Back to school means returning to the social lion’s den: exclusion, discrimination, bullying, sexual harassment, and approximately 47 different ways teenagers can make one another feel awkward before first period.
And unless you’ve been homeschooling your kids, in which case: apparently there are a lot more of you than I realized, your teens are heading back to public or private school right about now.
Summer has its own challenges, of course. But one thing many kids get a break from during the summer is having to spend seven hours a day with people they didn’t choose. Summer camps tend to be relatively niche, which means kids are often surrounded by other people who share at least one interest: soccer kids with soccer kids, theater kids with theater kids, dancers with dancers, band kids with band kids. Even when summer isn’t exactly idyllic, teens often have more opportunities to find “their people” and more control over how much time they spend with everyone else.
Then school starts. Suddenly, your teenager is back in a building with hundreds or thousands of other young people, many of whom they did not choose to spend their day with. Instagram Stories are documenting everyone’s lunch, and someone has already created a new group chat that apparently everyone except your child is in. They have to navigate friendships, cliques, crushes, rejection, rumors, sexual comments, body image pressure, social media drama, and the complicated business of figuring out where they fit in the social hierarchy.
So while you’re buying the notebooks, replacing the water bottle they somehow lost despite it being approximately the size of a fire hydrant, and arguing about whether they really need seventeen hoodies, it is worth preparing them for something else: the unpredictable and turbulent social stuff.
Because surviving the back-to-school transition requires considerably more than knowing where the math classroom is.
Exclusion isn’t always about a teen being individually cruel. Adolescents are intensely motivated to figure out “Who are my people?” Sometimes one way to establish group identity is to establish who isn’t in the group.
This becomes especially powerful when the desired peer group already engages in exclusion or derogatory behavior. For example, trying out for sports, not making team and having others tear you apart behind your back signals that you are definitely not in that group. A teen may participate because not participating could mean losing their own social standing.
Students can experience social exclusion or hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, body size, socioeconomic status, appearance, or other characteristics. And sometimes it isn’t one dramatic incident. It’s the accumulation of little things: jokes, stereotypes, being left out, comments in the hallway, who gets invited, who gets believed, who gets called “weird.” That accumulation matters.
We can help by shifting the focus from teaching kids how to make friends to teaching them how to evaluate relationships. Friendship isn’t supposed to feel like an audition. A good friend is someone around whom you can generally feel safe, respected, accepted, comfortable being yourself, able to say no, able to disagree, and able to make mistakes without fearing social annihilation.
A key survival tip is to find healthy ways to feel a sense of belonging. Popularity isn’t the best goal.
If you’re reading this and your kid is popular, they won’t be immune to bullying and discrimination. They will likely experience it too, but might also do it to others as a way of belonging.
Sometimes adults dismiss adolescent social problems with “Kids are so mean these days.” But adolescence is precisely when peer relationships become incredibly important. Being excluded from a lunch table, mocked in the hallway, sexually harassed, or publicly humiliated can feel enormous because, developmentally, it is enormous.
The goal isn’t to catastrophize every awkward interaction. It’s to help parents distinguish between normal adolescent conflict and patterns of harm.
Not every unpleasant social experience is bullying, discrimination, or sexual harassment. But not everything that gets dismissed as “teen drama” is harmless, either.
Sexual jokes, comments about someone’s body, rating someone’s attractiveness, sexual rumors, unwanted touching, “jokes” about someone’s sexuality, and sexualized memes can become normalized in adolescent peer culture.
And because everyone is laughing, adults can miss the fact that someone isn’t laughing.
There is also a gendered dimension worth exploring: girls may experience more sexual comments and harassment directed at them, while boys may experience pressure to participate in sexualized joking to demonstrate masculinity or social belonging.
Let’s talk about clothes. Because nothing says “back-to-school” quite like a teenager trying on six outfits while a parent develops a sudden and very specific opinion about the length of a skirt.
Girls are getting messages from every direction about how they’re supposed to look: thinner, prettier, trendier, more feminine, less feminine, sexy but not too sexy. Then, sometimes without meaning to, adults add another layer:
“That’s too short.”
