REJECTED CHILD

                                                                   REJECTED CHILD 

                    Definition: A "rejected child" is someone who is strongly disliked by his peers. "Rejected children" are one of the five types of sociometric (or peer) statuses, a system for categorizing a child's social standing based on peer responses to that child. Some peers may like a "rejected child" to an extent, but the child is rarely if ever identified as anyone's best friend.

           Rejected children have a number of characteristics that set them apart from their peers. They tend to be highly aggressive; rejected children often use physical, verbal and/or social aggression against their peers. Some or all of this aggressive behavior may stem from an initial instance of peer rejection.  Unfortunately, though, the aggression itself then sparks continued and prolonged rejection. Rejected children also tend to act withdrawn, quiet and unhappy. Again, whether these behaviors cause the rejection or are caused by the rejection remains unclear. A neglected child's academics may also be negatively impacted.

         This social relations intervention is aimed at aggressive, rejected and rejected only Black youth. Rejected children were considered disliked by their peers and lacked leadership skills. The social relations intervention is designed to inhibit responses of violence and aggravation and stimulate adaptive social problem-solving thinking of aggressive, rejected and rejected only children. The intervention includes positive social skill training elements and cognitive behavioral elements that promote deliberate and nonimpulsive problem solving skills. An experimental study of the social relations interventions found that the program was effective in promoting positive social skills and behavioral strategies with aggressive, rejected children. The intervention was not shown to be effective for rejected only children.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target population: Black children who were found to be aggressive and rejected or children who were considered rejected but not aggressive by their peers.

         The social relations intervention is designed to provide aggressive or rejected Black children with positive social skills training to promote prosocial behaviors and social problem solving thinking. The program consists of four components: 

1) social problem solving; 

2) positive play training; 

3) group-entry skills training; 

 4) dealing effectively with strong negative feelings.

            The components are designed to alter rejected children's low peer acceptance and response to interpersonal conflicts and problems. The program is delivered twice a week over 26 individual sessions lasting 30 minutes, as well as 8 sessions in small groups. Seven sessions are dedicated to social problem solving and nine sessions are dedicated to enhancing skills involved in positive relationships. These sessions occur during the school day in either groups or individually. Staff members are encouraged to vary the time spent on parts of the curriculum. Children are provided with feedback about their social behavior.

          The social relations intervention uses cognitive-behavioral therapy procedures with an added component of anger-management. This intervention combines previously explored cognitive behavior therapies with an anger-coping program. The staff consisted of female psychology graduate students and a doctoral-level psychologist.