The athletes, the cheerleaders, the theatre buffs and the yearbook
club.
Every middle school and high school has its cliques.
“You have the cliques that hang out together because they share
certain interests; these students often help foster each other’s
development and are usually not a problem,” says Rochelle Harris, PhD,
clinical psychologist with Children’s Mercy Hospitals and
Clinics. “Then you have the groups of kids who are actually excluding
other kids and bullying; this is much more of a problem. The size of
the school is a major variable of cliques. If you have a big school,
there are more kids for a student to befriend, but if it’s a small
school, there is a larger chance that a student can be excluded.”
Dr. Harris says cliques can affect each child differently.
“If your child has a great support system and a group of real good
friends, then the clique they are excluded from may not be such a big
deal,” Harris says. “That child is more interested in their tight
group of friends to let it affect them.”
Dr. Harris offers these tips:
- Keep the lines of communication open: If you’re child opens up
about his run in with a clique, listen. Don’t pressure him to talk
about it.
- Don’t try to fix it without your child’s permission: Don’t
call the school or the other students’ parents. As the parent, you need
to respect her wishes to just listen and be there for her to talk to.
She will let you know when she needs someone to intervene.
- When it’s time to step in: If your child is really miserable
and it’s damaging his well being, explain your concerns to your child,
and contact your child’s school to discuss how to resolve the issue.
Don’t try to resolve it yourself.
“When it’s genuine bullying, it’s not beneficial for the victim to
try to stop it on her own,” Dr. Harris says. “The school needs to get
involved, but how that is done needs to be very careful. If you crack
down too hard that child can be bullied even more.”
