How to Handle Halloween Group Costume Drama | Dr. Tori Cordiano

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Dr. Lisa Damour:
Here comes Halloween. And if you are feeling a bit overwhelmed perhaps by Halloween costume drama, if you have found yourself in this seventh circle of middle school or early high school hell, you are not alone. Now, it may seem like, how can this be such a complex and challenging part of raising middle schoolers or early high schoolers? Well, there’s a reason for it. Halloween is loaded, and I mean that actually almost literally. So many things intersect at the question of Halloween group costumes. Who is in? Who is out? Who has power to decide what we’ll be wearing and who all is included? What are we wearing? Are we moving into sexy, if we’re girls? Are we still in the funny zone? And if there are kids who are lots and lots of kids who are all going together, are kids from the opposite gender also included?

What does that mean? So if you are feeling like, man, this is a lot more complicated than it feels like Halloween should be, well, you’re probably right. But to help us get through this, I have called on my dear colleague, Dr. Tori Cordiano. She and I worked together to untangle this thorny holiday. Let’s get into it.

All right, Tori, how are you?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Pretty good. How are you doing?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Good. I am glad to have you here to tackle this complicated, but also not at all unusual question that has come our way.
“Dear Dr. Damour, I’m hoping you can help me make sense of something that’s consuming a huge amount of emotional energy in my house. My daughter is in the seventh grade and every year she and four of her closest friends do a group costume for Halloween.”
Okay, you’re already like, “Oh no.”

“This year, the planning started in September and it has been nothing but drama. Two girls wanted to be a specific set of characters. One girl vetoed it because she didn’t want to wear the outfit required. There’s been a group chat that got screenshotted and passed around. And at one point my daughter came home in tears because she felt like she’d been voted off the group costume idea entirely, even though nobody said that directly. What strikes me is that this really isn’t about Halloween. It feels like the costume is just a container for a much bigger negotiation about who’s in, who’s out, and whose preferences matter most in the friend group. My daughter keeps asking me what she should say in the group chat, and honestly, I don’t know. Do I tell her to let it go and just come up with another plan for Halloween? Do I help her push back and ask questions about what’s happening? I don’t want to overreact to something that might blow over in a couple of days, but I also don’t want to dismiss how much it’s clearly hurting her right now. Help.”

All right, Tori, let’s start with how the parent’s doing, how the parents feeling. It feels big enough to write in. Where do you see adults in these moments when they’re struggling with these kinds of questions?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah. I think there’s two things which are equally painful. The first is it’s really hard to see your kid being left out or feeling like they’re going to be left out. And especially in early adolescence when you’re outside of the range of really being able to help fix it, but you’re still so close, you’re right there.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Close enough to have the information, far enough away to be able to do nothing.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Right, exactly. It’s such a lovely place for a parent to be. The other thing is that for many parents, this brings up feelings of being left out. Whether it’s their Halloween costume in middle school or the group that they went to prom with or something that happened as an adult, those feelings don’t entirely go away. We get hopefully better at handling them and we have more experience with those situations, but it can really bring up difficult feelings for parents.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Isn’t that the truth, right? I mean, I’ve always thought like it pokes at an emotional bruise.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And we know actually from brain science that the social injuries of seventh grade, they are felt and they do leave a mark.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
They do.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
They do leave a mark over time, which is –

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
It’s actually a little validating, right?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Validating-

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
It really was that hard.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And very alarming, right?

But it also means that any adult in this position needs to do a little soul searching. How much of this is what my kid is struggling with today and how much, if it’s there, is this my kind of excavated memory of something really painful that may be activating me here in a way that’s not going to help my kid or may not be the posture from which I want to try to be helpful.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah. And I think there’s nothing like early adolescence to bring on that sort of self-reflection and processing things from your own adolescence.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I have such vivid memories of seventh grade and who wore what and who called who in the evening.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
What you were invited to, what you weren’t.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah.

