9 ideas when kids/teens feel “Left Out” or excluded

Originally written June 2017, updated September 2020

Many young people we work with experience hurt or sadness about being excluded from friendship groups. 

Usually one or more of their “friends” has done or said something to leave them feeling left out or not accepted.  This could be someone avoiding eye contact, ignoring them in conversation, not asking them to an event/gathering or not responding to invitations/communication. These days, often this exclusion happens using social media.  This kind of exclusion can be mild (e.g. it happens occasionally, between people of “equal social power”, involving only one person) or much more severe (happening over the long term, done publicly, done to someone with less “social power” and done by many people operating together as a group).  At one end of the spectrum - severe and persistent exclusion - can be defined as bullying. At the other end of the spectrum - exclusion is simply the natural consequence of young people being more friendly with some people than others - and not necessarily doing this in a tactful or kind way.  

It is hard to find data on how common it is for children or teens being excluded by their peers, but some studies suggest at least 1 in 2 young people report this occurring during their late childhood/adolescence. This is probably an under-representation - many teens find it hard to admit it that it has happened.  It is hard for us as adults to admit they would like to be more “liked” by someone, let alone for an adolescent for whom social life is usually much more important.  Instead of admitting to feeling hurt per se, teens will often talk about being annoyed or frustrated with someone. As a result, exclusion is sometimes well hidden from adults and the only clues we get are them acting in an irritable, annoyed or sad ways at home.

Despite the fact being excluded is a very common experience for kids and young people, it can be extremely distressing for some of them. We as adults are in a different life phase and don’t have the same level of investement and pride in our social life - we have other parts of life to focus on.  Kids and teens don’t have careers to feel good about, dont have kids to care about and be proud of, they aren’t in relationships that they can feel have security and pride in, often haven’t developed the same level of interest in hobbies/activities - and have a strong evolutionery and subconscious instinct to “find their tribe”. For all of these reasons and more, for many young people much of their self worth relies heavily on whether they are accepted by their peers.  Being excluded therefore threatens the very basis of their self-esteem.

How do we support young people through being excluded? 

1. As parents, one of the most important strategy is to sympathise, love and care for young people as they endure this very normal experience.  This means we must know when it is happening, which also means we need to regularly ask kids and teenagers about their friendship groups and how they are feeling about the relationships with their friends.  We need to be alert to the deeper pain which is often behind their comments about “annoying” people, and be ready to compassionately ask questions when we notice irritable behaviour. 

If young people know they have adults around them who care that they are hurting, then they often can find resources within themselves to deal with it.  Of course, at times we need to go further and give specific strategies to young people, but before we give any advice or take any other action, the first step must be to simply listen and care.

2. Part of listening and caring is to make sure we dont minimise their distress.  It is sad and unpleasant to witness young people who are upset.  When we feel this way means it is tempting to “jolly” a kid/teenager out of their hurt, by brusquely saying things like “you’ll be okay”, “cheer up”, “it’s a fact of life” or other similar statements, or being impatient with their sadness or ignoring it altogether.  Unfortunately when we do this, young people can interpret it as us not caring about them.  And it also sends a subconscious message to them along the lines of “it’s not okay to be upset”.  Instead, we need to be appropriately caring and sympathetic, and allow the teenager to feel better in their own time, not in ours. 

3. Another way to support young people through exclusion is to avoid jumping in with advice too quickly and trying to support problem solve themselves.  As adults, we might immediately be able to see that there are some things a child/teen can do to respond to the exclusion, to make them more friends, or to strengthen their friendships.  The trouble with giving advice too quickly is at least twofold.  First, it can mean we are not listening for long enough and carefully enough, which means the teen is not supported well.  Second, it deprives the teenager of a chance to problem solve themselves.    A better approach can be to ask the teenager questions about how they want to respond, what they think works best, what they think might make things worse and so on.

It is not that advice isn’t often helpful, just that it is often given too quickly.  Once a teenager feels supported and cared about, and we have asked them questions about how they think they want to do, it can then be helpful to talk through ideas about how to respond to being excluded. 

4. Another way to support young people deal with exclusion over time is to keep on helping them form more than one group of friends.   Facilitating positive friendships is an important job for those of us who work with young people, and an ongoing one.   It should not be left to chance.  We know that kids/teens need good friends (much research supports the relationship between friends and positive mental health, good educational outcomes and even better physical health). Given how important this is, often adults need to “step in” and actively work towards helping a young person have the best chance of developing good friendships.  This means encouraging and facilitating outings, conversations, activities and communication with several sets of peer groups, at school, work, sport, through family connections and so on.  This is a process which takes time, and we can’t “find friends” for the kids/teens, particularly overnight, but it should be a priority for us to help them work towards this.

5. We can have coaching conversations with young people about how they can respond to exclusion. Coaching coversations are 70% questions - aimed at finding out exactly what is said/not said, done/not done, about what they think their options are and what they would like us to do or not do to support them. There are many response options for young people who have been excluded- but as a rule of thumb, it is often helpful for young people to “act” in cheerful, positive, nonchalant ways around excluding peers.  Acting angrily, or upset in response to exclusion can make it harder for the kids/teensto reconnect with those young people later, or even if this isn’t going to happen, can lead to the teenager feeling disempowered by the experience.    This doesn’t mean they should deny their hurt in front of their closest friends or family (or themselves) but it does mean acting confidently and cheerfully around most of their peers, most of the time.

6. If possible, we want to help young people cut down or avoid at least some of the situations which trigger feelings of hurt/sadness.  Spending time on social media is something most older kids/teenagers do – and as we know, many do it excessively.   Unfortunately being excluded can make young people spend even more time on social media - as they search for evidence that they might be being accepted again, or for evidence that it is happening again.  Unfortunately this can be a vicious cycle and sometimes we need to step in to put boundaries around this behaviour.

7. Add in “busy brain” activities. Long periods of time ruminating and worrying make the experience of exclusion worse. We want to help young people have something else to focus on – physical activities (eg sport/going to the gym), other hobbies, time with other groups of friends, outings with families, television and so on are all good activities to help young people distract themselves from their pain while going through this experience.

8. Seek extra help when needed. It is important to consider getting extra mental health help if a young person seems significantly upset over a period of time.  Seek advice from a GP, school counsellor or a psychologist.

9. Finally - look after yourself. Parents very commonly feel angry, upset, sad and worried about their young person being excluded. In fact some research suggests parents can be more distressed about their child'/teen’s exclusion than their young person is at times. Either way, this is a tough time for you too - practice good self care. The calmer we feel, the better we are able to support our children.

Wishing you patience and wisdom in your support of your young person through this very tough experience.

If you are concerned about a young person and would like information about counselling services specifically for young people, please click here on Counselling. We have a video course for primary aged children about dealing with peers - including animations and activities on “Dealing with Lonely Times” and “Coping with “Mean” behaviour” in Calm Kid Central