Are popular kids more likely to be successful or less than their peers? I found the answer in a book by Marti Olsen Laney about introverts, called The Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child. Many very successful adults are introverts, and in her book she talks about how this personality style differs from extroverts. She also talks about the benefits of introversion, and the myth of childhood popularity as an indicator of future success in life.
This section that she wrote on the Myth of Popularity struck me. Every parent needs to know about the research she refers to which talks about the frequently inverse link between popularity in childhood and later success in life. If your child is popular, you need to know what to do to ensure that he or she does not emerge from childhood with poor social skills.
I know I am in good company when I say that I harbored hopes that my children would be more popular than I was. Like all parents, I wanted to spare my kids of the slights that come from not being popular. These hopes were partially squelched by knowing that popular kids are often:
• unwilling to be different which means they squelch their individual gifts in order to fit in
• unable to stand up for their beliefs for fear of losing their status
• constant anxiety about losing their status.
Olsen Laney’s work helped drive the final wedge into my aspirations for my kids’ popularity.
As she reports, "research [shows] how often the most popular kids in high school don’t fulfill their potential later in life. Power wanes as friendship skills gain. As kids enter adulthood, they need more than flashy power moves to get along with others – they need real people skills such as the ability to listen, empathize and respect other’s viewpoints." The skills that enable popular kids to stay at the top of the heap are often not the skills needed to get along as adults.
Most of us can remember someone from our childhood who demonstrated the correlation between popularity and lack of social skills. I can remember making a choice in Grade 7 not to follow a new friend into the more popular crowd (her friendship had given me the pass that I had not been granted on my own). Not only was I clear that I was only being accepted because of her, but I had also witnessed that crowd’s meanness to other people, and didn’t want any part of that. That was a pivotal moment in my life, and although I struggled through junior and high school, I spared myself the fate of becoming masterful at power moves that would have prevented a lot of my success as an adult.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Kids who become popular in school run the danger of abusing that power. If they don’t like someone because of his looks, because they feel threatened by her intelligence or they find it easy to get attention by poking fun at his or her lack of intelligence, they can use power moves to deal with the other kid. By using power moves instead of learning empathy, acceptance or other ways of dealing with the reaction they have, the child fails to grow and instead develops a habit that will make him or her a tough workmate and even worse boss.
Who hasn’t met someone in the workplace who is still operating from those obnoxious power moves? Backstabbing starts in childhood for many people. If a child who is faced with competition for a date, or in academic or social situations, learns that by talking about their adversary behind his or her back, they win the competition, backstabbing will become the automatic tool that he or she reaches for as an adult. Power moves work in the short run, and hence a person who learns how to use them often does not see the damage to themselves, and therefore continues to use them.
The moral of the story: don’t focus on your kids’ popularity, focus on teaching them the skills they’ll need for success in the real world. If your child has a few friends, a secure relationship with you and ideally other family members, and demonstrates progress in social skills, you are on the right track. If your child is very popular, watch for signs that he or she also is learning good social skills from you such as empathy and kindness to others. Empathize to them that most kids don’t fit in that most-popular crowd. Make sure that your child knows that their future success is not dependent on popularity, and help your child to become more comfortable being the unique and precious individual that he or she is.
No comments yet.