Funny Phenomenon

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-19-2003
Funny Phenomenon
3
Fri, 09-07-2007 - 11:52am

So my 16 yo dd was giving me the rundown on who is in her classes and her workgroups and stuff and who she's been connecting with again at school and her lunchmates etc etc. And I noticed a very interesting phenomenon.

Up until maybe last year my dd was very shy, very uncomfortable with talking to boys. She maybe talked to a handful of guys who I could only describe as mostly non-threatening kids. Then last year, mostly through circumstances of how workgroups were formed in her classes, she met more boys and struck up some friendships with a few more kids.

This year as she starts back at school she again has reconnected to these boys and a few others. They are still the mostly non-threatening of the bunch ie not so much of the womanizing, party types (which is OKAY with me!). But then she also finds that in her classes this year she has an unusually large proportion of kids she went to grade school with. My dd's elementary school is one of the smallest in the area so she hasn't really had alot of kids she knew from JK to grade 8 in her classes. But this year she's seeing alot of them, interestingly. There are 3 boys, in particular, that she's known all her life. They live on our street, I know their parents very well, they have siblings in school with my younger son and when my dd was very little (ie under 8 maybe?) they would all play together in the neighbourhood.

But as usually happens at a point in all kids lives, suddenly, boys and girls who played together no longer associate very much. Heck, they barely greet each other when they meet on the street!!!

But this year these three boys are in many of my dd's classes and when I inquired whether that means she now talks to them again she says no, she doesn't! One even sits immediately behind her in one class and while the boy next to him, who my dd just met last year, will interact with my dd directly on questions, homework, or just casual conversation, this boy won't say a word to my dd! In fact, she says she heard him ask the boy next to him to ask my dd for help on a certain worksheet rather than ask himself!!!

I can't believe how silly this is! How kids who basically have known each other all their lives, barely speak to one another and how kids who just met feel more comfortable. Could it be maybe that they just know too much about each other? Too many memories of falls and scraped knees and tears and awkward phases and moms yelling at them on the street?

LOL!!!

Avatar for bookwormmom
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-22-2003
Fri, 09-07-2007 - 3:59pm

that is kind of odd, but you know the more I think about it the more I think that is a bit true about Kelsie too. There are kids she was in elementary school with that she sees at school and doesn't even talk to, even though she has known them most of her life. They aren't kids she was as close to as the ones you are talking about, but she certainly knows them well enough.

Some of them I think she doesn't talk to because they are in a totally different place than she is. Maybe that is the situation whith your dd. Maybe she knows they have grown into people she is just not comfortable with. Who knows, I surely don't, teens confuse me constantly!!! lol

Kristie

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Registered: 11-28-1999
Fri, 09-07-2007 - 4:15pm
My DD was always comfortable w/ playing w/ boys when she was little cause there were a lot of boys in the home daycare she went to, plus she has boy cousins. So when she went to kindergarten, there was this one kid Chris who lives on our street who used to come over our house all the time. After they got to high school, they didn't talk to each other any more, maybe because he was in the voc school to be a chef and she was in the college prep and honors programs. When I see him in the neighborhood all grown up now, I just think of how he used to cry when he had to go home from our house. lol
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Registered: 07-19-2003
Fri, 09-07-2007 - 4:16pm

You may be right there....two of the boys are part of a very popular athlete crowd -- you know the boys who are on major sports teams and are at all the parties etc etc? My dd is just not part of that crowd at all. The other boy is maybe about the same speed as my dd but is probably even shier about talking to girls!! LOL!! So yeah, not likely to socialize much. I can see the point though of just not being in the same place anymore to even find anything to talk about.