How Your Kid’s Exclusion Hurts You Too | Michelle Icard

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Dr. Lisa Damour:
So a few years ago, I came up with a new metaphor that I love, and you know I love metaphors, and it’s about middle school socializing. And the way I have come to think about middle schoolers and socializing is that each middle schooler is like an atom and they all want to be part of chemical compounds. So some compounds are big, they’ve got lots of kids, some compounds are little, two or three kids. Some compounds are really unstable, especially if they’re big, some compounds are more stable. Now where this metaphor has come in most handy for me is when you have a kid who I will call a free floating atom, they’re looking to join a compound and they can’t seem to join a compound where every atom in it seems to like them. So say for example, you’ve got four kids who make a compound, they like each other and they like their stable chemistry as a compound.

And say for example, each of those kids will individually be kind to the free floating atom when the rest of the compound isn’t around, maybe hanging out on the weekends, maybe sitting next to them in class. Now it’s so confusing for the free floating atom because they think, “Gosh, all of these kids seem to like me or like me enough, but when the four of them are together, I’m not welcome. What’s going on?” Having this metaphor on hand, sharing it with kids can help to bank things better. When I’ve needed to do this, here’s how. I will explain my whole compound metaphor and what I will say is those kids have found a stability in that compound that depends on it just being those four atoms. So when the other kids aren’t around, they feel comfortable hanging out, but they’re not about to welcome in any atom that could threaten the stability of what they have going.

Explaining it in this way can help kids to feel, first of all, much better because it doesn’t feel so personal, understand the mixed messages they’re getting, like, “Why do those kids sometimes seem to include me, but sometimes not include me?” And open up options for them. Some kids will just move on, find another free floating atom, find a compound that’s still taking atoms and join it. They come up with lots of different solutions, but most importantly, it helps them to understand some of the confusing information that can be coming their way.

Today, I get to talk with my wonderful colleague, Michelle Icard. She is a specialist in all things middle school, the author of three fantastic books about middle school, check our show notes. And she and I talk through a situation like this where things are shifting fast for middle school friendships. There’s a lot of confusing information and there’s a need for a kid to get some support and to try to make sense of it.

Let’s get into it.

Michelle, it’s great to have you here.

Michelle Icard:
It’s great to be here, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
All right, here’s our letter. You ready?

Michelle Icard:
Ready.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay.

Dear Dr. Damour, my daughter, 13, is headed into eighth grade. She’s a great kid with strong grades and a sport she loves. Over the past several months though, she’s slowly become the odd one out in a group of eight or nine girls she’s grown up with. Plans are made without her and gatherings are mentioned in front of her. After seeing Snapchat posts of the group together last weekend, she asked my husband through tears if there was something wrong with her. What makes this especially confusing is that the girls who seem closest to her individually continue to send mixed messages. This is made more complicated by the fact that the girls’ parents are our close friends. We see them constantly at the pool, at her games, so, “Just find new friends,” isn’t simple. And I know from your past advice that talking to the other parents likely will not help.

I don’t want to rescue her from normal adolescent disappointment, but it’s hard to watch repeated exclusion chip away at the kid who’s always felt so secure. Should I stay out of it or help her? And if so, how? How do I step in? Thank you so much.

Okay.

Michelle Icard:
That’s a heavy one.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
This is heavy. This is heavy. I like to start with the parent and what they’re going through. All right. You’ve seen these situations, I’ve seen these situations. What is this like for the adult?

Michelle Icard:
Well, the adult is feeling a sort of compounded pain here because on the one hand, they’re really worried about their child and whether this is going to be a lifelong scar or change the trajectory of how they do in school. I mean, we start to catastrophize when we’re worried about how our kids are doing. So there’s that pain and then there’s the pain of, “Gosh, I’m friends with the parents. Am I allowed to continue being friends with the parents? Is that morally wrong? Should I cut the other parents off?” She said, “I’m not going to go talk to them about their kid’s behavior because I know that’s not going to work, but so then what? What do I do?” So I think there’s a feeling of helplessness and compounded pain that’s making this difficult.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
To watch your kids say, “Is there something wrong with me,” right through tears.

Michelle Icard:
It’s the stuff of Hollywood movies. We would all watch that scene and cry-

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah.

Michelle Icard:
-in a movie.

And we would all be shouting at the screen, “No, honey, there is nothing wrong with you.”

