Social development comes in bursts and spurts. Growth and changes tend to happen when you least expect it for your growing child and chances are that before you’re fully prepared for it, your child will be involved in his or her first social clique. Cliques are not inherently evil. As a matter of fact they can be either positive or negative, either a good a bad experience. As a parent, our job is to keep an eye on our child’s behavior and activities and nudge them in the direction of positive growth and development—even when it comes to social cliques.
As a general rule, we should know who are child’s friends are and what sort of activities they tend to do when they get together as a group. Depending on the age of the children, it is also a good idea to make sure that you know who the parents are and where they live as well. Learning how to join a group, interact with a diverse collection of people, and negotiate in a clique can be positive, as can the feeling of belonging and normalizing that can come from belonging to a clique. Where things can get negative is if the clique engages in destructive or unsavory behavior, picks on other children (or says negative things behind children’s backs) is excluding, or causes pain and suffering to other children—either those within the group, or without. This is the sort of activities that many of us think of when we hear the word “clique” and this may be just what we are afraid our child will get sucked into.
A parent can help to keep life balanced by making sure that the child gets to continue socializing and interacting with others outside the chosen clique. Involvement in sports, church activities, art, dance, and other interests will help keep the child exposed to some diversity and counter the effects of being immersed in a clique. Help you child stay in touch with cousins and friends from old neighborhoods and other parts of their lives in order to keep things balanced as well.
Children learn through experiences—both positive and negative. With a parent’s guidance children can make great social strides from their first involvement in a clique. Most children do not stay involved with the same group of children exclusively that they attach to in kindergarten or first grade, so learning how to maneuver in and out of social cliques will be an important and evolving life lesson.
See Also: Conflicts in the Peer Group
When Your Child Gets Caught in a “Friend Triangle”
Why Three is NOT a Good Number For Play