Naomi Schaefer Riley

Naomi Schaefer Riley

Opinion

A ‘popular’ problem — when teens impress other teens

“What does it mean to be popular?” my 7-year-old daughter recently asked. As I was trying to find a delicate way of explaining the matter, my husband stepped in.

“Do people want to be friends with you?” he asked. “Yes,” she replied. “Do you want to be friends with people who don’t want to be friends with you?” “No.” “Congratulations,” he concluded drily. “You’re popular.”

Whether this is a good thing or not, I’m still on the fence. How popular should we want our kids to be? A recent study of teenagers found that those who were “cool” at 13 were more likely to have problems at 23.

According to University of Virginia researchers who published their findings in the journal Child Development, “Early adolescent pseudomature behavior predicted long-term difficulties in close relationships, as well as significant problems with alcohol and substance use, and elevated levels of criminal behavior.”

Pseudomature behavior? It’s acting not to impress adults, but to score status with other older kids. It includes things like sneaking into movies without paying, precocious romantic activity or choosing friends based on physical appearance.

A few years ago, my regular commute put me on the same Metro-North train for a few stops with a group of private-academy middle-schoolers.

Their knowing conversations — on topics from the quality of their manicures to their mothers’ boyfriends and, of course, the girls who were not a part of their crowd — horrified me. This was what everyone meant by today’s kids “growing older younger.”

Reading the UVA study, I can feel smug. Sure, at their age I was a complete nerd. But these pseudomature types will get what’s coming to them.

As a parent, though, I have to wonder: Just how do I keep my kids away from pseudomature behavior? Does the “spa” birthday party my daughter attended last weekend count?

Meghan, a mother of five in the DC area, recently moved her three youngest daughters to a new school.

She reports: “All of a sudden ‘popularity’ has become an issue.” For her 12-year-old, “it both hurts and attracts.” Her 8-year-old thinks the popular girls are “perfect” but doesn’t find them very interesting. “All they talk about is each other and clothes,” she tells her mom.

With three girls now aged 24, 22 and 14, Lauren has been thinking about this for years: “The popular girl’s interests are external to her, to include music, sports, clothes, TV and boys. Her development is steered by the approval of other adolescent girls; their approval in turn feeds her confidence and allure.

Thus, she is spending little time on intellectual curiosity, self-reflection and developing worthy, individual skills and talents.”

Which is how you end up in trouble at 23, without the skills or developed talent that would help with, say, landing a job.

What’s odd is that so many parents today seem focused on ensuring their children’s popularity. And it’s not just the mothers on those cheerleading and beauty pageant shows.

Meghan notes that many mothers at the new school “spend a lot of energy securing their daughters’ social success: lots of pizza parties and driving to dances and generally subsidizing stereotypical teenybopper behavior.”

She says her “own parents would have been incredulous if I had asked them to drive me and my friends around, waiting outside dances, for our convenience. Friendship and social standing were up to the kid, not to facilitating adults.”

In fact, adults’ overinvolvement in children’s social lives may make things worse by increasing the pressure. When you spend their toddler years lining up playdates every afternoon, it may be tough to let go when they hit adolescence.

Some concern is legitimate. David, a dad of two college-age boys, says he recalls initially worrying that his kids would “have at least a few friends. We had visions of a son sitting alone in forlorn silence at the lunch table.”

But once they achieved a minimal social life, it was time to butt out. And, he says, “I do think parents should be at least a little concerned if their kids are hyper-popular.”

Pseudomaturity is no substitute for the real thing.