“That’s too tight.”
“You’re not leaving the house dressed like that.”
“What will people think?”
I’m intentionally talking about girls here, including both cisgender and transgender girls, because research consistently shows that girls’ clothing and appearance are more heavily scrutinized and policed than boys’ and nonbinary young people’s. Clothing that is tighter, shorter, or exposes more skin simply gives adults and peers more opportunities to comment, criticize, and judge.
Let’s try to keep this in mind: Our kids are heading back into a school environment where they’re likely to encounter plenty of judgment from their peers. Let’s not have home become another place where they learn that their bodies are something other people get to evaluate.
We absolutely can have conversations about school dress codes, clothing appropriate for particular activities, weather, comfort, safety, and family values. But we can do that without teaching kids that their bodies are responsible for other people’s behavior.
A girl’s outfit does not cause sexual harassment.
A boy’s outfit does not cause sexual harassment.
A nonbinary kid’s outfit does not cause harassment.
The person doing the harassing is responsible for the harassment.
And this distinction matters because when we tell teens that they need to dress a certain way to avoid unwanted attention, we can accidentally give them a dangerous message: If something happens to you, maybe you should have dressed differently.
We’ve got enough victim-blaming in the world. We don’t need to send it home in a Target shopping bag.
I’m not suggesting a family eliminates every clothing rule. It can help to make sure our rules and conversations are about utility of the clothing, context, and expectations rather than the worth or character of the person wearing it.
And perhaps the most important message to send before school starts:
"You are never responsible for someone else's decision to harass, sexualize, mock, or disrespect you because of what you're wearing."
We can help teach boys that being a good peer is an active skill, not simply the absence of bad behavior. Boys can learn to notice when someone is uncomfortable, embarrassed, excluded, or being targeted. And yes, sometimes that means giving a girl your sweatshirt when she gets her period. This is not the same lesson as “Be a gentleman and rescue girls.” It’s “Notice what other people need and respond respectfully.”
That could mean:
Offering a sweatshirt without making a big announcement.
Not laughing when someone gets embarrassed.
Changing the subject when friends start making sexual comments about someone.
Not joining in when a friend sends around a humiliating photo.
Including someone who’s being left out.
Saying, “Dude, that’s not funny,” when a friend crosses a line.
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I am writing about preparing kids for the social side of school, so let’s talk about the shopping side for a minute. Because apparently we also need to prepare ourselves for the psychological warfare that is back-to-school shopping.
FIRST: You do not need to buy an entire wardrobe right now
It is still very much summer. Your kid probably does not need six sweaters, three pairs of boots, and an entire collection of fall outfits before they’ve even finished their first week of school. Their style preferences may change in the next two months. Their bodies may change. Their opinions will definitely change.
And if I know anything about teenagers, it is that the outfit they were absolutely certain they needed on August 18 may become “literally the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen” by September 18.
Jeans, however, appear to be the one exception to the back-to-school shopping madness. Apparently it truly is the best time of year for denim sales. If your kid needs jeans, buy the jeans. Otherwise, consider waiting.
Once school starts, they’ll have a much better sense of what their peers are actually wearing, what feels comfortable, and what they genuinely want. You don’t have to solve the entire school year in one trip to Target.
SECOND: Don’t underestimate the backpack and lunchbox
I know. They’re a backpack and a lunchbox. Why does it matter if the lunchbox has the right logo? Why does a 14-year-old suddenly have deeply held opinions about the aesthetic of a container that will hold a turkey sandwich? Because these things are social signals.
For kids, backpacks, shoes, water bottles, lunchboxes, and other everyday items can be ways of expressing personality and figuring out where they fit. Adults may see a $75 backpack. Your kid may see a tiny piece of their social identity that they’re carrying around school every day. So if they care about it, I’d try to care about it too.
That doesn’t mean saying yes to every $50 water bottle with a cult following. It does mean having a conversation about your budget:
“Here’s what we’re able to spend. If you want something that costs more than that, you can decide whether it’s worth using some of your own money for the difference.”
