What is your opinion of children telling another child that unless they have a certain item (which makes them part of "the club") they're not going to play with him or her?

I think it’s mean but I also think it’s just kids being kids. I remember doing that kind of shit as a kid and not even realizing it was mean. Their empathy isn’t that well developed yet.

Since mine have been the instigator of such behavior, it’s very difficult to teach them how unacceptable it is.

I think it’s kind of acceptable if the toys needed is necessary for that particular game they’re playing and the “club” doesn’t turn into some kind of elite club for certain kids. Otherwise I find it really mean. Even my child self would scream in frustration.

I suppose it’s no more or less valid than any other excuse for cliquish behaviour. If they’re not excluding the non-Kitty-havers, they’re excluding the boys or the girls who have short hair or dark hair, or everyone who isn’t named Jennifer.

Kids can be jerks, especially when such behaviour is permitted or encouraged by parents.

I needed a players handbook to play D&D with my classmates. Every time I asked to borrow theirs they gave me the evil eye. So for next time I read the books thoroughly. Then I started reading novels on D&D , Dragon lance, and Forgotten Realms. I would sign out a book In the morning and skip school and loiter on the Light Rail Transit and finish the book before school ended then go home. I read about 50 100 lots of novels or more that way. It worked out In the end.

I don’t like it and I would try to steer my child away from setting such rules. If they were on the receiving end, I don’t think I’d go along with complying with such a rule for my child to play with a group of kids either. As @Seek said, it does fit with other cliquish behaviour children (and adults) might engage in.

I have a friend who is active in the Koi Club. Members of the Koi Club keep koi. If you don’t have a koi pond, you can’t play.

That might not be very nice for the non-koi-havers who might think the Koi Club looked like fun, but they’re going to have to be a little tough and figure out something else to do, maybe start a club for people who don’t have those silly fish.

I think it would be a mistake to try to force them all to play koi-related games with each other. There’s plenty of room in the world for all of them and plenty of interesting things to do that have nothing to do with koi. The people who can’t think about anything but koi are going to be pretty boring company anyway for someone who’s not into koi.

Here’s when parents should come in and teach them how to be inclusive irrespective of things possessed by their friends. Parents are setting example in front of the kids knowingly / unknowingly in most of the cases.

Of course it is acceptable. The whole point of having a private club is to meet people with common interests, occupation, or activity. If the kid doesn’t have the kitten, then there is no commonality. Works the same way in adulthood. You have to have black skin to join the Congressional Black Caucus. You have to have gone to Yale to join the Yale Club of New York City. You have to have large breasts if you want to be a waitress at Hooters. You have to be the creative-type if you want to join the The Norwood Club.

Children are fucking assholes. It doesn’t seem like the worst thing to me , but I would attempt to explain that the behavior is frowned upon and why.

It is cliquish behaviour and excluding another child from playing with your group for any reason is not acceptable. Parents need to be teaching their kids this stuff because empathy does come naturally to most kids.

It’s very easy to include someone who doesn’t have the kitten – “we are all playing kittens tomorrow so everyone who has one should bring it in. If you haven’t got one, you can share with us”. Explain to children that they are lucky to have the kitten and that playing kittens with others is fun whether they too have a kitten or not

I think there’s a big difference between starting a “Kitty Toy Playgroup” where only kitty toy kids get together, and starting a playgroup for everyone that ends up with a bunch of kitty toy kids leaving the non-kitty toy kid sitting alone on a park bench, crying because no one likes her.

Here’s why I asked: Beginning of the school year a year ago, my daughter had two friends that are twins. One twin was in her class, one was in another class. School starts and I asked my daughter if she played with the twins. She said “No, because I’m not in the reindeer club.” I asked her if the reindeer is something that you have or something that you are. She didn’t want to discuss it so we dropped it. What I did know was that they didn’t want to play with her. Then the mom of the twins, who I am friends with, told me “it’s just a toy at Kohls, twenty bucks, you should get it.” So I did. I gave it to my daughter with instructions that since her other friend does not have one, she needs to include her, not like what the other kids did to her.

She told me the reindeer club was over. OK no biggie.

The teacher told me during the parent/teacher conference that she told the girls that was wrong and she did a hypothetical thing where she told them she wanted to be in the reindeer club and they told her you can’t if you don’t have the reindeer. She explained to them that you can’t do that, it’s not right.

My friend the twins’ mom told me someone snitched to the teacher and that’s how she found out. I told her it wasn’t me, my remedy was just buying the reindeer. I’m not sure who else was shut out as I am usually not talking to other moms much.

Recently I had a discussion with the twins’ mom on FB via private message, and we were talking about the new school year, which kids got which teachers, etc. We got into a discussion about the reindeer club. I told her how it was so upsetting to my daughter to be shut out of playing with these kids because of not having the reindeer. She said that she didn’t think there was anything wrong with the kids doing that. She said the other twin’s teacher found nothing wrong with it. I said the other twin’s teacher probably just looked the other way. The fact that our teacher (my daughter’s teacher) agreed and told them “you can’t do that” shows that it’s not right. The twins’ mom said that kids are going to have to get used to other kids having better phones, better handbags, whatever. I explained that it wasn’t that my daughter was jealous, it’s that it was sad that other kids wouldn’t play with her because of the reindeer thing.

