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Middle School Girls And Cliques

School counselors and middle school girls weigh in on the issue.

By Elinor Spokes

For middle schoolers, navigating the social ins and outs of the preteen years can be daunting, perplexing, emotional and frustrating. For girls, the added layer of the social structure of the clique compounds the complexity of their journey through adolescence.

By definition, cliques are exclusive; therefore, girls often feel left out when cliques form. This social exclusion can exacerbate insecurity at a time in a girl’s life when she already has a number of issues to handle.

Although cliques are prevalent among girls in their middle school years, clique behavior can begin as early as kindergarten, according to Elizabeth “Zibby” Andrews, head of the Lower School Division at Garrison Forest School for Girls. The evolution of a clique can seem innocent in the early years of school through the decision to include or exclude classmates to birthday parties or play dates.

Cliques tend to become more problematic around fourth grade, noted Andrews, when girls are 9- and 10-years-old. At this time, they begin to figure out who they are and look for a social circle in which they feel comfortable. This often continues through middle school and sometimes the ninth grade when girls want and need to feel more secure. Boys, by contrast, have less of an issue with cliques, perhaps because they seem less concerned about their social interactions and don’t take rejection as seriously, she added.

Usually, Andrews said, a clique will have a leader and followers. Those who follow are not generally as confident as the leader and, in an effort to feel secure and to elevate their own status, they can give messages that others are not welcome. Sometimes, she noted, it is not the leader that is causing the problems, but the followers who are doing the excluding.

Not all girls seem to be affected by the lure of joining a clique, she said. “There are girls who are able to navigate the social circles and who are not the target of a clique; these girls often have a stronger sense of themselves at an earlier age.”

Many girls instead have friendship circles, or a group of friends which is inclusive of anyone who wants to join and which often forms around a common interest.

“Friendship groups are a normal part of development and something that everyone wants to have,” said Karen Baroody, the school counselor for seventh through 12th grades at Roland Park Country School.

At the same time, cliques can be detrimental to the classroom environment. “Cliques can be distracting because the students aren’t concentrating on their class, but on their social situation,” said Andrews.

Cliques can be avoided at an early age with encouragement from teachers and parents to be respectful of others, whether or not they like them or have anything in common with them.

Baroody suggested, “Parents should have continual conversations with their children about their relationships, not just when there is a problem.” She recommended that as soon as a child begins school, parents should be asking questions such as “How do you feel about your friends?,” “Do your friends welcome others?,” “Are they accepting of others?” and “Are they kind to others?”

She also recommended that parents not ask, “Who do you not want to come over?,” but instead foster an atmosphere of inclusion in their children’s friendships. Additionally, Baroody advised that parents stay in touch with other parents and share their observations to alleviate any issues. “The more parents talk to one another, the more we (parents, teachers, counselors) are on the same page to avoid the clique behavior,” she said.

Both Andrews and Baroody agreed that by the high school years, the clique mentality is not nearly as much of a problem due to the maturity of girls.

“When the girls get a measure of their own success and self-confidence, the cliques are less important. They begin to spend more time with friends that share their interests and become more accepting of girls who are different,” said Andrews.

Girl Talk

On a sweltering afternoon of record-breaking heat in July, I sat down with five incoming eighth grade girls who attend four different schools in the area. The goal was to speak as candidly as possible about the impact of cliques on their lives, their friends and their schools.

When asked what a clique meant to them, all defined the term as an exclusive group of girls who intentionally leave some girls out. They reflected that often cliques form because the girls, initially, have something in common, like an interest in athletics or the arts.

Elie Locke and Dena Appleby, who both attend Sudbrook Magnet Middle School, believe that cliques are not as noticeable at their school because of the size of the student population. They agreed that it is easier to move from group to group because there are so many from which to choose.
“We all have had chances of being left out,” said Dena, “but I love making all sorts of friends and am just careful to choose the right ones.”

Kira Kilstein, who attends Krieger Schechter Middle School, said that there are two well-formed friendship groups in her grade with very different personalities. She said that she doesn’t feel excluded from either.

Because KSDS has a dress code, she felt that there was less competition between girls based on what they wear. “Girls don’t base their opinions on what they wear but more about who they are,” she added.

Jocelyn Broth, who attends Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School, said that she usually hangs out with the same group of friends. She also is friendly with a lot of different girls and makes an effort not to be exclusive.

Zoe Feldman, who attends the Park School, shared her reflections of this past year when she did not have any close friends in her “Mains” — the term used at Park for the main subject classes for which students stay in the same grouping. She said that it was difficult when the group of girls who already knew each other would share secrets and inside jokes among themselves and left her out. Towards the end of the year, Zoe began to sit with other girls who were more inclusive, which she said felt better.

“In the abstract, cliques are kind of like magnets. Some pieces of metal are attracted and others are not,” she said.

Adding that it is not necessary to like everyone, she found that it is important to have your own opinion about who is your friend and who is not and to be able to say it in a respectful way.

“Extreme hatred is not O.K,” she added.

Kira noted that she felt that a person who is putting others down does so because that person is insecure. All five girls agreed with this point. Dena said that she often reminded her friends to “stick with your real friends because you are better enough that you don’t have to bully others.”

The girls all felt that it was difficult to bring a particular incident of exclusion to the attention of adults without suffering consequences of some ilk.

“Sometimes going to adults can bring consequences that can be embarrassing and makes the situation worse,” said Kira.

When asked how helpful it is for a counselor or teacher to intervene if there are problems with cliques, the girls all felt that the counselors and teachers were too old to truly understand them and their issues. Jocelyn added that it is more effective to have high school girls conduct that conversation because they can relate to them better.

Kira agreed. At KSDS, she said, some of the high school alumni return to help out with tefillah (prayer), but she would like them to come back and lend advice to the middle school girls as well.

At Sudbrook, Elie and Dena added that most of the counsel given is about bullying and they felt that the advice was not particularly helpful. Elie noted that she makes an effort to reach out to girls who seem to be left out of groups. In a particular incident, one of her friends dyed her hair the same color as another girl and was turned against by a group of girls for being a copy-cat. Elie tried to comfort the girl who was the subject of the rejection, “I just tried to be there for her,” she said.

As for how boys impact the social mix, all the girls agreed that there are far fewer boys’ cliques. “I don’t think there are many boys’ cliques,” said Jocelyn, “but there are groups of three to five boys who think they are popular, but they really are not.”

Kira said that she observed that “guys become more popular when they become popular among girls.”

“It takes a lot more to break up a guy’s friendship, but with girls it doesn’t take much,” Elie said.