How do you handle cliques?
Your 4th grader comes home from school quiet and gloomy. You ask about his day, and discover that his usual friends were hanging out together at recess but didn’t invite him.
The company softball team seems like they have their own set of rules at work, like leaving the office early every night they have a game. It’s just not fair that you have to stay behind and pick up the slack.
Your middle school aged daughter is obsessed with fitting in and impressing her peers. She’s pushing aside her relationship with you, her parents. This concerns and even frustrates you.
Being known and noticed by a group is part of human nature. God designed us as social beings. A group can provide support and protection, as well as resources and encouragement. Typically, we connect with groups because of similar interests or experiences.
The gravity of that pull into a group is much heavier and noticeable at certain ages or seasons of life, when our brains are spiking in their development or our emotions are shouting and we’re not sure why.
Cliques can start as early as preschool. However, most of us will agree that the teen years are the most sensitive and significant when it comes to being—or not being—part of a group. How can I fit in? What if I don’t? Am I known and noticed? Do my peers see me?
For adults, transitions into new experiences, such as a new job or new neighborhood, tend to make finding and being accepted by a group much more significant.
All of these dynamics create cliques, and it’s not all bad, but it’s not all good, either. The best way to navigate cliques is to keep it all in perspective and balance. Here are a few good reminders.
- Cliques formed by healthy and moral people can help a person feel less anxious and more supported. However, cliques formed by questionable people can lead someone to act in negative ways and develop unhealthy behaviors.
- Cliques can help those in them feel included, but can make those outside of them feel excluded. If you or someone you know feels excluded, remember that other relationships besides cliques can enrich a person’s life. Consider, for example, the power of a close friend or two, or family, or a caring church community.
- Cliques should help us express our identity, not find it. It’s tempting for those who enjoy the relationships in a clique to rely on those relationships, and affirmations from them, for their identity. Giving the right to any thing or any being—other than God—to define our identity is dangerous business. This is good news. Develop and practice faith habits that promise the identity given by the creating and redeeming grace of God. You’ll find that cliques or close groups still matter, but are not master.
Meditate for a moment on this Word of God about cliques, relationships and group behavior. For believers, it all starts with God including us in his circle and family of faith. Then, regardless of circumstances, we remain connected to him and from that identity we connect best to others.
“For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-11).
PRAYER: Jesus, you are my Savior and best Friend. When I need others more than I need you, gently correct me, redirect my faith to your grace and commitment, and clarify my identity in you. Born again and beautifully made, let me relate to others, to groups and to cliques in a holy and healthy way. Amen.
EVANGELISM ACTION: Share this with a friend who needs Jesus. Talk about identity found in him as a spiritual promise from God. By the way, this identity is promised in baptism.