Sarah Tucker wrote her best-selling novel The Playground Mafia, published in 2006, about a group of mothers who made the lives of other mother’s hell in the playground. Now that government politics have heated up and gotten, shall we say tricky, she’s circling back to playground politics and asking if they have gotten better or worse, or if the more things change…. Over to Sarah:
When I wrote my novel The Playground Mafia, I had moved to a new area myself and witnessed first hand the competitiveness amongst the mums in the playground. Twelve years on, the audio book of my novel was published on 19 July (check it out here). I thought things had changed. My son is now on his gap year, and starting university at Sussex in September, so I am out of the school system.
However, I still regularly walk through school playgrounds. Since writing the best-seller, I qualified as a yoga instructor, and have written the Brilliant Book series engaging children in yoga. I now teach yoga in six schools in southwest London and Surrey. So I did my own research to see if the mafia still exists.
What I discovered shocked me. Social media, rather than improving matters amongst parents, has made it worse – for parents, teachers and children.
‘Unfortunately, the “Playground Mafia” is alive and kicking,’ said one deputy, who would prefer to remain anonymous. ‘The playground can be a pretty terrifying environment for a new parent to navigate, it’s almost like entering a different country, with its own set of laws, language and culture. Sometimes the playground dynamic becomes destructive, even toxic and it can be a challenge as a school leader to counter this — especially as we now live in a time where contentious meetings might be filmed and live-streamed for other parents to watch, or when parents set up WhatsApp groups to air their views on certain decisions the school may have taken, rather than bringing their concerns directly to the Headteacher. We have a behaviour policy for the children, a code of conduct for staff – we need something similar for parents, whose behaviour is often far worse than their children!’
Children want stress-reducing yoga poses…for their parents
My own personal experience is children at the end of the class are always asking for yoga poses which their parents are able to do for ‘stress’ and ‘loneliness’. A lot of mothers are lonely it seems. And both parents have simmering and sometimes overt anger management issues.
So don’t for one moment think your behaviour isn’t being watched and absorbed by your children. Your behaviour is copied and impacts on your children. That includes your behaviour in the playground.
It takes place in both state and private schools. One head,
‘The dinner party grapevine has certainly ramped up,’ says another head teacher, who again wishes to remain anonymous, and confirms the impact of WhatsApp. ‘The pretesting season of January year 6 is now pretty brutal. The biggest thorn in my side is the advent of Whatsapp. A marvellous tool for family organisation — but the potential for poison if used as a communication tool for whole year groups. As an example: One parent claimed that the keyboards in the computer room were faulty when the boys performed the aforementioned online test – this was why THS did not get so many St Paul’s interviews as in previous years.
‘The keyboards were absolutely fine of course, the cohort were just not as clever as previous years. We are a non-selective school after all! A full retraction followed – but not on the group WhatsApp!’
How to combat the Playground Mafia
So what is the solution? I asked Alex Colcough, deputy head of Meadlands School, in Ham, where I teach yoga and meditation.
Sarah Tucker is taking relaxation & yoga into schools…and the kids need it!
‘In terms of tips, it’s exactly the same advice we have for the children — “Be kind!” I know it sounds really simple but just remember that we all have our own battles, hang-ups and insecurities. We don’t know what the next person is facing at home or in their personal lives. Try to greet people with a smile, think the best of each other (teachers, too). It’s very unusual for people to deliberately set out to upset. Much of it is unintentional. We all perceive things through our own very individual lenses, culturally and otherwise. Be mindful of this. Most of all though, be kind and remember: you, the parent, are your child’s primary role model. Behave the way you would like them to behave and if you’re unhappy about something, have a conversation with the person, in the spirit of trying to make things better… #nojudgement.’
Sir Anthony Seldon, who champions mindfulness in schools and has supported me in my campaign to get yoga onto the national curriculum, says the parents have forgotten how much their children observe.
‘Children follow parents’ behaviour far more than many parents choose to realise,’ Seldon says. ‘In every way, including not indulging in playground gossip that undermines the school or other parents.’
I agree. Indeed, the seven Nolan Principles of Public Office – namely selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Whatever your view is of the politicians in Westminster or abroad, adhering to the highest minded principle ourselves is how we keep politics in the playground diplomatic and harmonious.
Sarah Tucker’s audio bookThe Playground Mafia is available for download on Audible.
Her Brilliant Book series is out in all good book shops and available from Amazon. Her latest The Book of Brilliant Breathing is out in shops next on 19 July as well.
What do you think? Is the Playground Mafia as bad as ever, or even worse? Or has it been getting better at your children’s schools?
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Jennifer Howze
Sunday 22nd of July 2018
This hasn't been my experience -- I think that playground politics change significantly as children move from primary school. Parents are a lot less involved and therefore there are fewer cliques. I've found other parents are always too happy to get more people involved in school activities and everyone feels quite cut off from what secondary children are doing. Perhaps as the playground goes away, so do the politics?