I just didn’t understand how this woman, my friend, a grown person, didn’t agree that it’s mean to shut other kids out (like my daughter who was friends with her twins) because of not having this certain toy. I figured I’d bring it to Fluther and keep my opinion off for a while so as to get some opinions of the Collective.

Sounds like a couple of shitty kids with a shitty mom.

Bullies in the making. Their behavior should be nipped at the bud before they get out of control.

It’s one thing if the group has a specific interest and set guidelines. Where it crosses the line is if members exclude potential new members because they don’t currently have a tangible item. As long as there is a sincere interest, why not invite them to a meeting to see what it is all about? This scenario reeks of exclusiveness and borderline bullying.

What is unclear is if the twins didn’t allow others to join the club if they didn’t have the necessary object or if they they refused to play with the other child at any point.

@jca. I think you did the right thing by discussing the situation with the mother of the twins. What I would do differently is tell my child that if she wanted the reindeer, she would have to earn the money to pay for it herself. It’s an opportunity to teach her about finance and prioritising.

There was a feature interview on NPR recently that is somewhat relevant. Here is a link.. Here is the audio option.

In every daycare I’ve ever worked there was always one very clear rule and that was NO ONE is allowed to shut out anyone from play. It is a type of bullying and it harms the child’s sense of self esteem and THAT is totally unacceptable. Also, children are not allowed to take in toys from home unless it is a special day of ‘show and tell’. If they bring something with them, it has to stay in their cupboard until they get picked up.

When my daughter was a bit younger a friend of hers had a sleepover and only girls with American Girl dolls were invited. My daughter was sad because she didn’t have one of the dolls so she couldn’t go. She was excluded from many play dates with these girls because she didn’t have a doll.

These girls are now in 7th grade and the mother of the girl who excluded my daughter thinks her daughter is an angel. She’s not. My daughter has told me many stories about how mean this girl can be. We found out that this girl wrote a note to another girl, a good friend of my daughter’s, and slipped it in her locker. She wrote “kill yourself.”

Excluding others because they don’t have a certain toy is a terrible thing to do. It teaches these children that they are above everyone else. Future bullies in the making for sure.

@Stinley,
> excluding another child from playing with your group for any reason is not acceptable

Do you really mean this? What if the kid is a lying tattletale, what if he steals from other kids, what if she bites, what if he’s a bully? You don’t teach your child to protect himself or herself by staying away from people who will do harm?

Has anyone considered the possible harm of being compelled to play with a child who exhibits antisocial behavior?

I see that the focus here is on teaching children not to exclude others. I say that behavior is pretty hard to manage and control, especially when it occurs out of view of adults. I’m not for it, as a rule, but I just don’t think that’s where the useful focus is. What good does it do to say what the other parent should be teaching their child? Sure, talk to them; but If your child is being excluded, you want to be teaching him or her how to deal with that. You can’t manage the other parent.

So the real question becomes: how do you deal with exclusionary treatment yourself? Because of course it occurs in the adult world as well.

And before adulthood, the child has to get through high school.

I think it’s wrong to teach a kid that he or she should expect to suffer at the hands of others and give way to the stronger parties. I think it’s wrong to teach them that the only way to be treated right is to make rules about other people’s behavior. I’d sooner teach them that people who behave that way aren’t their friends and they should seek company elsewhere. Put it back in their control.

Correction: I meant to say “I’m for it, as a rule”—meaning I’m in favor of teaching children not to exclude others. But the point is, we can’t control what other parents teach their kids. So if our kids are victims, we have to teach them what to do.

If we make the issue all about the other parents, if we tell our kids that we’ll speak to them, etc., and then nothing changes, what have we taught our children? That we’re powerless to influence the behavior of others? Good lesson, yes, but it doesn’t improve their situation any.

♪ ♪♫♪♫ ♫ Rudolph, the red-nose reindeer… ♪ ♪♫♪♫ ♫

@Jeruba I see what you mean. And I have said such things to my children but I would say that the focus of dealing with another child’s bullying behaviour is not to set a rule excluding other children but to give my daughter the words and actions to say “I’m not having fun playing this. Who wants to play xx?” Or “I don’t like this game. I’m going to play X with xx”

It’s inevitable.

We all get sorted into cliques one way or another and it continues throughout our lifetime. If it’s not another child, it’s a parent, a religion, a culture…the list is endless.

The really sad thing is a child lacks the experience to see this conditioning for the nonsense that it is. By the time life experience is obtained he or she may be well on their way to conditioning someone else.

”...he can’t be a man ‘cause he doesn’t smoke the same cigarettes as me.” -The Rolling Stones

My opinon is this, “oh look, the tedious Fluther cliques are chatting shit on FB again”
This opinion was brought to you from funnyanalogy.com

@Pied_Pfeffer: Yes, the twins and their new friend(s) told my daughter that she couldn’t play with them because she wasn’t part of the reindeer club, because she didn’t have the reindeer. My daughter was upset for a few days and then made other friends. I thought I was clear in what I wrote (but maybe I wasn’t) that the kids with the reindeers told the kids without the reindeers that they couldn’t play with them because they weren’t part of the “Reindeer Club.”

We went to some events together and I saw them totally ignore her and they didn’t talk to me either.

Now my daughter doesn’t care and she’s happy that they’re not in class with her this coming year. It was just an upsetting period, because the twins were best friends with my daughter and then it totally reversed.