Dealing with Cliques in a Support Room as a Moderator

Hello, wonderful listener community! Today Id like to talk to my fellow moderators about an issue that we encounter in group chats from time to time.

The support rooms are really wonderful places for people—members and listeners!—to connect with one another, and I love to see so many individuals coming together to support each other. So many amazing connections are created between participants in the group chats and friendships often grow and flourish inside the support rooms as people find others that they can relate to and who understand or sympathize with their experiences. Those friendships are a good thing—one of the best and most important things that 7 Cups of Tea offers is the opportunity for people from all over the world and in all kinds of circumstances to find others that they can connect with and seek support from.

However, there are times when the friendships made in the support rooms become a problem. Every so often a group of friends might form a clique in the group chat, and that clique can get in the way of the support room functioning the way it should. Theres nothing wrong with people being friends with one another in the group support chats—meeting and supporting others is the whole point of those rooms!—but occasionally problems can arise.

A clique can become a problem when:

A group of friends are monopolizing the conversation instead of allowing the support room to function as a welcoming and helpful environment for everyone participating.

A group of friends are pointedly refusing to acknowledge any participants of the chatroom besides their fellow friends, and therefore making other participants feel unwelcome and uncomfortable.

A group of friends are ganging up against a specific participant in the chat or are defying the moderator of the chat.

A group of friends are attempting to use the chatroom as a personal clubhouse for them and only them and are attempting to drive others out of the support room.

Essentially, any time a group of friends causes other participants in the group chat to feel excluded, unwelcome, or bullied is an issue. Friendships are a positive thing, but the support rooms are not private chats just for friends. Theyre chats where everyone whod like to participate in a respectful manner needs to be allowed to participate, whether theyre close with the other contributors to the chat or not.

Its important to keep in mind that not all cliques are mean-spirited. Many people arent aware that theyre excluding someone until its pointed out to them! And thats a nice transition into the next part of this post: what we as moderators can do about cliques.

Cliques can be a tricky situation for a moderator to handle, because we dont want to make the members of the clique feel unwelcome in the chat. After all, everyone is welcome so long as theyre abiding by the support room rules. We also dont want to discourage friendships in the support rooms, because people building connections in them is what those rooms are all about! Our job as group mods is to encourage members of a clique to expand their circle of friends and make sure that the support rooms remain functional, supportive environments for all who want to join.

One of the most important things for a moderator to keep in mind is the idea of leading by example, and that's certainly an applicable tool when dealing with a problematic clique! When we encounter a group of friends that is starting to become exclusive towards other members of the group chat, we as moderators can help fix the situation by focusing our efforts on acknowledging and welcoming the participants who may be getting ignored or pushed aside. We can attempt to engage left-out members in conversation and by doing so we can (ideally) engage the entirety of the chat in a more inclusive conversation.

If members of the clique persist in ignoring what others are saying in the support room despite their actions having a clear negative effect on the others in the room, we as moderators can send a gentle reminder to the chat. For example:

I love seeing so many connections being formed in the chat today! I think {members name} would like to have a turn sharing now though—lets let them have the floor for a moment!

Thats a great story, {members name}! Thank you for sharing it with all of us. Would someone else like to share a story with us now?

Please remember that the support room is not a private chat room. Everyone is welcome to participate in here.

If members of the clique are in a support room that is not a Community Room and a causal conversation that theyre having is distracting from or preventing other participants from seeking or providing support, we can remind them of the purpose of the support room and of the existence of the Community Room for casual conversations.

As moderators in a support room where a clique is causing problems, we can attempt to change the subject in the room to one that everyone can participate in, or we can break out some icebreakers or games that everyone can get involved in if theyd like to.

And of course, if members of a clique are engaging in bullying towards any other chatroom participants, warnings should be sent. Examples of bullying behavior include messages like:

Get out of this room—were talking in here!

No one cares about your story.

Please stop talking, Im trying to talk to {members name}.

Im sure you can imagine plenty more examples of bullying for yourselves!

Finally, sometimes cliques can be intimidating for a moderator to deal with in a support room on their own. Thats completely okay—it can be tough to be one against many! Dont forget that you can warn if members are abusive towards you, too, and that whenever you need backup in a support room you can ask for it in the Listener or Moderator Chatrooms.

Thanks for reading!