Reply to 5th grade girls - is this typical?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Mom of 9th and 7th graders, this is a developmental stage that peaks in 7th.

Someone recommended this book "Untangled" about girls' developmental stages and it's been very useful to me.

One thing to note is that what your kid describes as "popular" is actually "powerful" as in, socially powerful--girls using threats of exclusion or shaming to advance/maintain their social status, and keep the other girls non-differentiated.  Powerful girls in these younger ages are learning that this works for them, but they have not yet figured out the long-term repercussions of this behavior...

when kids are younger, they are cowed into line by this; by 10th, they are mature enough to say "I don't care if Larla shames me, she's a bully and I'm not (conforming)."  And Larla's social status drops and that's when Larla learns that she is actually not liked much; i.e., not powerful anymore and was never popular (in the true sense of the word).

My 7th grader just got a load of this at Halloween.  Her basketball coach, who is a young guy not skilled in girl development, referred to her as "my best player" in front of the other girls.  Well that's practically like assigning a mean girl to get my DD back in line, socially.

The girls had a Halloween party and all dressed in the same outfit and did not tell my DD. We drove up to a swarm of identically-dressed girls, and it was so shocking I stopped the car short and asked DD if she knew about this and if she was ok with it, before letting her out. Fortunately my kid has other friends and is psychologically protected from this group for a variety of (non-relevant) reasons, so she put up with it.

As a side note, I'm glad you posted your OP, because I decided while writing this post that I'm going to get our coach that book.  He is very committed to his teams and each girl individually, but he doesn't understand that some things that motivate boys just backfire on girls.  In my example above, if it were a boy's team, being called out as the best may incentivize a teammate to both admire that kid, and practice harder and better to become the best like that kid.  But with girls, who are in a "cocooning" stage and want to blend in their group, any call-outs are embarrassing and unhelpful.[/quote]

Sweet Jesus, don't tell the man how to coach. The entire world will not be curated to her specific sensitivities - let her learn. She's not all girls, she's just one girl. There may well be a young lady who is motivated by just that. Don't extrapolate. [/quote]

Top PP here and I understand why you wrote that.  Was trying to not get into tangent, but many if not all the girls have problems with the coach, and the club owners have been trying to work with him along these lines.  It's affected their play (he's very "fixed mindset")[/quote]

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