Has your child ever had a friendship challenge?
As parents, it’s important to teach children that friendships are wonderful but not always perfect. Friendships bring joy, connection, and support, but they can also come with challenges. In this blog, I will be sharing six ways you can help your kids navigate friendship challenges so that they have better experiences with friendship and even become better friends themselves.
Below are six ways to help your kids navigate a friendship challenge.
6 Ways to help your child navigate friendship challenges
Tip 1: Feel, don't Fix
“Nobody likes me”, “She said I'm weird”, “I have nobody to play with in school”- these are statements that can make your gut twist, heartbreaking to hear and almost impossible not to be triggered by. Your own experience of friendships will be in the mix when your child says something like this and the urge to jump in and ‘fix’, minimise, dismiss, cheer them up will be strong. But, if you can pause and allow yourself to feel with your child, keep your own emotions separate (process them later for sure!) and focus on really listening, this is the first step to helping your child make sense of their feelings.
Tip 2: Opportunity for Problem Solving and Resilience
In most cases (I am not talking about bullying today), childhood friendship fall outs are very normal. In fact, 7 year olds care so much about belonging and friendships and can be so sensitive to social rejection that fights and complaints about friends are often at an all time high! It's important for adults to allow children the opportunity to problem solve, reflect, negotiate, apologise, try again that fall outs afford them with. So, think of yourself as a sounding board, listening to the issues and wondering with your child about their thoughts while scaffolding their next steps.
Tip 3: Social Skills
The better the play skills, the better the social skills in a lot of cases. So, if you feel your child is struggling with friendships for social skill reasons, consider increasing their opportunities for play. For example, doll play has been proven to increase perspective taking and empathy in children, essentials for healthy friendship relationships. Fun, turn taking games are often the foundation of understanding impulse control and sharing for little ones too. If your child struggles in big groups, start small with some 1:1 playdates and build from there.
Tip 4: Preparations
It can be extremely jarring and upsetting if a classmate or friend says something unkind to a child, often taking them by surprise and leaving them bursting to get home to you and vent/ release. In order to help your child with what to say if someone is unkind, bossy and how to stand up for themselves, preparation is everything! My favourite way to do this is with fun, laughter and play. Role play out how an interaction with the bossy friend might go with your child. Have fun, allowing the laughter to release fears as you get them prepped with sentences that will roll off the tongue in the moment with a little practice.
Tip 5: Explore the topic of friendships
I've worked with many parents who tell me that their child is friends with a child who really isn't very nice to them, yet, they want to maintain the friendship. It can be very helpful to speak to your child about things like- what makes a good friend? How do you know if someone is a good friend? Are you a good friend, why? Are friends important, why?. Having a series of fluid, gentle, open conversations about friendships can help children to come to their own conclusions about who they want to hang out with while knowing that they are supported by you. Reading books on this topic can be a big hit too.
Tip 6: Build Esteem
And finally, friendships are often tied up in identity for children and teens. Friends can mean being ‘cool’, part of the group, accepted. When you work on your child's esteem and build them up from the inside out, they are often less sensitive to rejection, affected by fall outs and have a sense of worth that will carry them through many challenges with resilience. A quick way to build esteem is to pivot your praise. Instead of ‘well done/ good boy' think about making praise personal ‘how did you think of that?/ wow, that was very creative’.
P.S. Here are a few resources that might help you support your child even more
1. Explore our catalogue of courses PLUS weekly helpful parenting goodies in our private membership https://www.hayley-rice.com/membership
2. Check out my course on Esteem and Confidence: https://www.hayley-rice.com/building-confidence