This is peak seventh grade. It erupts in these different points and the group Halloween costume is one of them. It’s a place where kids can really find connectedness. It’s like we’re going together and it feels fun to do it this way. And also people want their voice to be heard. It’s often there’s patterns that are in the group dynamic that get more pronounced around the Halloween costume. So I’m not surprised to hear her say, “This isn’t really about the Halloween costume, but this is where it’s coming to a head.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s so loaded. It is so loaded, that idea we have in psychology of over-determination where so many things come together once. Halloween is so over-determined. The group costumes are so over-determined. There’s so many places for us to dig in. I think the first thing that struck me just in terms of order of operations and what an adult can do to be helpful, this loving parent is like, “Do I just tell her to go do Halloween on her own?” This seems like such a rational idea, such a great suggestion. Like, “You know what, who needs a group costume at Halloween?”

I am sure the person who wrote in knows this and you and I know this. That would be the equivalent of being like, “Why don’t you switch schools?”

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Sure. Right. It’s as easy as that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s as easy as that.

The repercussions of being pushed out, the repercussions of leaving, the repercussions of just deciding to do your own thing, which may seem so not that big a deal to adults, I think we have to hold that that would feel like a crisis response from the kid.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Absolutely. And probably not what the kid wants, right? If they felt like, “I don’t like this costume enough or these aren’t my close friends enough that I’ll just opt out of the costume,” it wouldn’t have gotten to this level. They very much want to be a part of this. So suggesting that they just do their own thing is probably going to be met with not just resistance, but a sense of, “Oh my gosh, you don’t even understand any of this.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
“You don’t get this at all. You don’t get this at all.”

Okay. We’re going to dig in in a minute here about how do we help this kid and what can an adult do or say and what kind of guidance is helpful? But before we do, I also just want to underscore that one of the dynamics in middle school group friendships is some kids starting to move faster than others. And in terms of what makes Halloween so ripe is that I’ve always though the costumes kind of divide themselves into sexy or funny. And part of what I have seen over the years, especially with girls in the group costume dynamic, is that some kids want to be M&Ms and some kids want to be –

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Sexy M&Ms.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Sexy M&Ms.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
It’s a thing.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s a thing. Okay. I did not know sexy M&Ms was a thing, but I could picture it now that you say it.

So that is also in terms of the over-determined nature of this, the ways that so many things are coming together at once, even deciding on what kind of costume we’re going to do in middle school surfaces all of these other dynamics about who’s moving into the fast lane, who still is wanting to do younger kids stuff, which is so rich.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Let’s add two more quick things specific to Halloween. The first is this is the bridge between, are we still trick or treating for candy or are we trick or treating because we get to be walking around the neighborhood and maybe without adults with us? So they’re in that phase. There’s also for a lot of middle schoolers, are we going with our group? Are there going to be boys that are going with us, which is also shaping the dynamic. So there’s a lot of pieces that make this holiday especially loaded.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah. No, that makes sense. It’s right in that brink of like, we’re not quite going to parties, but we do have Halloween and this is sort of JV parties or the beginning of that kind of socializing.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Making it their own thing.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah. And maybe socializing with kids of the opposite gender-

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yup.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
and seeing how that all goes.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. Where do we start with trying to help this family out?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
So thinking first from the perspective of the parent, I think the number one job here is doing a little bit of figuring out is this a, “Do you want to vent?” I mean your classic line of, “Do you want to vent or do you want to problem solve?” And this daughter has come to this parent and with a question of how should I respond? So we’re assuming maybe there’s a little bit of room for coaching or conversation.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
That the kid is asking.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yes, yes. But just holding that idea that as much as you may want to, it’s not really an option to fix this, right?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. We need to rest on that. There’s no solution here that is going to be a happy solution for all involved.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Right.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
There’s no outcome. There’s no magic a parent can pull off where suddenly the friendship group dynamics just dissolve, everybody’s happy, everybody feels included in the right way, this is all going to go great. That’s not really on the table here. It’s helpful to say it out loud that there are so many things in helping our kids along, especially through social stuff where it’s going to be bumpy no matter what, and we need to be prepared for this.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yes. Yeah. And we do have jobs in this situation. As parents, fixing it is not one of those jobs, which is really hard. If we back this up to third or fourth grade, whether it’s the group Halloween costume or the dress like a twin day, I don’t know if they have this at your kids’ school, this was like the bane of everyone’s existence because dress like a twin day, somehow find the one person that you’re going to dress like. If you’re in second or third grade and this is coming up, there’s parent texting that can happen to smooth this out. That’s not going to be an option in seventh grade.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So one of the frames I like to put around these things is helping without fixing. And I think if we put this all under the headline of helping without fixing, then some opportunities open up. So where do we start with the helping?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah. Yeah. So I think we start by doing a little bit of just validating. And we don’t want to fast forward through the fact that that actually is helping. You’re giving space without jumping to problem solving and doing a lot of the, “Ugh, that stinks. I’m sorry.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
“This sounds bananas. Yuck”

