agrees. “At this age, children give one another a kind of support that parents can’t give. That’s why they seek each other out with such intense longing.”
Ann Matturro Gault, a freelance writer and the mother of four children, lives in Verona, New Jersey.
