How to raise “popular” kids?

[Anonymous]

J. Bezos is still struggling with the trauma of being ugly and unpopular.

He will never escape it

[Anonymous]

So apparently no parent wants to admit that their popular kid is somewhat exclusive and socially manipulative - their child is popular because they are so nice.

My child is popular in preschool. She is a natural extrovert, and she is socially manipulative - like saying "you can't be my best friend if you don't...[something she wants]." Her teachers tell me she is not displaying more of this behavior than the other kids.

Who knows if my child will continue to be popular or not, and we are working on stopping the manipulative behavior, but the parents who aren't willing to admit their popular child may be manipulative are really the problem.

Ok so your kid lacks empathy and likes power -which is age appropriate and something normal that many kids grow out of as they learn to either feel for others or understand the consequences.

Some kids have high empathy and are extroverted, these kids are often popular because they are nice. The difference between a popular nice kid (call them A) is that these kids have lots of friends and easily mix in and out of different groups. Exclusive popular kids (call them B) have a defined circle of friends where others want to be their friends but the popular kid doesn't interact with them. (A) are driven by being extroverts, they feed off the activity (B) are driven by power, they feed off controlling others.

[Anonymous]

Why are you being evil to OP?
I did not read most of the thread but my presumption on seeing it is that OP (like me) was not popular and is not sure if there are things she should be doing to help her child in ways she does not even know about. I think the replies that it is mostly born not bred are probably true - but there are probably things you can do to help a child be more liked and social or than they would otherwise be if left entirely without parent help. I see the question as up that alley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is it that some kids just naturally seem to be “cool” and popular? How much of parenting/social grooming is involved? How much is natural?

Too late.

Give them up in adoption.

[Anonymous]

I don't think most of it is natural. Parents start early with making social connections.

In middle school, they let their kid act older than they are. They encourage early "dating" and let their daughters wear questionable attire for an 11 year old.....something you'd expect on a 17 year old.

The "popular" kids at our school aren't the nice ones of even the nicest. However, they have created enough buzz about themselves that others will flock to be included.

[Anonymous]

I've known parents who think like you do. I have kids in high school.

Their kids were popular in elementary, and did well academically. Won all the awards. They were popular in middle school, but didn't do as well academically. Didn't win any awards. Now in high school, I never hear about them anymore. If I ask my kids about them, they say, "Meh, I haven't had them in my honors classes in years."

Glimpse the future, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s good popular (naturally liked by many for the right reasons) and there’s not so good popular. Social engineering by parents results in not so good popular.

+1

The good-popular kids are those who are friendly, outgoing, and nice to everyone--those are the kids that everyone likes. Some of that is just personality, but you can help your kid develop good manners and social skills, encourage friendships, etc. The bad-popular kids are those whose standing is based on exclusion and manipulation, and parents can feed that, too.

as adults and parents, this is the way we see these kids but now my kid is older, in high school, and I can look back and say we as parents had blinders on.

The popular kids were good at being nice to adults and nice to most kids but they were also good at being a little bit snarky and sometimes exclusive. That's what helped them gain popularity. Exclusivity is an important element for kids socially. It's developmentally appropriate at certain stages as well. The trick is that kids have to learn to not get too vested and to be able to move beyond it.

This. I'm a 5th grade teacher and the bolded part is dead on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:J. Bezos is still struggling with the trauma of being ugly and unpopular.

He will never escape it

And now he's the world's richest man. How he looks doesn't matter, does it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure that’s what I want for my kids. Times have changed but in my day the popular kids did not necessarily become the most successful adults.

I’m not sure if smarter kids are cooler now than they were in my day

In my high school in the 90's, the popular kids were involved in partying and having sex. I don't want my kids to be in "cool" crowd. Unless things have changed, and now being smart is cool.

[Anonymous]

In my experience, middle school was the era of the traditional popular kid - extroverted, manipulative, successful in school and athletics but also slightly rebellious. By high school, the group of popular boys and girls fractured based on academic track and what their primary time-consuming extracurricular was. So the main Queen Bee, who had education-focused parents and got good grades, fell into the smart crowd and got a reputation for being a bit of a nerd. The other Queen Bee was a soccer star and disappeared into the soccer team, many of whom had been off the social radar before.

FWIW our homecoming queen was super friendly, nice to everyone, and very straightlaced. Not someone all the boys lusted after or a mean girl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure that’s what I want for my kids. Times have changed but in my day the popular kids did not necessarily become the most successful adults.

I’m not sure if smarter kids are cooler now than they were in my day

In my high school in the 90's, the popular kids were involved in partying and having sex. I don't want my kids to be in "cool" crowd. Unless things have changed, and now being smart is cool.

In UMC circles, the popular kids are both smart/in a bunch of honors/AP classes AND partiers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, troll, but for the most part, this can't be engineered.

It comes out pretty early on (like in daycare) which kids are the popular social ringleader types, usually without parent intervention.

This. Its amazing what is innate in kids. Some kids are "mean girls" by age 4. Not intentionally but they are naturally confident, outspoken, extroverted and kids look to them for guidance and they haven't learned yet how to temper this. Being naturally attractive helps too. I think most true introverts will have a much harder go of this. Kids just seem to gravitate to the ring leader in the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, troll, but for the most part, this can't be engineered.

It comes out pretty early on (like in daycare) which kids are the popular social ringleader types, usually without parent intervention.

This. Its amazing what is innate in kids. Some kids are "mean girls" by age 4. Not intentionally but they are naturally confident, outspoken, extroverted and kids look to them for guidance and they haven't learned yet how to temper this. Being naturally attractive helps too. I think most true introverts will have a much harder go of this. Kids just seem to gravitate to the ring leader in the class.

Yes, this part is true, BUT. Not all confident/outspoken kids are popular.
I've seen a bunch of confident/outspoken 4th/5th graders who don't pick up on social cues. They shout answers, they shove their way to the front of the line, etc.

I do think they key to popularity is being socially intelligent while also being gregarious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:J. Bezos is still struggling with the trauma of being ugly and unpopular.

He will never escape it

And now he's the world's richest man. How he looks doesn't matter, does it?

Not to you. But he is still struggling with it. He's trying to be cool not just rich and he is just too short, ugly and awkward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is it that some kids just naturally seem to be “cool” and popular? How much of parenting/social grooming is involved? How much is natural?

Too late.

Give them up in adoption.

What a heartless thing to say. Educate yourself on adoption and learn why your statement is just plain horrid