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
“I know this is hard.”

A lot of nonverbal facial expressions are doing some heavy lifting here, those sorts of things.
Then when we get to the place of, “I don’t know, do you want some help to kind of figure this out?” And then assuming this child says, “Yeah, I don’t know what to do.” Then we can start to think about what is our goal in this situation? Do you want your voice to be heard? Are you really uncomfortable with this costume because it’s something you don’t feel comfortable wearing or it’s not your vibe? Are there other power dynamics that maybe need to be addressed outside of just the Halloween costume?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So in this mire that is Halloween, there’s so many layers. But what you just said made me think about all of the ways this could be rubbing the kid the wrong way or all of the ways the kid could be struggling with it. And I can imagine the parent saying, “Is it this or this or this or this?” And kids being like, “All of it. All of it.” And I can even see in those moments where it might be helpful to say, “Why don’t we start with the thing that’s bothering you the most and then work backward from there to bring some order to the chaotic feeling of this.”

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yup. To kind of reign it in.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Because as you were describing it, I’m like, “Oh, there’s things at different levels. There’s like how much should I be trying to push back or say something to my friends?” And then there’s something at a totally different level of like, “Wait, is there a power dynamic playing out here that I need to name, not because I’m going to do anything about it today, but because I need to start to crystallize it in my mind that this is what’s happening.”

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
And I need it to be acknowledged, right? So talking it through with a parent may not change it, but it does give some validity to what this kid is experiencing. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Let’s take a beat on power in the seventh grade. How do you get power in the seventh grade?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
So when we talk about power, we’re thinking about that social power, right? And oftentimes I like to break this down with kids around the word popular and what that means because popular doesn’t always mean well liked, kind to everybody. I mean, it sometimes can. Sometimes that is the kid that is named popular, right?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, kids use it two ways. Sometimes to describe kids that are widely liked and sometimes to describe kids that people know are willing to be mean and will use that to garner social power.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yes. And they hold a lot of power. They can sort of shape dynamics. They can get a group to do what they want. They can make this feeling of in or out of the group happen. That feels really scary for kids who are not the person in that position of power.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Right. And not willing to do the things that may be involved. Okay. So let’s just imagine for a minute on this scenario that that is at work, that there’s one kid who is very savvy and again, may turn into the greatest ninth grader on the planet.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Absolutely. Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
We have seen it a billion times, but as a seventh grader who is able to use power in ways that adults don’t love, doesn’t feel good for the kids involved, say that your kid is caught up in this, is in pain about this, what do you say to your child in that situation?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah. Well, I like what you said about bringing it back to what’s the first problem that we need to tackle because thinking about all of that may be just too big, especially if they’re already kind of amped up about the costume idea. So something along the lines of, “How do you want to handle the costume part of it? How would you like this next part to go? What do you think you want to do next in this situation?”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s funny. It’s so fun to trade lines with you. Another language that I have found really helpful is to say to kids, “If this could go any way you wanted, how would this go?” Because sometimes that’s underneath and anything we offer the kids like, “Not that, not that, not that.” And if you surface it, sometimes it’s totally doable. Right? Like, “I want you to say, ‘I can’t go.’”

