DS needs strategy to deal with: "You can't be on our team, we're the cool kids"

[earNoseAndThroat]

My DS normally has no problems joining in with group play at school. He's sociable and fun-loving. However, he's also very sensitive, so when things go wrong he takes them to heart, gets tearful and loses sleep. I've bought him a couple of books on strategies for dealing with problems (this one and this one) which help us to talk about things - he's not a natural communicator and tends to bottle things up inside otherwise.

He's been very unhappy over the last week or so because of playground issues, and after a bit of gentle probing I manged to get some information out of him about one of the incidents (though I get the impression there are more). He said a lot of them had tennis rackets and were playing a game. But 3 boys said he couldn't join in with the "Cool Team", even though all his friends were in that group - they said he had to go on the "Loser Team" (which wasn't really a team at all by the sounds of it, but a group of girls and one or two boys doing their own thing).

It would have been nice if his good friends who were on the "Cool Team" would have stuck up for him, but either they didn't know what was going on or else their empathy skills didn't extend to doing anything about it.

DS said he was very proud of himself because instead of getting upset he used one of the strategies the books, and asked assertively, more than once, if he could join in. But they kept saying no, so eventually he gave up, feeling crushed.

He doesn't want me to talk to the teacher about this, so I would like to help him deal with it in his own way. Any expert suggestions? The 3 boys are all nice enough kids, and normally everyone plays together - for some reason they've just decided to exclude him and he doesn't know why.

[jeee]

Couldn't he have just played with the "Loser Team" - who presumably don't want that label any more than your son does?'

If he did this with a 'that's what I was going to do, anyway' attitude, he'd be much more in control of the situation. And he'd have given some support to the "Losers".

[BomChickaMeowMeow]

I think the best strategy is to find someone else to play with. Also worth him having a quiet word with the teacher- not so the boys can be spoken to individually but the teacher might want to give the class a talk about leaving people out unfairly. Or if he doesn't want to do that he could write the teacher a note.

Also explain to him that why kids do this is because of their own problems- perhaps feeling insecure, jealous of him, problems at home. Try to keep his own self-esteem high.

Good lessons to learn that it is worth speaking up, and not to bother with people who are mean to you.

[earNoseAndThroat]

p.s. He's 10

[earNoseAndThroat]

Thanks Bom - yes to "Also explain to him that why kids do this is because of their own problems". I pointed out that all 3 of them have big brothers or sisters who might be mean to them at home, so they take it out on random kids at school. (My DS is the eldest of 2, so less sophisticated).

The school's normally pretty good on pastoral issues - S.E.A.L is a big part of the curriculum, and they're reading "There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom" by Louis Sachar at the moment, which deals with bullying and exclusion issues. Unfortunately, the long lunchtime break is a teacher-free zone, and the playground supervisors aren't necessarily sensitive to friendship issues. That seems to be when these problems occur.

[Kenlee]

Hmmm I think to much is given to be with the popular group. Which must be said is only popular cos they have control.

My daughter dealt with the popular girls in her school. By saying ok....So she went and played with the "unpopular" girls. Unfortunately for the "popular" girl is that their IQ are lower so therefore their EQ is appropriately low.

Now that people see the Queen bee as bossy. They tend to join the nice group. Where the rules are everyone has to be nice to everyone. End of year Queen bee has a small but loyal group of 3 girls. The rest just leave them alone and play with each other.

Now that she is in Middle school and has reunions with her primary school friends. Queen bee is texting her can she be her friend as no one will go with her. So friendship groups will change.

Once in middle school again their are the popular group the nerd group and unfortunately the no friends group. My daughter being a nerd found the popular group a waste of time. Yet I haven't convinced her yet to be good friends with the no friend group yet. She is nice but really haven't been cross group friendly. Which in itself is worrying.

The strategy is not to submit to be popular. The rule is to go out and find real friends not fake ones.

[juicybelle]

I always say to my dd (who has been really bullied this year) - "when you're feeling happy, do you ever feel like being unkind to someone?" which obviously she answer "no" - then I say "well, these people must be feeling a bit unhappy in some way". Just so that she understands it's their burden to carry and not hers.

It makes sense to her and she does get it, even though it's hard to comprehend power trips at their age.

I recommend something like karate because it is a great atmosphere to be in, where everyone supports you - and the belts are quite impressive! He wouldn't care anymore what a few controlling kids said anymore x