This is so normal that at around this age, as we’ve talked about before, you and I, kids are figuring out who they are and parts of that are really fun to watch. “Oh my gosh, they’re painting. I didn’t know they liked painting.”

And parts of it are so painful because they’re not just looking at new activities and new clothes, they’re looking at new friends and that’s painful no matter which side of the equation you’re on, whether you’re the friend being left behind or you’re watching your kid leave another kid behind.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Right.
Right. I mean, it’s not good in any of that.

Michelle Icard:
It’s not fun.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’m going to go ahead on the parent list of feelings, anger.

Michelle Icard:
Oh yeah, for sure.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think when our kid is hurt and when we feel like we can point to who’s doing the hurting, I think a primal, intense anger, I think that phrase “mama bear,” I think that’s a phrase for a reason. I think it can also leave people grappling with, “Who hurt my kid and where do I take all of this firepower?”

Michelle Icard:
That’s such a good point and that’s debilitating and there’s really no good place for it, is there?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay, but that’s important, right?

Michelle Icard:
Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So where does one take it? Because I am in agreement with you. Picking up the phone and calling other parents, I get it, why people do it. We protect our kids above all. And I really mean primal, like evolutionarily driven. Someone hurt my child, I am on this.

Michelle Icard:
It’ll give you nightmares, anxiety dreams-

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah.

Michelle Icard:
-that sort of thing.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
But I think you and I both recommend those phone calls do not usually go well. So what do you do with the anger? Where does that go?

Michelle Icard:
The gym is a good place.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. Let’s start there. Take it over to –

Michelle Icard:
Pound out a bag or lift some heavy weight. No, seriously though, we all know that when you’re feeling strong emotions, it shows up in your body. So kind of finding a way to get out of your body I think is really healthy. I also think those emotions need to be exorcised. And I mean that, I don’t mean physical exercise, I mean like the exorcist. They need to be purged from your system somehow. And so a trusted confidant, a therapist, a partner, your own parent, these are people you can complain to pretty safely. You don’t want to be casually telling other parents. Maybe they’re not the parents of the other kids who are excluding your child, but you don’t want to be somebody who’s gossiping about little kids’ drama. And so you’ve got to find a real safe place to express that, but you should be able to express it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I am so with you on this, right? I walk for exercise with a friend a couple days a week and we both are in agreement. A lot of it is just venting.

Michelle Icard:
Once you say it, it’s like poof, okay.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. And it’s safe and it goes nowhere. So okay, anger, I think on the list, you can have it, you have every right to it. Where you put it matters-

Michelle Icard:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
-put it somewhere safe. Put it somewhere safe.

Michelle Icard:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. What’s the deal with these eight or nine kids, first of all, who seem to selectively exclude this one child? You are the guru of all things middle school. Why are they doing this?

Michelle Icard:
Can I first say that that was a really good Jerry Seinfeld impression? “What’s the deal?”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
“What’s the deal? What’s the deal here?”

So, what’s the deal?

Michelle Icard:
Okay, so what’s the deal? The deal is that these kids are doing what I call bellying up to the buffet. In other words, we say to kids, “You got to kind of figure out who you are.” We don’t say it, but that’s what’s happening. And so they’re like, “All right, I’ve always been a kid who just liked butter noodles and chicken tenders and now there’s a buffet of options before me.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And these options being peers they can hang out with?

Michelle Icard:
These options are now people they can hang out with and they understand now that they didn’t know when they were younger that who they hang out with is a real reflection on who they are and how they will be perceived by their peers. So while they might have always loved butter noodles and chicken tenders, suddenly all the kids are saying, “You know what’s really cool? Pizza with sausage on it.” And so one kid may still be sucking butter noodles and that’s not wrong and that’s not bad, but everyone develops at a different rate. And I’m imagining that this one girl who’s feeling excluded is not as interested in more mature interests that these other girls are into suddenly. It’s like she maybe still wants to do some imaginative play. They’re more into like, “I want to read this book where people are making out.” So things shift pretty quickly and they feel that by aligning themselves with people who have similar interests, they are telegraphing to the other kids at school, “This is who I am.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
“I’m older and I’m cool now.”