And maybe you’re like, “Sure, fine. That I have to take my little brother. I’m out. Give me an excuse.” Maybe that would feel fine for the family. And sometimes the kids are like, “I want so-and-so to no longer have power.” And you’re like, “Okay, well, that’s not on the table today.” But that language I think can sometimes help us figure out what might look like a fix to a kid and whether it’s even in the realm of possibility.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah. And then I think we move to action, if there is action to take, because actually what might come out of it, and especially if the planning for… I mean, the planning for these Halloween costumes starts before Labor Day, right?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yes.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
This is more preparation than any other holiday in seventh grade. So it may be an option to just let it ride out a little bit. That may feel comfortable for this 13 year old, the seventh grader. They may feel like they want to say, “I really want to go with you guys, but I don’t feel comfortable wearing that costume. Can we think of something else?” There’s different ways that they can move forward, but to name sort of what’s the goal or how would you have this go can help to clarify that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So start to hone in on what are we trying to fix here? We’re not trying to fix the particular mood of that other seventh grader that we can do nothing about in terms of maybe wanting to exercise power, but we could fix something else over here. Okay. This is also all going down in a group chat. Talk to me about… Well, let’s start with, when are group chats good in the middle school? Is there any version of a good group chat in the middle school?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah. Okay. So let’s pause for a moment and think about why they’re so appealing, right? Because I think this is a place where adults don’t get it. Most adults I know, it’s their idea of a nightmare to have a group chat with 15 people on it. No adult wants that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, it’s my idea of a nightmare.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
I mean, mine too. Maybe there’s adults that like it. It’s not you or I.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Not us. Yeah.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Right.

So I think to even understand the appeal of it, for many seventh graders, this is their first time having access to technology that allows them to do that. There’s a lot of freedom. It’s fun. You get to connect with people outside of school. Maybe you’re also talking with people who aren’t your closest friends in school, but this feels like a way to talk with them. So there’s a lot of appeal there.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’ll add one too. I have seen kids who have two or three really good buddies, so it’s not a giant group chat. There’s giant group chats and there’s –

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Which are their own problems.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yes, a separate issue. And with those good buddies, they have the same kind of humor or the same kind of interests and they are sending one another Harry Potter memes that are benign, but so many of the memes that seventh graders are interested, I look at it, I’m like, “I don’t get it.”

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
You don’t get it. You’re not supposed to.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s not for me.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
It’s not for you.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I don’t understand it. But that they are having a good time sharing inside jokes, but not in a bad inside joke way, right? Sort of a shared humor, a shared topic or interest. I’ve seen that be really pleasant for kids. Okay. So there can be versions that are fine. There are versions we can understand. Boy, do these go off the rails fast.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Oh yes. Right.

