I think it would hard to be an adolescent in
this day and age. Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of hard choices and
problems I faced when I was a tween back, well back in the ‘day’. We still had
bullying, but not cyber-bullying. And there was no such thing as sexting, texting,
or twerking. But there have always been cliques whether in elementary school or
high school. In fact, even as adults, cliques are prominent in work, sports,
post secondary education, clubs, and neighborhoods.
By Wikipedia’s definition, a clique is a group
of “persons who interact with each other more regularly than others in the same
setting.” Interacting with cliques is part of normative social development
regardless of gender, ethnicity, or popularity. Although cliques are most
commonly studied during adolescence and middle childhood, they exist in all age
groups.
It’s almost tribal, this power cliques have
over us—wanting to be a part of a certain group, or the ‘in’ crowd, or the top
of the heap.
When you think of the word tribal your mind conjures images of
group identity, group force, group willpower, and group belief patterns. Tribes
have very primal connections. Shame your parents, and you’ve shamed your
family. Snitch on a friend, and you’re on the blacklist for a stint or forever.
Date someone who has a bad rep, and suddenly your name is all over the social
media, and not in a good way. Lose the game, and you’re shunned by your
teammates.
The Breakfast Club is probably one of the best movies that
exemplify cliques. There’s the Jock, the Beauty Queen, the Misfit, the Rebel,
and the Geek. All tribes fitting into one box. If you’ve never seen this 80s
gem, take a peek at the trailer:
So how do we break the power, the dare-I-say
spell that cliques can have over us?
In the first book of my MG/YA time travel
series, my characters—five kids who are all from different ethnic and social
backgrounds—were given a detention too, but unlike the actors in The Breakfast Club, they were made to
work together to clean up a yard for a period of two weeks. Once they found the
weathered stone time portal, barriers started to crumble between them, and they
got to know and understand each other better. They became connected in a way
they would have never imagined, and I believe that understanding each other is
a good place to start breaking the bonds of cliques.
What do you think about cliques, and the power
they have in our society? I’d love to read what you have to say…
