Anonymous wrote:So if you were a GS leader, how would you handle this situation? I'm a Scout leader of 5th grade girls and I can already see this dynamic happening. We have some girls who just gravitate towards each other, but can end up excluding other girls. I don't know why they are excluding certain girls but I presume it has to do with their perceived coolness or whatever. When they were in second or third grade they would respond to "Remember we are sisters to every Girl Scout" but they are older now and more socially savvy. If I have to step in and remind them to be kind to Mary, that is singling Mary out as someone who is in need of help.

Of course we try to mix the girls up unobtrusively as much as possible, but it doesn't seem to be building friendships. If Sophie and Meghan are best friends and don't really get along with Mary, making them work with her isn't necessarily going to make them get along better.

I'm not exactly trained in all this social dynamic stuff. I'm a volunteer, my troop has 16 girls, and we only meet for about 3 hours a month! I hate to think girls will drop out because I was unable to manage the cliques, but if all we do is talk about girls feelings and not being left out, we'll never get anything done. And anyway I'm to convinced that talking about things will change anything.

Any ideas? You moms who pulled girls out of Scouts due to cliques... what would you have done differently had you been the volunteer leader? How much time would it have taken?

Promoting Harmony & “Sisterliness”

Girls this age will often establish cliques within the troop that can lead to exclusion of some girls and
hurt feelings. Here are some ways to build ‘sisterliness’ in your troop:

* Hold an open discussion on how a girl might feel if everyone else is paired up for an activity and
she hasn't been selected and what other girls can do to prevent this from happening.

* Talk about how Girl Scout principles (such as being a sister to every other Girl Scout) apply to
their own troop interactions.

* One-to-one discussion with individual girls and their parents/guardians (if situations can't be
resolved within the troop or between leaders and girls.)

* Rotating patrol members or work group members.

* Changing buddies frequently on long outings or overnights ("Now buddy up with someone
new!")

* Using various methods to group girls for carpools, small group activities, buddies, etc. Choose by
using splitter activities, such as alphabetical first names or last names, birth dates, shoe size,
drawing straws, number of legs in the household including pets, etc. so that different girls end
up together.

* Choosing secret sisters or secret pals. Draw names at the beginning of the year. Ask the girls to
be a special friend to that person by complimenting her, sitting by her, choosing her as their
helper, etc. Have the girls brainstorm other ways to make their Girl Scout sister feel special.
Possibly, have a small gift exchange with inexpensive, preferably handmade gifts exchanged on
Girl Scout holidays such as Founder’s Day (Juliette Low’s October 31 birthday) or the Girl Scout
birthday on March 12 to reveal secret sisters - or you could extend through the entire year.

* Specific reinforcement by leaders of desired behavior ("I'm glad to see that Susan and Maria
have teamed up today!"; "Shawna, thanks for helping Sam with her bracelet!")

* Inviting two high school aged Girl Scouts to come and talk to girls about their lasting friendships
within Girl Scouts even though their GS friends may go to different schools or they may not be
best friends at school (this is especially effective if the visiting girls have been together since
Daisies or Brownies!)

Anonymous wrote:
You have to call it out, have a session where you discuss it and then organize activities using neutral grouping- numbers out of hat, etc. You can't solve it all but you can make sure you don't support it.

Anonymous wrote:"Any ideas? You moms who pulled girls out of Scouts due to cliques... what would you have done differently had you been the volunteer leader? How much time would it have taken? "

The leader's daughter was the biggest bitch in the clique, so there was nothing I could do about it, but permit DD to quit Scouts at the end of the year.

You need some leadership training.

Anonymous wrote:So if you were a GS leader, how would you handle this situation? I'm a Scout leader of 5th grade girls and I can already see this dynamic happening. We have some girls who just gravitate towards each other, but can end up excluding other girls. I don't know why they are excluding certain girls but I presume it has to do with their perceived coolness or whatever. When they were in second or third grade they would respond to "Remember we are sisters to every Girl Scout" but they are older now and more socially savvy. If I have to step in and remind them to be kind to Mary, that is singling Mary out as someone who is in need of help.

Of course we try to mix the girls up unobtrusively as much as possible, but it doesn't seem to be building friendships. If Sophie and Meghan are best friends and don't really get along with Mary, making them work with her isn't necessarily going to make them get along better.

I'm not exactly trained in all this social dynamic stuff. I'm a volunteer, my troop has 16 girls, and we only meet for about 3 hours a month! I hate to think girls will drop out because I was unable to manage the cliques, but if all we do is talk about girls feelings and not being left out, we'll never get anything done. And anyway I'm to convinced that talking about things will change anything.

Any ideas? You moms who pulled girls out of Scouts due to cliques... what would you have done differently had you been the volunteer leader? How much time would it have taken?

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Wow- I'm surprised by how many posters pulled their daughters out of GS because of these issues.
To answer a previous question, my DD was friendly with several of the girls, and actually, is friendly with some of them in her classroom, but once they go to the GS events, they act like they don't know her and cling to their cliques leaving my DD a bit excluded. The whole think is just odd. Do girls outgrow this business? If so when?

Anonymous wrote:I need some advice. My daughter (6th grade), who has many friends, has been in a Girl Scout troop for several years now. Over time, the troop has developed several tight cliques of friends that don't include DD. Now when DD attends the meetings and activities, she is kind of hanging out by herself and I can tell she feels a bit awkward. I know she likes GS as an organization, and I think she'd like to keep with it, but I also know she wants to feel like part of the troop... Anyone go through this? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.