mean girls?

At recess one day Madison's teacher found her sitting alone at lunch, looking sad and upset. She could barely bite the peanut butter sandwich that she usually couldn't wait to eat. "What's the matter, Madison?" the teacher asked.
Madison burst into tears. "My best friend Allie is sitting with Cleo and her little group of friends, and they just voted me off their lunch table and won't let me be their friend. Even Allie won't stand up for me!"
Later that afternoon, Trevor was standing alone by the basketball court after school. Trevor's mom asked him why he didn't go play with Zack and Steve, who were shooting hoops. Trevor told his mom he just didn't feel like it, so they walked home. But the truth was, Trevor and Madison were facing the same problem: They both felt left out. Kids who were their friends yesterday weren't their friends today. What happened?
So, what are cliques, you may be asking? Everyone feels left out by friends once in a while. And sometimes friends fight and make up again. But sometimes kids form groups that they won't let other kids belong to. A clique is a group of kids who hang out together and won't let others join in.
Not all groups of friends are cliques. The thing that makes a group a clique is that they leave some kids out on purpose. Usually one or two popular kids control who gets to be in the group and who gets left out. Kids may act much differently than they did before they were part of the clique.
For instance, Trevor and Steve always played basketball after school. But Zack started pushing Trevor out of the group, and now even Steve was saying mean stuff to Trevor. Same with Madison and Allie. They used to have sleepovers all the time, but now Cleo was hosting the sleepovers, and she didn't invite Madison.
Kids might form cliques late in elementary school or in middle school. Sometimes cliques are made of kids who share an interest in something, like sports or music. Sometimes the kids in them just want to be popular or want to belong. Both boys and girls have cliques, though people who study these groups say girl cliques are often meaner and more hurtful in the way they treat girls who aren't in the group.
If you are on the outside of a clique, it really hurts. Emotional hurt is different than the kind of hurt you feel when you skin your knee, but it's a kind of pain and it can feel awful. You might cry or want to yell mean things at the people in the clique. You might feel lonely if you're alone at lunch or after school. You might be frustrated or upset because you don't know what to do. You might feel down on yourself because of not being picked to belong. You might feel hurt because of the ways other kids keep you out.
Probably the hardest part of dealing with a clique is how bad it feels if a friend becomes part of a clique and starts treating you differently. Sometimes, the problem starts with an argument between the two of you. But other times you can find yourself on the outside of a clique, even if nothing happened.
Kids who fall into cliques might want to be popular and feel cool. Sometimes kids think that belonging to a clique will keep them from feeling left out. Or that it guarantees them friends. Some kids feel flattered to be let into a clique. They may feel better about themselves by being in when others are out.
Kids in cliques sometimes act differently than they would outside the group. They often go along with what the others are doing, even if they know it's not right. Even if it means leaving out a friend. They might feel bad about it, but they can't figure out how to be cool and still be nice to the person who's not in the clique. This is no excuse, though. Plenty of kids manage to be nice to everyone - kids in and outside their closest group of friends - without being part of a clique.
Sometimes kids in cliques find that they don't really want to belong to it anymore. They don't want to be bossed around by the rules of the clique, and they don't want to leave others out and hurt people's feelings. Sometimes they realize they are missing out on being friends with great kids outside of the clique.
Oh ya, but in other cases, there really isn’t a clique, it’s just, like a group. But everyone just seems so dang intimidated by them. Intimidated by the way they act, dress and talk. But you’ll never know who they really are unless you try and get to know them, right?
As we get older, we usually outgrow the need to be part of a clique. For others this takes a while. Most cliques have disappeared by the end of high school, making way for more mature and enjoyable friendship groups.