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When Your Child Is Unpopular
Tips to Help You Both Cope
By Pat Dimmig
As parents, we hope our children will have a wonderful school experience. We anticipate good grades, lots of friends and involvement in extra-curricular activities. But this is not always the case. There are some children whose awkward stages seem to begin or end sooner than others.
It could be a physical characteristic. Your child may be shorter, taller, heavier, thinner, or more or less developed. It could be that your child is more serious about academics than his peers or he has a harder time focusing and needs extra help. Any number of reasons can cause a child to be deemed "unpopular."
As adults, we know it is only a single phase in life and in the grand scheme of things, it won't matter. But as parents, we know that the pain our children feel is very real and they lack the ability to look that far into the future. So how do you help them?
Denise and Wayne Mitchell* have dealt with this issue on an intense level. Their daughter, Nicole*, has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
"Nicole is often singled out by adults because of her diagnosis and the behaviors that accompany ADHD. As a result, the other kids pick on her for being different," Denise Mitchell says. "When Nicole retaliates, the adult present -- parent or teacher -- will discipline Nicole before hearing both sides because they assume Nicole is the 'trouble maker.' The other kids know this, so the picking gets even worse. This makes Nicole feel like no matter how hard she tries or what she does, she will always be wrong. It's a constant battle against those feelings."
The Mitchells addressed the immediate problem by teaching Nicole that, while some children have bad manners, she should "try her best to keep her cool and remember to tell them that they aren't acting like they should." They also advised her to enlist the help of an adult when necessary.