Snobby Clique or Tight Crew?

Q.My 10-year-old son doesn't have an easy temperament, but he has gone to the same school since kindergarten and has always had good friendships -- until this year.

Now he is sad because he doesn't have a friend, and he doesn't have a friend because he'd rather play ball, dig in the dirt or look for bugs than be a member of the four-boy clique that seems to do nothing except hang out, chill and "act cool." Unfortunately, this clique rules both of the small classes in my son's fourth grade.

There is one other boy in my son's class who is outside of the clique, and he is depressed and angry about it -- and five unhappy boys in the other class who anxiously try to get near the leader of the clique at every recess.

These things didn't happen last year -- the one year my son spent at the school's other campus. He loved the kids there, and we thought the parents were much nicer, too, but we brought him back because we didn't think the teaching was as good. Now the academics don't seem nearly as important as the social climate in the fourth grade.

The school has given my son these options:

1. He can stay where he is;

2. He can switch to the other fourth-grade class on this campus; or

3. He can transfer to the other campus, either now or later.

My son says he'd like to move to the other campus in September, but my husband and I think it might be better for him to move now, even though we don't know the teacher.

I want to do what's best for my son's emotional and social growth, but I've been struggling with a life-threatening illness for the past eight years and I think all of us have had enough hardship.

A.It's not surprising for a school to develop cliques, but first you have to ask yourself if these four boys are re ally in a clique or if they're just friends who have instinctively limited their core group to four or five members, because that's what most children do in grade school.

Children also grow at wildly different speeds at this age and their interests can become quite different, too, which is why some 10-year-olds would rather watch girls -- and be watched by them -- than look around for bugs.