ThUrSdAy APriL 5th Topic (Cliques)
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| Thu, 04-05-2007 - 9:24am |
Girls' Cliques: What Role Does Your Daughter Play?
by Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes
Cliques are sophisticated, complex and multi-layered, and every girl has a role within them. However, positions in cliques aren't static. Especially from the sixth to eighth grade, a girl can lose her position to another girl, and she can move up and down the social totem pole.
What do you think about mean girls and cliques?
7 Common Roles Girls Play in Cliques
1. The Queen Bee: Through a combination of charisma, force, money, looks, will and manipulation, this girl reigns supreme over the other girls and weakens their friendships with others, thereby strengthening her own power and influence.
2. The Side Kick: She notices everything about the Queen Bee, because she wants to be her. She will do everything the Queen Bee says. The Queen Bee, as her best friend, makes her feel popular and included.
3. The Floater: She has friends in different groups and can move freely among them. She has influence over other girls but doesn't use it to make them feel bad.
4. The Torn Bystander: She's constantly conflicted about doing the right thing and her allegiance to the clique. As a result, she's the one most likely to be caught in the middle of a conflict between two girls or two groups of girls.
5. The Pleaser/Wannabe/Messenger: She will do anything to be in the good graces of the Queen Bee and the Sidekick. When two powerful girls, or two powerful groups of girls, are in a fight, she is the go-between. However, the other girls eventually turn on her as well. She'll enthusiastically back them up no matter what. She can't tell the difference between what she wants and what the group wants.
6. The Banker: Girls trust her when she pumps them for information because it doesn't seem like gossip; instead, she does it in an innocent, "I'm trying to be your friend" way. This is the girl who sneaks under adult radar all the time because she can appear so cute and harmless.
7. The Target: She's the victim, set up by the other girls to be humiliated, made fun of, excluded. She can be part of a clique or outside the clique. Either way, she feels isolated and alone.
Talking to Your Daughter:
4 Must-Ask Questions
It can be really hard to talk to your daughter about her role and experiences in the clique. Start by asking her opinion of the list above. What rings true for her and what doesn't? Encourage her to come up with her own names and create roles she thinks aren't on this list. Approach your daughter as an observer of other girls.
1. What do people gain and lose from their role in a clique?
2. Why do you think that person is in that role?
3. How does it impact you to watch these things happen with your friends?
4. How does it feel when it happens to you?
Whatever position your daughter has in her clique, always affirm her self-worth. Tell her that you recognize that these situations are really difficult. If you think a story about when you were a teenager will be something she can relate to, tell her. But don't tell her what to do. Instead, describe the behavior you respect. Work with her as she comes up with a plan that describes specifically what she wants to happen differently, and how she can make that happen. You daughter will feel better just knowing you understand life in her world.


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3. The Floater: She has friends in different groups and can move freely among them. She has influence over other girls but doesn't use it to make them feel bad.
Kacie is #3..She has friends in different groups,but she doesn't say that she's in a "clique"..
My dd (age 12) is a floater. It's funny, that's a role I always encouraged her to be in since mid elementary school (to have your close group of girlfriends and also a couple of other groups that she can join if she chooses). Nice to know there's a name for it :).
DD's group of girlfriends doesn't fit in with the traditional clique rolls. There is no queen bee, or sidekick, pleaser, banker or target. Just a group of girls that enjoy hanging around together. Dd has close friendships with all the girls, individually and as a group.
Lynn
Hmm. This is interesting to think about because Mackenzie has attended 5 schools in seven years, yet she's continued her same path each time, starting in Kindergarten. She starts out as the Pleaser/Wannabe/Messenger to kind of shoulder her way into a couple of different groups where she 'plays the field' in deciding who she wants to be friends with. She picks and chooses her 'crowd' from several groups and in the meantime starts creating wedges between existing friendships. She'll work up the drama to seperate these girls and to make them want to be HER friend. I kid you not, by October/November timeframe, she will be securely entrenched as the leader of her own group! They are hand selected and the whole group will rotate around HER. She's quite the ring leader. Luckily she has a tendency to do the right thing and surround herself with others who are the same, so her falling into a wrong crowd has YET to happen...KNOCK ON WOOD! Twice in 7 years I can think of drama that's seperated a girl from the group but they pretty much stick together the whole year!
Dh and I just shake our heads, and hope beyond hope that she manages to harness this power for good because otherwise she will grow up to be her own worse enemy! LOL!
Denise
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Can I ask all you moms of girls when you noticed cliquish behavior starting?
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