Michelle Icard:
“I’m older and I’m cool now.”
And they may genuinely still like, this is the tricky part, that there are a few girls who are sending mixed messages and no coincidence, those are the girls closest to her. They do like her.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And they may even still like that little kid stuff. That’s right. And little kid, it seems like derogatory. I don’t mean it that way. But I’ve seen situations where there are kids who are like, “I will come over to your house and we will do,” even like American girl stuff.

Michelle Icard:
I was going to say do American girl dolls.That’s exactly it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
As eighth graders. “But at school, when I’ve got my cool thing going, I’m going to pretend like we’ve never met.”

Michelle Icard:
And I can tell you, I have been on both sides of that equation. I was a new kid at school and when the little girl invited me over, it was third grade, she was my best friend. And at school, she did not want to play with me. So I’ve been that kid and I know I’ve been the kid who really liked to do arts and crafts at another girl’s house in ninth grade, but was really embarrassed at school. So I’ve been both of those. I have a lot of empathy for what’s going on here, but yeah, I think that those few kids who are sending mixed messages are feeling mixed about it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Right, right. And I’ve heard this actually. I have a really brilliant cousin who I adore and he’s like, “If you can’t tell how people feel about you, it’s because they probably can’t figure out how they feel about you.” I was like, “Oh my God, that’s the smartest thing I’ve ever heard. That’s so smart.”

So they are mixed because they’re sending these mixed messages. And I think even as we get back to like, “Where to do, where should one put all this anger?” Even the explanation you’re giving of these kids are trying to figure it out too, and they’re not really sure. And they want to be cool because they’re 13 and that’s so important to them and they also may genuinely like and enjoy this kid. For me, that has sort of a little bit of an anger tempering quality of it’s not that these kids are trying to jerk my daughter around.
It’s that they are 13 year olds themselves who are on the bumpy path of figuring out what they’re all about.

Michelle Icard:
Yes. And the best thing a parent can do is avoid getting involved in that group mentality because eighth grade is a really tough year. By sort of mid-high school, these girls might come back around and the other girl is caught up a little bit with similar interests. When I see parents try to get in there and socially engineer what’s happening and say, “But you’ve been friends since kindergarten, you could at least do this or that,” it backfires. And when parents can pull themselves back in, rein it in a little bit, often these kids will find a path back to each other and we destroy that path when we get involved.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think there’s so many layers of wisdom on what you just said because first of all, it’s so easy in that moment to be like, “Those awful girls who have hurt my child,” I totally get it. They have hurt your child. Okay, but what happens six months later when those awful girls are actually being awesome and your kid wants to hang out with them? This is not a good situation.

The other thing is trying to engineer middle school and even early high school dynamics, the way I’ve always thought about it is things are happening in 40 dimensions. Children are perceiving 20 dimensions. We perceive two, to get in there and meddle. We don’t know what we’re doing.

Michelle Icard:
That is so smart. We perceive two dimensions and they’re like 40. That is really true. And I liken this to your friend breaks up with her boyfriend and you can empathize with her and you can have compassion for her heartbreak, but if you start railing on that boyfriend, first of all, what it says is, “I can’t believe you ever dated.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay, I like this.

Michelle Icard:
“I can’t believe you ever hung out with someone who was- I’ve always thought he was a tool.”

And then she’s kind of like, “Oh, well I actually, we were together for a year.” So you don’t want to send the message, that message. And then you also want to be real careful because they might get back together again. So you’re neutral.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
That is a great framing, right? Think about these 13-year-old girls who seem so evil as the guy that your friend just broke up with, who is probably not a bad guy, may not have been a bad guy at all, and who actually come back in the picture. Okay. So with that gorgeous framing, kid is crying in your house, looking at the Snapchat where they are not included, saying, “Is there something wrong with me?” What do you say to that child?

Michelle Icard:
Okay. Here’s what I would say. I would say, “This is painful. I understand it.” So I would first recognize the pain and then I’d be cautious about trying to fix it or rescue from discomfort. Parents are so worried about their child feeling discomfort. And when your friend no longer likes you, ouch, that hurts in a deep, personal way. But if we think we can fix it with ice cream or we can fix it with a substitute friend or by badmouthing them or whatever, our child doesn’t learn how to cope with the discomfort and the distress of bad feelings. So I would ask them, “I see that this is painful. I totally understand why. What is something you could do to feel a little bit better?” And let them tell you because they may say, “I want you to take Snapchat off my phone.” But if you say, “Take Snapchat off your phone,” they’re clinging to it.

