Moms role in social engineering in Middle School

[Anonymous]

I have read a bunch of threads lately where posters accused parents of being too involved in their tween and teen kids social lives when the parent says they are worried about their child and their child's social life. There are lots of "when I was a kid" and " let kids figure out" and " once kids hit middle school it doesn't matter because they pick their own friends."

I used to be one of those posters but then my DD hit middle school this year and I realized that the parents - overwhelmingly moms - are still very much involved in social politics and engineering for their kids and it does lead to exclusion in out of school socializing even when the kids themselves would like to hang out.

I came across this article today that explains and lays out scenarios of how it happens :
http://community.today.com/post/being-left-out-hurts-lets-stop-social-engineering-now?cid=sm_fbn

[Anonymous]

Some of those moms are nuts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of those moms are nuts

+1000. They are bat shit crazy. I wish they could see how ridiculous they are. It sucks that you're still finding it in MS, OP. It will stop sometime - these parents can't arrange their kids' college experience to be just so.

The point of the article is be the parent who encourages your kid to be inclusive, which is a great message. Also, when your child is left out, teach them strategies to cope. The kids of the social engineers are not going to have any idea how to live as adults in a society in which mom doesn't make things happen for them. Your child will.

[Anonymous]

I have a daughter in middle school and have not seen this AT ALL. Not saying it doesn't happen, but may well be more exception than rule.

[Anonymous]

I'm seeing in happen ~ not yet to my kids, but from some of the more awful Moms who I know through my gym and country club. Terrible women.

[Anonymous]

The class/caste system is alive and well in America. Its so un-American too. We fought to do away with this, didn't we?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The class/caste system is alive and well in America. Its so un-American too. We fought to do away with this, didn't we?

Given that we enshrined the owning of people in the US Constitution, I would say that no, we didn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The class/caste system is alive and well in America. Its so un-American too. We fought to do away with this, didn't we?

Given that we enshrined the owning of people in the US Constitution, I would say that no, we didn't.

Thanks for the ignorant statement of the day.

[Anonymous]

Very sad. I teach middle school in MoCo (sick today) and it is rampant at my "W" feeder. Parents request schedule schedule changes to keep cliques together and all the Queen Bees in one class. Then I have to split up "the Squad" whenever we have group work or nothing gets accomplished except idle chatter and mean gossip. As a result, I get emails saying "Larla, Larlina, and Larlette are really upset that you won't let the work together. They have been BFFs since they were in pre-school and over the years have developed a very special way of working together. Having to adjust to other group members' learning styles cost all three girls a lot of valuable work time today."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The class/caste system is alive and well in America. Its so un-American too. We fought to do away with this, didn't we?

Given that we enshrined the owning of people in the US Constitution, I would say that no, we didn't.

Thanks for the ignorant statement of the day.

What's ignorant about it? A lot of the "Founding Fathers" owned people -- including Thomas Jefferson. Is slavery not a class/caste system?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very sad. I teach middle school in MoCo (sick today) and it is rampant at my "W" feeder. Parents request schedule schedule changes to keep cliques together and all the Queen Bees in one class. Then I have to split up "the Squad" whenever we have group work or nothing gets accomplished except idle chatter and mean gossip. As a result, I get emails saying "Larla, Larlina, and Larlette are really upset that you won't let the work together. They have been BFFs since they were in pre-school and over the years have developed a very special way of working together. Having to adjust to other group members' learning styles cost all three girls a lot of valuable work time today."

Oh wow, PP. What a fancy way of saying, "My daughter is mad because you wouldn't let her work with her friends."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a daughter in middle school and have not seen this AT ALL. Not saying it doesn't happen, but may well be more exception than rule.

Same here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very sad. I teach middle school in MoCo (sick today) and it is rampant at my "W" feeder. Parents request schedule schedule changes to keep cliques together and all the Queen Bees in one class. Then I have to split up "the Squad" whenever we have group work or nothing gets accomplished except idle chatter and mean gossip. As a result, I get emails saying "Larla, Larlina, and Larlette are really upset that you won't let the work together. They have been BFFs since they were in pre-school and over the years have developed a very special way of working together. Having to adjust to other group members' learning styles cost all three girls a lot of valuable work time today."

OP, good for you in standing ground against this terrible behavior. I cannot believe theses entitled parents have the audacity to send you such messages! Let me guess, they have the attitude that since they pay their property taxes(and your salary is paid for by property taxes), they believe you basically work for them.

[Anonymous]

This most definitely happens. There was one particular parent who engaged in "social engineering" for her daughter starting in elementary school. She left my daughter out to dry. She will never be forgiven for that. The mother suffers with lots of troubles now, and I do get satisfaction from that. My daughter went on to make other friends and is happy as a clam right now, but I do harbor lots of resentment for this mother and secretly wish evil upon her family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very sad. I teach middle school in MoCo (sick today) and it is rampant at my "W" feeder. Parents request schedule schedule changes to keep cliques together and all the Queen Bees in one class. Then I have to split up "the Squad" whenever we have group work or nothing gets accomplished except idle chatter and mean gossip. As a result, I get emails saying "Larla, Larlina, and Larlette are really upset that you won't let the work together. They have been BFFs since they were in pre-school and over the years have developed a very special way of working together. Having to adjust to other group members' learning styles cost all three girls a lot of valuable work time today."

Oh wow, PP. What a fancy way of saying, "My daughter is mad because you wouldn't let her work with her friends."

I think middle school and high school should be NO PARENT ZONES.

why do the schools still have PTAs and such for middle school and higher? really