Help! I’m not in the ‘in crowd’!
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You think you left all that angst and insecurity behind at school and then you become a parent and WHAM, taking your kid to school on their first day brings it all flooding back.
You eye up the other parents clocking who is also nervously standing on their own, and who is laughing at the centre of a tight knit circle you will probably never join.
You catch yourself wondering if you look right, sound right, act right or if you are somehow ’different’. You decide whether to make a desperate attempt to catch another loner’s eye or whether to take
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on a deliberate ‘I’m far too busy (terrified) to make friends’ persona. And then your creeping self-doubt starts to extend to your child….
You find out they have been passed over for a party invite and then panic they will never be ’popular’. They are more interested in playing with dinosaurs/ eating mud/ pretending to be an alien than making friends and you worry they’re not normal (whatever that is). They tell you that a fellow five year old told them they are no longer friends and you interrogate them for further details, deeply concerned
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that they might be…heaven forbid…bullied.
This is all totally normal and despite being CEO of the anti-bullying charity Kidscape (www.kidscape.org.uk) I am equally guilty. That’s why we are celebrating #FriendshipFriday on the 10th November. Not to celebrate the ’in crowd’ but to encourage the ‘out crowd’ to get together and have play dates! We want to tell our children that friends come and friends go, that they come in all shapes and sizes, that some days you feel like you have loads and some days like you have one (or on rubbish days,
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none) but that it is all okay.
We are all equally scared and sometimes it only takes a smile and a brave hello to make it better.
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Lauren Seager-Smith - 9 Nov 17
You think you left all that angst and insecurity behind at school and then you become a parent and WHAM, taking your kid to school on their first day brings it all flooding back.
You eye up the other parents clocking who is also nervously standing on their own, and who is laughing at the centre of a tight knit circle you will probably never join.
You catch yourself wondering if you look right, sound right, act right or if you are somehow ‘different’. You decide whether to make a desperate attempt to catch another loner’s eye or whether to take on a deliberate ‘I’m far too busy (terrified) to make friends’ persona. And then your creeping self-doubt starts to extend to your child….
You find out they have been passed over for a party invite and then panic they will never be ‘popular’. They are more interested in playing with dinosaurs/ eating mud/ pretending to be an alien than making friends and you worry they’re not normal (whatever that is). They tell you that a fellow five year old told them they are no longer friends and you interrogate them for further details, deeply concerned that they might be…heaven forbid…bullied.
This is all totally normal and despite being CEO of the anti-bullying charity Kidscape (www.kidscape.org.uk) I am equally guilty. That’s why we are celebrating #FriendshipFriday on the 10th November. Not to celebrate the ‘in crowd’ but to encourage the ‘out crowd’ to get together and have play dates! We want to tell our children that friends come and friends go, that they come in all shapes and sizes, that some days you feel like you have loads and some days like you have one (or on rubbish days, none) but that it is all okay.
We are all equally scared and sometimes it only takes a smile and a brave hello to make it better.
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I've been CEO of anti-bullying charity Kidscape (www.kidscape.org.uk) since January 2017. I'm also privileged to be Mum to two lively children and a trustee of my local food bank.
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