Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:12-yr old AS DD told me that one of her classmates came over to her at recess today and told her very quickly that "so-and-so likes you", referring to an NT boy in their class. I don't know how high the boy is on the social totem pole (I worry about other girls' reactions) but it reminded me that middle school is right around the corner. DD is a sweet, outgoing kid but poor at reading social cues etc. She's also quite pretty and I also worry about boys using her for "target practice", so to speak.
Wondering if any parents who've been there have any advice.
Can you elaborate on this? Because it sounds to me like it matters to you whether or not the boy is "popular" or might become "popular."
Which is perplexing, but help me understand why it matters. Are you concerned about your own child's popularity (and that it might be dragged down by the attention of someone unpopular) or are you assigning stereotypes to the popular kids (that a popular boy might be predatory).
Well, my comment was completely misinterpreted. I worry about whether the boy might be one of the popular boys, jocks, whatever you want to call it, whom a lot of girls are interested in. I worry about my daughter being victimized by other girls who have set their sights on that boy if that's the case. Nothing would please me more than if the boy in question were a kid who gets little notice from anybody else. You may feel I'm being over dramatic about the whole thing but a friend of mine reported a situation to me last year in which girls at a school we used to attend before moving here literally came to blows over a boy--these were 11-year olds--and one of them was suspended.
I guess I'm worried about helping my kid navigate an increasingly complicated social scene. I was pretty much a clueless nerd myself all the way through high school so I'm probably not the most skilled person in this area either.