Or they may say, “I just want to cuddle you and watch a movie.” Or they may say, “I just need to find someone else to hang out with.” And then you can offer up the next thing.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
“Sure!”

Michelle Icard:
“Sure. How can we do that? How can I help you with that? You want to sign up for a new activity? Do you want to reach out to someone you haven’t seen in a while?” But when you start making suggestions, they’re going to knock them down. So your job is a bit easier perhaps than you worry about.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Which is just say, “What’s going to help you feel better? How can you get through this?”

Okay. I want to underline and bold something in there, which is when we do that, when we say, “Oh, this stinks.” I live on, “This stinks,” in my house. “This stinks. What would help you feel better?” We’re also saying this is in the realm of curve balls that life’s going to throw at you. I fully expect stuff like this is going to happen and probably keep happening. So the job here is just high quality coping. It brings it down to size. I think that in that moment for parents when our parent bear mode is going, when our kid is in pain and we’re like, “This has to stop, this has to get fixed,” I think it also sends a really strong message of like, “This is really grave and serious.”

Michelle Icard:
“And you can’t handle it.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
“And you can’t handle it,” which is actually so well-meaning and so unhelpful in the moment because what we’re trying to say is, “This stinks and it is within the capacity of things that I know you can handle and I’m here to help you handle.”

Michelle Icard:
Yeah, absolutely. “You’re not alone. We’re here. We can get creative. When you’re ready, what’s going to make you feel better right now?” And that might be, that might be ice cream. Who cares? It’s whatever the kid says.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
They drive the coping.

Michelle Icard:
That’s right.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
As long as it’s healthy.

Michelle Icard:
They drive the coping.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s fine.
Okay. What about the fact that these are the parents’ friends’ kids? What do we do with that friendship? What happens now?

Michelle Icard:
Right. Here’s what I think happens. You don’t model for your kid that you just cut somebody off because you don’t like what their friend did, right? Or their child did or whatever, their husband did. So I think it’s important that this mom doesn’t just say, “Well, since your kids can’t be friends with my kid, I can’t be friends with you.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
She could daydream it if she wanted, right?

Michelle Icard:
She sure could. I hope she does. Yeah. And that’s to tell her safe person.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yes. Tell her safe person. “What I want to do is X, Y, and Z.”

Michelle Icard:
That’s right. But it sounds like she actually likes these parents, not just she’s tolerating them. There’s a meaningful-

Dr. Lisa Damour:
They’re hanging out.

Michelle Icard:
-friendship between adults here. So I think you keep that running, but you don’t push it on the kids. So here’s what I don’t want to see happen. “Well, I’m still friends with the parents, so we’re all getting together for the barbecue and you’re going to have to deal with the other kids.” Don’t force your child to go be in a social situation with these other kids just because you’re friends with the parent. It’s time now to move that adult friendship into its own lane.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So where the adults hang out together, but it’s not necessarily the big family get togethers that they were. And maybe that time is coming back. Maybe that time will return and maybe it won’t, but these are going to stay separate.

Okay. I want to get your take on something I’ve done. So having seen enough of this in my own work and practice, I have at times actually pretty consistently avoided becoming friends with my kids’ friends’ parents. Even though I look at them sometimes and be like, “I like those folks. I would love to hang out or have them over.” I sort of thought, “When everybody graduates from high school, that is an option I can pursue if I want to, but I’ve seen enough of this that I’m like, I’m going to keep my social life and my kids’ social life totally separate.” Too severe, too much? What do you think?

Michelle Icard:
Well, I think it’s personal. I think if that works for you and you’re comfortable with it, great. That’s probably how I would sort of naturally be anyway. I’m very introverted and I don’t need a lot of friends, so I would probably be just like, “Yeah, okay.” Very nice to people when I’m out and about, but not seeking a real intimate personal bond. For other people, they may love that and I don’t think there’s any real harm in doing that, but I think you can drive it however you feel most comfortable here.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. What works for you.

Michelle Icard:
But I will caution, if that’s your only source of friends, you’re relying too much on your kid.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. That’s a really important thing. Don’t use your kids’ friendships as the way you make friends exclusively, right? There should be other ways that you’re connected.

Michelle Icard:
It’s convenient, but also it’s not really fair to the kid. And again, you’re not modeling what I want parents to show, which is I have a life outside of your social circle.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. I’ve got my own life over here.
I also think it can be so wonderful when you like the parents and the kids get together because so much of raising kids, especially when they’re younger, you’re looking for ways to spend time with your kid that are also fun and interesting for you.