That gives them some autonomy while keeping you from accidentally financing a lifestyle influencer’s back-to-school haul.
THIRD: leave some room in the budget for the things you haven’t thought of yet
Because there will be something. There is always something. And your teenager will absolutely discover it approximately 11 minutes after you get home from the store.
School is not just six or seven hours of algebra and biology. For many teenagers, it’s seven hours of:
monitoring where they sit at lunch
navigating friendships
managing social media
trying not to look weird
figuring out whether someone is mad at them
avoiding someone they don’t want to see
deciding what to wear
trying to communicate with teachers
all while pretending that they do not care about any of the above!
It’s exhausting! So when they come home and want to lie horizontally for three hours while eating something that has approximately zero nutritional value, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re lazy. They may be decompressing. For the first two weeks of school, throw the screen time rules out the window!
Parents can create a “landing zone” after school:
Lower expectations for a while
Don’t immediately launch into homework questions
Don’t schedule every afternoon
Don’t require elaborate family dinners every night
Let them have quiet
Give them food
Let them shower, nap, walk, scroll, read, or stare into space
Save difficult conversations for when everyone’s nervous system is better adjusted
Preparing for assholes. I often give the recommendations of reading children’s books to teens. There are lots of great children’s books on bullying and discrimination. They may roll their eyes, but you’ll both have a laugh and the lesson will still get through. There’s nothing like reframing the biggest jerk in the school as just a really sad Rhino.
Don’t just ask, “How was school?” Say something that communicates that home is a place to recover, not another performance venue. Try:
“Do you want to talk, eat, or be left alone for 20 minutes?”
“Do you need advice, distraction, food, or absolutely nothing from me right now?”
You can put this one on a refrigerator: “You don’t have to tell me everything the minute you walk through the door.”
Don’t just ask, “How was school?” After some time has passed, ask about the social hierarchy, not just individual incidents.
“Who seems to have the most social power at your school?”
“Who gets picked on?”
“Are there groups of kids who seem like they don’t really belong in any group?” Tell me more about them
Don't just ask, "Are there any bullies at school?" Ask about the experiences of other lots of other kids:
"Who gets included at school?”
“Who gets left out?”
“Have you ever seen someone get embarrassed and noticed everyone made it worse by laughing?”
“What kinds of kids get made fun of?"
Don’t just say, “You need to respect girls.” Ask about the experiences of girls, nonbinary, and transgender students:
“What kinds of sexual jokes are happening at school?
Who tends to be the target?
What happens if someone says they don’t like it?”
“What does being a ‘good guy’ at school actually look like?”
Don’t just encourage good behavior. Ask questions to assess their own skills:
“What do you do when your friends are making fun of someone and you can tell that person isn’t laughing?”
“What would you do if a girl at school (visibly) started her period unexpectedly?”
“What would make it easier for you to speak up when your friends are doing something you know isn’t right?”
While shopping for clothes, try to get at the utility of the clothes or how they feel in it (instead of emphasizing size or appropriateness).
“Do you feel comfortable in it?”
“Do you actually like it, or do you feel like you need to wear it because everyone else is?”
“What makes an outfit feel like you?”
“When discussing school dress codes specifically: “Do you think a rule can be enforced without making someone feel ashamed of their body?”
“You get to choose clothes that feel comfortable and work well for what you are doing.”
Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls by Rachel Simmons
Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School by C. J. Pascoe
Crabbe, R., Pivnick, L. K., Bates, J., Gordon, R. A., & Crosnoe, R. (2019). Contemporary college students’ reflections on their high school peer crowds. Journal of Adolescent Research, 34(5), 563-596.
Maas, M. K., Gal, T., Cary, K. M., & Greer, K. (2022). Popular culture and pornography education to improve the efficacy of secondary school staff response to student sexual harassment. American Journal of Sexuality Education, 17(4), 435-457.
Ormerod, A. J., Parisi, T., DeBlaere, C., & Sagrestano, L. M. (2023). School climate tolerant of sexual harassment is indirectly related to academic disengagement through peer sexual harassment and feeling safe in high school girls. Journal of Social Issues, 79(4), 1231-1250.
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