Reply to Helping DS, 8, make peace with not being one of the popular boys.

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[quote=Anonymous]
Except that "popular" for a child is different than "popular" in an adult's mind.

After years of volunteering in elementary school, I have never observed kids identifying the sporty group as the "popular" group. Amongst themselves, in their minds, they try to be included in a group that they LIKE, according to their interests: sporty, imaginary play, conversational, etc... Often children will try several groups, because they're interested in all of these things. Groups are fluid and change with the years.

There is no hierarchy in their minds that a group is socially better than the other. Your kid might say: "I want to be with the kids that play soccer at recess! It's the best group!" But this comes without a social judgement. It just expresses exactly what they want to do at recess, with the people they like. The social hierarchy concept is an adolescent and adult construct that parents often project on their younger children's groupings.

Middle school is when children experiment with perceived social hierarchies.  It's when kids are full of hormones yet still immature and don't understand that ruthless categorizing of their peers is cruel and unnecessary. It's when there's the largest range in physical development and the highest risk for misunderstanding motives and impulses among the groups.

And then usually they grow out of it sometime in high school. 
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