Reply to Why are schoolyard social issues so much harder than anywhere else?

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "Why are schoolyard social issues so much harder than anywhere else?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes, recess is pretty bad. Some of it is because of limited supervision, but I think it's mostly because kids are shaking out their place in the social hierarchy. It's normal and important developmentally, but it can get brutal if adults don't step in when kids are going too far. [/quote]

This.  These kids are around eachother all day, every day.  Usually in a very structured environment.  They develop feelings towards other kids in class because of X or Y or Z but they can't really express it or do anything about it because the classroom is structured.  If a kid at their table is being annoying, they need to just be quiet about it.  If a kid next to them on the carpet smells bad, they can't move and sit on a different carpet square.  They can't form social heirarchies (which are NORMAL for humans of all ages) in class because they are drilled to include everyone  , all the time, and typically aren't even allowed to choose who they sit by at lunch or who they work on a group project with.  (I am not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing I'm just pointing out that it occurs.).  So when these kids get to the playground they have about 15-20 minutes to get out all of their pent up feelings towards their classmates in whatever way they can and also, try to form the pecking order that they are not allowed to form for the other 7 hours of the day.  So they have to work to form it really fast!  None of this is conscious or anything- it just happens.  The kid who had smelly feet that Larla has been forced to sit by on the carpet every day this week?  Larla says "no you can't be on my team for group tag!".   The kid who is annoying?  "Stop talking!!! No one cares!!" followed by running off to play with someone else.  All of the "only the three of us are going to play this game, you have to go do something else!" would probably tone down if the kids could more gently and organically form the pecking order during class every day because then about a month into school, the kids know their place in the pecking order and they tend to stick to the kids at their own level.  If you never give kids a chance to shake that out, it makes things seem meaner. In my opinion.

Your daughter plays easily with random kids at the playground on weekends because there is no pecking order to be established and there is no pent up feelings about any of those kids from being with them day in and day out.  And your daughter does fine in class and in ECs because they are heavily structured.[/quote]

Wall of text jfc[/quote]

+1 and the obsession with "social hierarchy" being some natural law is weird. That doesn't work because when kids sort into a hierarchy, there will be kids on the bottom, and no one likes being in the bottom. They will fight to get off the bottom rung. Plus there's always movement elsewhere. The hierarchy becomes the cause if conflict, and then kids still need conflict resolution skills.

The idea that it all works out when the hierarchy is left to sort itself out is false.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics