An old high school friend recently added me to a Facebook group, in which a reunion is being planned. It has been 25 years since we graduated.
So it’s been interesting to look at some of the old faces and read up on how everyone is doing. It is hard to imagine some that have gotten married and had children. I guess it’s because I still see them as they were in their cliques.
You know the labels that teens put on each other. Back in my day it was the jocks, preppies, nerds, outcasts and the popular kids. I have to admit, I never really officially made it into any one group. I was always sort of my own person…but that’s another story.
Today we have the same thing but the cliques are a bit different. For instance, there are the skaters (although, that might be dying out), nerds (I don’t think those will ever die out), druggies (a.k.a. stoners), preps (preppies from the 80’s are now just preps), emos (dress in black and wear skinny jeans, don a lot of wrist bands, hair usually falls in face), Goths (wear dark clothing, some associate them with Satanism), and scene (wear skinny jeans, bright colors and a lot of makeup).
There might be more but these are just the ones I am aware of. So cliques never really fade…they just change.
So what makes a teen join a clique? Sometimes it is to fit in. They might feel like an outcast and don’t want to be grouped that way, so they desperately try to find a group that will accept them.
Other teens may be missing something at home. They might not receive the nurturing or attention desperately needed by their parents. Some teens are just on a search and there may not be any real rhyme or reason for associating with one particular clique.
Now that I’m in my 40’s, I see cliques so differently than I did back then. I try really hard to steer my children away from these things because I don’t want them to be associated with a “group.” I want them to be who they are meant to be as an individual.
What do you think about cliques? What do you teach your teens about them?
Related Articles:
Teaching Teens about Friendships
Advantages to Having Your Teen’s Friends Over
Learning to Establish Boundaries
Interfering in Children’s Friendship Problems
Photo by Malingering in Flickr