Michelle Icard:
That’s right.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I love little kids. They are not always the most compelling company. And so what I would just add is if it’s working out, you get along, the kids get along, that’s great. Don’t expect that that will proceed forever in the future without any friction or disruption.

Michelle Icard:
100%. It’s going to change.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s going to change.

Michelle Icard:
Not 100%, but pretty fair to say something’s going to happen, especially in a group this big. There are like eight kids, right?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah. It’s definitely going to happen. And the reason you and I are both like, “Yeah, this is time limited.”

I want to make clear something that I think is so intuitive to both of us. As kids grow, they don’t all grow in the exact same way. So the best friend in third grade where you shared every interest, nowhere is it written that magically, especially in a group this size, everyone’s going to continue to share the same interests. It’s guaranteed that there will be more diversity in what they want to do. And then of course, like you’ve so beautifully described, it makes it awkward then for the kids who feel like, “Well, what that kid wants to do isn’t exactly as cool as what I think I’m doing, so I can’t hang out with them anymore.”

Michelle Icard:
Right.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Right.

Michelle Icard:
It’s absolutely going to happen. And I think as parents being aware of that and not putting pressure on kids, I see a lot of parents say, “It’s so important to be loyal. It’s so important that you…” And it is, but that’s a rough thing to expect of a child to remain at the same pacing and have the same interest as you say. That’s a lot to put on a kid.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It just doesn’t work like that developmentally.
What are we missing? What else should I be asking you about here?

Michelle Icard:
I think the only piece that I want parents to remind themselves of is that change is good. Change can be a little bit painful, and that’s how we grow. I often say to parents, if you could choose the moment you met your child, what path you wanted them on, I know you would pick the easy path where they never have a friendship fall apart, where they get into college of their first choice and they don’t have heartbreak. But people who don’t learn how to build resilience and how to cope early and often really struggle with launching later on. So what feels like a curse right now can end up being a real blessing. And I’ve had adults say to me, “That time in my life when I was alone as a 13, 14, 15 year old, when I was sort of socially adrift and didn’t know, really taught me how to meet new people, how to make friends, how to develop my own interests.”

So it seems like it’s all bad and you won’t find out the good until much later, but I promise there is so much good to come from these moments of discomfort in growing up. It’s how you get to be a successful adult by passing through these.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah. Dealing with these hard times and finding your way through them and finding that you can find your way through them.

Michelle Icard:
Finding that you can find your way through them.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Michelle, I so love that. I think when our kids are in distress, we just want it to stop. And I think what you’re asking of us is to actually take this moment of my kid’s in distress in front of me. This is an opportunity to show them that I think they can handle this and to help them learn how to handle this. And that that opens up so many possibilities going forward, even if the moment itself is terrible.

Michelle Icard:
That’s right. And it gives you the opportunity to learn more about your kid because when you ask the question, “What could you do to feel better?” We’re going to start unlocking pieces of your child as they learn about themselves and share that with you. That’s really big.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I love that. Thank you so much.

Michelle Icard:
Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
For Parenting to Go today, I want to talk about venting. All right. There’s a lot of value in venting and letting our kids vent, right? Creating conditions at home where they can come home and just kind of unload the injustices of the day, feel like they got it out of their system, and then move on and not worry that the information’s going to follow them or come back on them, that they just got to kind of dump it. The conversation today with Michelle Icard makes it clear adults sometimes need to vent too, right? If our kid is being hurt, if we’re upset about something, sometimes we need to talk about it to process it. And what Michelle underscored, and I think it’s so true, is that it’s totally okay for adults to vent, but we, like our kids, want to be careful about where we do it.

And sometimes I think about it almost like we’ve got garbage, take the garbage out, right? Send it to a place like a sibling in another state, a trusted friend who’s not going to spread it around, send it somewhere where you can truly dispose of it and move on. So our kids need to vent and we need to vent. There’s nothing wrong with venting. We just want to make sure that we do it in a way that makes things better and doesn’t come back on us or anyone else in the future.

And be sure to join me next week for a conversation with my colleague, Dr. Tori Cordiano, about a 15-year-old boy who’s watching a lot of porn, wants to watch a lot of porn, and whose family’s having a really hard time finding ways to stop him. 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.