Why Kids Hide Behind Play Characters and What To Do When The Mask Comes Off
The elastic on Leo’s paper plate mask snapped right by the art shelf during rainy indoor recess last month. I was kneeling to pick up a handful of broken red crayons when I heard the sharp ping of frayed rubber flying off, and looked up to see the mask clatter to the linoleum. For three weeks straight, every adult and kid in our first grade class had known him only as Maskman. He’d never taken the mask off – not for lunch, where he’d lift the edge just enough to shove crackers in his mouth, not for PE, not even for the school photo when the photographer asked him to take it off. When I called his given name, he’d stare right through me like he didn’t hear.
Leo was three weeks into being Maskman, and three months into being at our school. He moved here from another state after his parents split, and the first week he was here, a kid on the playground laughed at the constellation of freckles across his nose and cheeks. Later that day, Leo pushed him into the bark mulch and got sent to the office. That night, his mom texted me, confused: he’d cut the mask out of a paper plate after dinner, tied it on, and refused to take it off. She asked if she should make him leave it at home. Should she be worried he was “escaping” being himself? I told her let’s wait a week, see what he needs. We’d play along for now.
So when the mask fell, the whole room went quiet. All the block building and coloring slowed down, every kid turned to look. Leo froze, his hands halfway up to catch the mask, and just stood there. His cheeks went pink, and he started chewing on the edge of his lower lip the way he does when he’s nervous. I stood up, wiped crayon wax off my jeans, and walked over slow. I didn’t make a big scene. I just nodded at the mask on the floor and said, “Want tape to fix that, or do you want to leave it off today?” He stared at me for a second, then shrugged and said, “Leave it off.”
Mia, the kid who sits next to him, leaned over and said, “I got freckles too. Look.” She turned her arm to show him the little brown spots on her forearm. Leo leaned in, looked, and nodded. Then he walked back to his block tower and kept stacking. No one said anything else about it for the rest of the day. That night his mom texted me again, surprised: he’d left the crumpled mask in his backpack and didn’t ask to fix it.
A lot of new parents and first-year teachers ask me what to do when a kid does this – when they invent a whole new persona, hide behind a costume, refuse to answer to their own name. The first instinct for most people is to fix it fast. Tell them it’s silly, make them take the mask off, push them to “be themselves” because that’s what we’re supposed to encourage, right? But that almost never works. Because the mask isn’t just a game, most of the time. It’s a safety shield. Leo didn’t want to be Maskman only because he thought superheroes were cool (though he did like that part). He wanted to be Maskman because Maskman doesn’t have freckles that kids laugh at. Maskman doesn’t get in trouble for pushing people who are mean. Maskman isn’t the new kid who doesn’t know anyone and misses his old house.
The first concrete thing I tell people to do is don’t force the reveal before they’re ready. If your kid wants to be called Space Pirate for two weeks, call them Space Pirate. If your 8-year-old won’t take off their Halloween costume to go to the grocery store, let them wear it. Don’t let well-meaning relatives pressure you into making them stop. You can just say “It’s what they’re comfortable with right now” and change the subject. Prying the mask off early doesn’t help them feel safer – it just teaches them they need to hide better next time.
The second thing is don’t interrogate them about why they’re hiding. You don’t have to get to the bottom of it that day. If you want to open the door, just say one quiet time, “That’s a really cool character. What’s the best part of being them?” That’s it. Don’t push for more. When I asked Leo that question a week into the mask phase, he told me straight out, “Maskman doesn’t get in trouble when he pushes people.” That was all I needed to hear. I didn’t make him talk through how hurt he was about the freckles comment, I just said, “That makes sense. It’s easier when someone else gets the blame, huh?” He nodded, and that was enough. He didn’t need a big therapy talk that day. He just needed someone to get it.
Third, when the mask does come off, accidentally or on purpose, don’t make a big deal out of it. I’ve seen people clap and cheer and say “There’s my sweet Sam! I missed you so much!” and that just makes the kid want to hide right back. It makes them feel like they did something wrong by hiding in the first place. All you have to do is offer a choice, like I did with Leo, and then move on. Treat it like any other ordinary day.
It’s been a month now. Leo doesn’t wear the paper plate mask anymore. He still gets called Maskman sometimes at recess, when they’re playing superhero games, and he answers. Sometimes, when we have a big assembly with all the grades, or when he has to meet a new person he’s nervous around, he draws a little black mask on his hand with a pencil. No one says anything about it. It works for him. His mom says he still does it sometimes when his dad’s new girlfriend comes over for dinner.
I don’t think that’s a problem. We all have little ways to make big feelings feel smaller, don’t we? I put on a calm, steady voice when I have to talk to an upset parent, even when my stomach is twisted in knots. That’s my little mask. Leo just figured out his a lot earlier than most of us. Right now, that’s enough.
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