Very young children, especially girls, withhold friendship as a weapon

Support for LAist comes from

Become a sponsor

Podcasts Take Two

May 28, 2014

Listen • 5:32

Very young children, especially girls, withhold friendship as a weapon

Exclusionary behavior is pretty typical, especially among girls. But recently, psychologists and educators are trying to do more to stop it.

SAN DIEGO, CA - OCTOBER 01: Children at Scripps Ranch KinderCare in San Diego play in their classroom on October 1, 2013 in San Diego, CA. Later, LuAnn Cline, a Prekindergarten teacher at the center, was surprised with the Early Childhood Educator Award and a $10,000 check from Knowledge Universe. (Photo by Robert Benson/Getty Images for Knowledge Universe)

Exclusionary behavior is pretty typical, especially among girls. But recently, psychologists and educators are trying to do more to stop it.

Even though it happened nearly four decades ago, Take Two host Alex Cohen clearly remembers how awful she felt as a kid every time her friends played "Charlie's Angels."

Inevitably, the same three girls would snatch up the roles of Kelly, Jill and Sabrina and she would be left playing John Bosley. For which she would inevitably be teased. So not cool.

This kind of exclusionary behavior is pretty typical, especially among girls. But recently, psychologists and educators are trying to do more to stop it. It's an issue Sumathi Reddy wrote about for the Wall Street Journal and she joins the show with more.