Text size:

Why do kids have secret clubs?

New American Girl film reflects the bonds kids form -- and learn from

Beth Whitehouse | Parental Guidance

June 29, 2008

"Gwanga, gwanga, galoolie, kariba, kariba, kariv."

When the first American Girl feature film opens nationwide Wednesday, Long Island kids will be exposed to 9-year-old heroine Kit Kittredge's Tree House Club and learn the members' nonsensical promise of loyalty.

The club meets in Kit's backyard tree house, where members dip their hands into "sacred water" in a "sacred bowl" and put two fingers over their heart to repeat the "Gwanga gwanga" phrase.

While young viewers of "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" may not easily recognize Kit's 1930s dresses or her family's Depression-era car, they will relate to Kit's close-knit bond with her buddies. It's at Kit's age - between 7 and 10 - that children start to form a family of peers, experts say.

Beth Whitehouse E-mail | Recent columns

"It's very characteristic of young children," says Joan Kuchner, director of child and family studies in the psychology department at Stony Brook University. Children are grasping that the world has rules that extend beyond the classroom and they start to apply them to their social relationships, Kuchner says. Outside the control of adults, they figure out how the club should be formed, maintained, even broken up. Being part of the club can teach cooperation, solidarity and loyalty, experts say.

Stages of influence

"In the very early stages of their development, parents are the most important people in children's lives," says Kelvin Davis, senior director of character and leadership development for Boys & Girls Clubs of America. After that, it's their teachers. "Then, the third stage of their development becomes peer to peer, when the most important thing is to be around other young people their age and be accepted. Everybody wants to be included. Everybody wants to be valued."

Such informal clubs usually form based on something that binds the friends - the same gender or age, or a special interest such as dance, gymnastics, baseball or photography, Davis says. "Boys will probably have the types of groups that form around a video game or around sports," Davis says.

In the case of Kit, she and her friends live on the same street in Cincinnati at a time when middle-class families are struggling and Kit and her mom have to take in boarders to avoid losing their home. "Kids like that will be friends for a lifetime," Davis says. "They find someone who validated them, who they can be honest with and share their inner thoughts and feelings."

Kuchner agrees. "Some girls have friendships from that period, and it stays," Kuchner says. The 1995 movie "Now and Then," for instance, tells the story of four 12-year-old girls who make a pact to be there for each other when-ever one of them needs it - and come back together when one of the four is about to have her first child.

While such groups are best when members support each other and aren't judgmental, parents can help make sure they aren't used instead to hurt other children by excluding them.

"Yes, there can be some negativity. But there are just as many positive attributes," Davis says.

Ivy Sherman, principal at the Brookside Elementary School in Baldwin, says she encouraged three 7-year-old second-graders - Evan Cabram of Baldwin and Laila Wilson and Kayla Ham of Freeport - when they decided to form their own club during rainy school days when they were stuck inside for recess. "We started 'The Puppy Squad' when Laila says, 'Let's start a club about puppies,'" Evan says.

"We liked puppies, how they were cute and how they could run and do tricks," Kayla says. Laila and Evan both have dogs at home, but Kayla doesn't. "I have Build-A-Bears, but not real dogs."

'Secret' handshakes

The club has its own handshakes, with one of them ending with the shakers cheering, "Bark!"

And when the three discovered during their doggy research that the International Day of the Dog falls at the end of April, they got the school involved. The school altered the lunch menu one day to include hot dogs in the main course and Devil Dogs for dessert, and any student who wanted to could read a poem, anecdote or riddle about dogs over the loudspeaker, Sherman says.

The club has been beneficial for the three both socially and emotionally, Sherman says. "It really created a nice bond between them."

TIP: A club - not a clique

Although forming clubs can be a positive experience for children, what's problematic is when a club becomes a clique, experts say.

"When it becomes something that's exclusionary, then we discourage it," says Nick Angelo, a guidance counselor at two elementary schools in the Freeport school district.

"Nobody wants to deal with rejection," agrees Franie James, a guidance counselor at Weber Middle School in Port Washington. "If it empowers girls in a way that could hurt other girls, it's not a great thing. You don't want to wind up with a 'Mean Girls' situation." That 2004 movie starring Long Island native Lindsay Lohan centered on a school clique called The Plastics.

Adults want to be sure a club doesn't become a toxic situation, or one that involves rituals, or one in which peers pressure members to do things they aren't comfortable with to earn a place in the group.

Healthy clubs also shouldn't expect members to forsake other friends, Angelo says.

And, of course, parents want to be sure the club members make good choices. A group of girls at a Massachusetts high school, for instance, reportedly made a troubling pact to get pregnant while still in high school and raise their babies together.

American Girl collecting

In conjunction with its first feature-length movie, the American Girl conglomerate has released a slew of new products through the American Girl catalog at americangirl.com and at American Girl's retail store in Manhattan. Here's a sampling:

Ruthie Doll (Ruthie Smithens is Kit Kittredge's best friend): Retail price, $105, with doll, book and accessories; $90, doll and paperback book only; $95, doll and hardcover book only

Kit's Tree House, $250

Kit's Wash Day Set, $80