And I think generally the more people in the group chat, the harder it is to wrangle because there might be words in there that your kid is not familiar with nor do you want them to be, or language or memes or pictures that are just entirely inappropriate. But then there’s a kind of a group think that keeps it going and going and going because nobody feels like they can leave the group chat or say anything about what’s going on there.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Group think’s really important. And what we know as psychologists is that it tends to be much worse than individual think.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And it can veer in two very bad directions, meaner or dumber or both. So I guess three directions.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Right. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And so my experience around group chats is that they often veer towards the meaner, to the less kind, and put kids in an awkward position where they’re sort of passively or tacitly participating in something they want no part of.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Right. And that they would likely never use that kind of language if they were speaking to somebody or about somebody. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So we have two group chat problems to solve.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Okay.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
One is, what should this kid do? Because this is all getting negotiated and not in good ways via group chat. So say that we’re in the seat of the adult here and we’re trying to help this kid and she’s like, “Should I say something in the group chat? What should I do? Should I do it a different way?” What would you recommend?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
So I think the idea that this seventh grader is even saying, “How should I respond?” Opens the door for us because one of the challenges with texting or group chats or communication in that way at this age is that the part of the brain that really pauses to think through, “Do I want this out there public, permanent, can be screenshotted, can be shared forever,” is not online yet. It’s not fully operational.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
The breaks are weak. The gas pedal is strong.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yes, absolutely. Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
So the fact that they’re even thinking through, “How should I respond,” is great. We can work in that space. So we might do a little bit of conversational coaching about what would it look like if you put it in the group chat? How does it go down in there? Is it better to have this conversation at the lunch table when you see them tomorrow? Tell me why that couldn’t work or could work and just sort of slowing down that process. If they do decide they want to communicate through the group chat because that’s where the action is happening, then really thinking through like, “Okay, what would you say? Tell it to me first and let’s kind of workshop it and then you could put that message in there.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. I agree with everything you said. There’s something you’re doing that’s subtle and super important, especially when trying to give social advice to any adolescent, which is you’re like, “Well, what would it be like if you… What do you think would happen if you…” What is happening in that construction when we’re just starting to ask the question is, first of all, a ton of humility, which is what belongs in these conversations with kids about their social lives. When I picture walking into a seventh grade lunchroom, I’m like, “Okay, there is action. There’s so much action. It is so complex. We don’t perceive it all.” And so I think sometimes in well-meaning adults are like, “Do this or do that.” We’re not really offering helpful guidance. Just asking our kids to reflect, “If you did this, do a thought experiment, how it might play out.” They may never answer the question.

If they go back and think about it, and then with their perceptual knowledge of what they can pick up, they make a particular choice having thought about it, we’re already 17 steps ahead.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Absolutely.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So that’s huge. And then, “Okay, you might do something. Let’s practice it. Let’s say it out loud. Let’s think about it.”

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah. And I think actually in many, if not most situations, they won’t answer that question. You might say, “Okay, how might this go if you did this? Or what do you think might happen if you did it this way?” And they might think on it for a minute and say, “Okay, yeah.” And then be done talking about it with you. That doesn’t mean the work didn’t happen. That’s actually hugely valuable because we did help them reflect and probably get to a decision about how they want to handle it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Right, right. And slowed it down, gave them credit, right? “What would you think? What do you know? How would you imagine this?” If you really play it out, it’s very unlikely. Kids can be like, “Well, now that I think about it,” it’s just not going to happen.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
“Help me workshop this text.”

That’s not likely to happen.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
They’re not going to do it.

And I think it’s good to level set our expectations around those kinds of things.

Okay. The other problem with group chats, which I feel like we have to address is what if, unrelated to needing to sort out a very tight-knit friendship dynamic, which I think is happening in this Halloween letter, what if your kid is just stuck in a group chat where things are out of hand and they don’t know what to do, and you can just tell it’s bad, or they’re exposed to stuff in the group chat that you’re like, “Oh, no, no, no. This is not the kind of language. This is not, unfortunately, sometimes kind of the imagery we want.” What do you advise parents to do then?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah. So this is different at different age ranges, but we’re talking about seventh grade. So presumably the technology is pretty new. This would be the equivalent of your kids learning to drive and instead of starting on the side streets, you’d stick them on the highway, right? So we as parents have a job to create good boundaries around that use of technology at the start. And so if this group chat is getting off the rails, and the way that you would know is if your seventh grader is in these group chats, you might be looking at the group chat and letting them know, “This is part of my job as your parent at this age. Won’t always be this way, but – ”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
“Especially at the outset, I’m going to keep an eye.”

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Right. Yes.

So you can say, “I don’t feel comfortable with this. How do you feel about this?” Because you actually want to engage that part of them too. And then you may say, “I’m not okay with you in this group chat. You’ll need to leave this group chat if there are really egregious things happening.” Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And do you say, “Blame me,”?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. And so that was the next part of this is that you need to be able to say to your child, because they have to save face to say, “I don’t feel comfortable with this behavior or this language.” I mean, some kids can do that and pull that off and they feel great about it. Other kids, they’re just not going to do that. They would just passively be in it and feel this tension and this discomfort. So you can say, “Oh, my mom is so strict. She’s making me get out of this group chat. I’ll talk to you guys at school.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Right.

