Being Left Out
by Lisa Medoff
Dear Dr. Medoff,
My eight-year-old son has been coming home lately and saying that the other boys won’t play with him. I can’t get much more of a description than that about what is going on. What should I do? From, F.G.
Dear F.G.,
It can often be more painful for parents to watch their children experience social exclusion than it is for the children themselves. Parents not only empathize with what their children are going through, but they also relive their own times of social exclusion and yearn to prevent their kids from having to endure the loneliness and sadness that results from being left out.
However, it is important to resist the urge to step in to fix social problems, especially as children get older. Your son is at the age when friendships start to become more complex because of advances in thinking skills. Friendships become more selective and exclusive as children start to choose friends that resemble them when it comes to characteristics such as personality traits, popularity, and academic/athletic ability levels.
Children of this age also start to experience a strong desire for group belonging, as the group that they belong to (as well as their standing in that group) helps them develop their own identity. They are in the process of improving their abilities when it comes to social communication and arranging complicated activities on their own. As they do so, social hierarchies start to emerge, and the leaders often decide who gets to be a part of the group and who gets excluded. It can feel very good to be a part of an exclusive group (as adults well know), but the downside is the hurt feelings of those that are excluded. That is why it is important for parents whose children are part of a group to reinforce the idea of reaching out and including others.