And that’s the place where sometimes I know that there can be a question of is it okay to tell kids that they can kind of lie or white lie? And I’m not a fan of dishonesty. And at the same time, I’m like, “This what white lies are for.”

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Sure.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
That not all kids are in a place where they can be like, “Friends, I need to let you know this has come to a place I don’t feel good about.” That doesn’t mean that they should be stuck in it. And one of the ways we always want to be thinking, and you and I think is development is long. The day may very well come when the kid can say, “Guys, take me out of this or I’m out.” We don’t need to make kids tough it out until they’re there.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Right. And many of them are not yet there in the seventh grade. And I do want to say some can do that, and it’s incredibly powerful. I’ve seen this happen in group chat situations where somebody says, “Guys, that is not cool. Cut it out.” And then it shifts. Either the group chat kind of dissolves or the nasty memes stop, and it’s really powerful for that teenager. And then for their friends, the other people in the group chat to see like, “Oh yeah, you can actually speak up when something’s going off the rails.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yep. I love it. So some kids are there, some kids are not. There’s ways to help them out.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
What else are we missing about this letter? What else are you thinking in terms of this kid, Halloween? This feels like a crisis to her, right? I mean, this is really bad to be pushed out of the group costume. What else are we thinking about?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
I mean, I think that idea, going back to we can’t fully understand what this is like or how big this is, this is a pivotal part of the fall, right? Is it the group Halloween costume for some kids? So any reaction we have that is airing on that side of like, “It’s just not that big of a deal, by next week you won’t even care about it.”

We can have that thought. It’s not going to be helpful to share that thought because it actually does feel huge to them. There’s a lot of planning involved. There’s getting ready together. There’s the actual night. There’s the recap. And yes, in three months they’ll be onto something new, but right now this is looming large.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Looming large. And really, now that we’re talking it through such an extraordinary intersection of all of the anxieties of being a seventh grader, “Where do I fit in? How grown up am I? Am I still a little kid? Am I moving towards more high school stuff? We’re starting to think about social stuff away from adults. Am I ready for that? We’re starting to think about stuff that feels a little risky, a little pushy.” All of this, all of this loads onto Halloween.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
There’s also changing social dynamics, which is a huge part of middle school. It is a painful but normal reality that most friendships shift during middle school. Some friendships stay really tight, some get tighter, some naturally kind of fall away, and this can play out through these moments and it can kind of illustrate some of the cracks that may be showing in the friendships.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Like this will start to put a stress test on things that may have already started to come apart. Now you and I both have older kids and I know from experience that the who’s included in the activity doesn’t change right away or doesn’t go away. I’m thinking a lot about homecoming, which here in Ohio, homecoming is a big deal. And I’m sure in other parts of the country too, but I think somehow we may have a very –

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Is it a Midwest sort of thing?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think it’s a pretty powerful thing around here.

And of course there’s a football game, but mostly it’s like who’s going with whom in what groups and who’s having dinner together and who’s getting ready together. That persists. Walk me through how the 10th grade or 11th grade negotiations around that are different from the seventh grade negotiations around Halloween, because I know a lot changes. We know a lot changes.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah. So some of the things that stay the same is this idea of social power, right? Unfortunately, that doesn’t go away. It shifts a little bit. We often see by the time kids are into high school, friendship groups can kind of loosen up and be a little bit more fluid and the people who hold the social power, it kind of disseminates a little bit in a good way. So that part can shift, but it doesn’t go away completely. There’s also the role of the parent, which as kids get older and older becomes much more of, “I’m here and you can vent, we can talk it through,” but it’s less action, more support.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’m usually finding out what the plans are. I’m not in any way.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
I’m not making the plans.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’m not in any way involved.

I think in seventh grade I was a little more in the front lines on that. So this kid feels left out and may end up left out. We’ll see how this unfolds. Another dynamic that I’m aware of in these things is kids who are included who don’t want to be part of it and are unhappy about that. Right, like, “I’m in, but I actually don’t want to be going with these people.” What do we advise, if that’s what you’re hearing from your kid?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah. I think exploring what makes them not want to be involved and why it might be hard to express that. So if it’s really just about the costume, like, “I love these guys, they’re my buddies. I just don’t want to dress up as pirates or whatever it is, sexy pirates.” And so if we can take that piece out of it, then it’s Okay, you can go with them, you can go with a different group of friends. If it is about a larger dynamic in the friendship group, this may be a good opportunity to explore that. “Tell me more about what you’re not loving about going with this group.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
All of this makes sense to me. And the thought I have is it may not get solved on Halloween. Whatever discomfort is coming in, whether it’s the kid who’s not included, whether it’s the kid who’s part of something they’re not sure they want to be part of, maybe Halloween gets a lot more bearable if we don’t treat Halloween as the problem to be solved.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Right. Right.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
But Halloween is the surfacer of things. The beginning of conversations where we start to have more clarity on the dynamics because this huge stressful thing has come in and put a stress test on what already exists. That somehow to me feels like it gives a little breathing room here. It’s not about solving Halloween. It’s about using it as a conversation starter about where kids are socially.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah. I think that makes a lot of sense because these dynamics will come out in other ways. They come out day to day at school for weekend plans, like “Who are you going to the football game with or who are you doing this thing with?” There’s lots of places where this will arise, which means there’s lots of chances for us to support and if they want our conversation and problem solving to do so with our kids.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. What are the big takeaways here? What do you think?

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Okay. So I think one of, and this doesn’t just about Halloween, but in these kinds of situations, straddling that position of support and problem solving. This comes up so much in early adolescence. So we want to lean on the side of we’re always there to support and the problem solving can be available if they want it and to be able to pull back if that’s not what they’re looking for.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yep. Yep. Lots of ways to help without actually fixing.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
All right. Thank you so much.

Dr. Tori Cordiano:
Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
For Parenting to Go today, I want to return to something that Tori was talking about, which is the use of the term popular, especially in middle school, early high school. The science on this is really interesting. And as she mentioned, kids use the term in different ways. Sometimes they use it to refer to a kid who is genuinely kind, well liked, widely liked. And sometimes they use the term to refer to a kid who is willing to be mean to garner social power and everyone knows it. All right, what can you do with this information? Well, I have found it both as a parent and a clinician really helpful that when the term comes up to actually ask a little more, to say, “Do you mean popular like everybody likes them or popular like people are a little anxious around them because they will be mean sometimes?” Getting into the weeds of that, making that distinction with kids is actually really helpful to them.

First of all, usually they can tell you right away, “Oh, they’re the first kind or the second kind of how we use popular.” And then having made that diagnostic distinction, what I find is that kids actually often feel more relaxed. If it’s the first kind of popular where that peer is likable, they can just enjoy that kid’s company. If it’s the second kind, the way that kids will sometimes use popular to describe somebody who’s actually not that nice, making that distinction actually gives them permission to be very cautious around that kid, even to avoid that kid. Now, probably not forever. As Tori and I talked about, often kids who are not using social power well tend not to do that for very long and can go on to be really wonderful peers. But in the meantime, helping kids make that distinction between positive popularity and I’ll call it not so positive popularity can help kids feel like their social landscape makes a little more sense and give them a better way to navigate it.

And do not miss next week’s episode. I am joined by Angela Duckworth, fellow psychologist and author of the brand new instant New York Times bestseller “Situated: Find the people and places that bring out your best”. See you next week.
Thanks for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to the Ask Lisa Podcast so you get episodes just as soon as they drop and send us your questions to [email protected]. And now a word from our lawyers.

The information provided on this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute or substitute for professional psychological treatment, therapy, medical advice, or other professional intervention. Views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Dr. Lisa Damour or Ask Lisa. If you have concerns about your child’s wellbeing or your own, please consult a physician or mental health professional. If you or someone you know is in crisis, contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. For additional resources, visit drlisadamour.com.