Help Your Kids Make Friends

Do friends just happen? Not always, says Kelle Larkin, who offers advice and resources to parents whose children might be struggling.

Good friends during childhood can be a better predictor of adult success than good grades, according to adolescent psychologist Dr Nick Long. “Research shows that one of the best indicators of how well-adjusted we will be as adults is not based on IQ or grades in school, but the degree to which the child has good friendships,” says Long on Connecting With Kids, a dedicated website.

Long says by the time a child starts school, he or she should have at least one close friend. “It’s important for parents to try to set up situations for kids to meet other children who might have similar interests to try to develop those friendships.” Long says parents should take those relationships very seriously, because lonely and isolated children are at risk of many problems, such as poor grades, depression and bullying.

Kids make friends in different ways and in different stages, depending on their ages and social skills. And friendships are crucially important to a child’s emotional wellbeing.

If your child lacks friends, they may need some guidance on how to make them. Severe anxiety needs professional attention. The shy child with few friends can be a confusing frustration, especially to an outgoing parent.
“I always tell parents that if a child is

aving trouble making friends because he or she is shy, not to push the child. I tell them to relax! The timid child who is forced to socialise and do things they don’t want to do will only withdraw more,” says Sherry Hanley, a paediatric nurse practitioner at ProMed Physicians–Pediatrics. “Some parents are appalled when a shy child won’t talk to adults or other children; I try to take the pressure off the parents by telling them that most shy kids eventually find a friend or two with the same temperament.”

Hanley says that parents of a shy child should let them simply be themselves; they’ll choose similar friends on their own without coercion. “What’s really important is that the parent makes sure that the child learns their values.”

She continues, “If a child has no friends at all, I would dig deeper into the issue and get more background on this child: Is there violence in the home? Has there been a divorce? Is there neglect or abuse going on? Are there behavioural problems? What’s going on at school? How is the child articulating? I get the history first and look for ‘red flags’ of underlying reasons that might need attention before I make any recommendations. There’s no single ‘recipe’ for making friends.”
If there were such a recipe, one main ingredient might be parental attitude and involvement. Family Fun magazine recently polled a group of parents asking the questions, “How have you helped your kids make friends?” Writer Nicole Wise reported, “Their answers varied widely, but one theme was striking: All found that taking a deep interest in their kids’ social lives led to notable improvements in their home lives as well. Friends of our kids, they found, are friends of our families.”

Resources for kids are plentiful on this topic. In Getting Along With Your Friends, author Phyllis Reynolds Naylor defines friendship in a conversational book targeted at older children and gently counsels them on how to be a better friend, how to quarrel without losing friends and how to see yourself as others see you. She encourages self-exploration techniques and helps children identify negative traits, like manipulative tendencies, in themselves. “Manipulators are people who get their own way by slowly, carefully wearing others down or tricking them by some means. It doesn’t say much about you as a friend if this is the way you treat others. A person should be able to ask openly and directly for what he wants without resorting to games or lies or manipulation,” says Naylor. “Getting what you want may not get you very far in the long run.”

Primary school teacher and early-childhood specialist Joy Wilt writes for the early and middle primary set in A Kid’s Guide to Making Friends. She defines and explores the differences between acquaintances, playmates and best friends and gives direct advice to kids on how to make a friend. “When making a friend, think of the other person as special and think of the other person as being important,” Wilt says.

“When making a friend, show the other person that you are interested in him or her, use that person’s first name frequently, and listen carefully to the other person; encourage him or her to talk about himself or herself. When making a friend, talk to the other person about things that interest him or her. And if the other person appears disinterested in what you are saying, talk about something else.”

Wilt advises kids to not only think of their friends in flattering terms, but also to do everything in their power to let the other person know about these feelings. She encourages mutual respect between friends (something children often forsake), respect for each other’s feelings, bodies and possessions. She gives some very helpful and explicit “don’ts”: “A nickname is OK as long as the person who is being called the nickname likes it—never call a person by a nickname he or she doesn’t like,” along with “try to solve your problems without nagging and arguing. If you have done something to hurt the other person, admit it, apologise and ask forgiveness.”

Red Rogers offers Making Friends, a picture book that explains the concept of friendship in simple terms that preschoolers can grasp. It’s illustrated with colour photos of young children enjoying their friends. He addresses “sharing” beautifully, for example, saying, “It can be hard for you to share your toys, and it can be hard to wait your turn—even for friends. When you can share or wait your turn, you can know that you’re learning how to be a good friend.”

Above all else, being a good role model for friendship may be the best possible way to help your child make friends. In his preface to parents, Rogers says, “Learning about friendship begins at an early age when children ‘graduate’ from playing side by side to playing with each other. Learning to share and learning to compromise are enormous challenges for the young child whose view of the world is largely self-centred. We can provide our children with opportunities for play with their peers.

“We can offer them suggestions for compromise and we can intervene when necessary. But our greatest gift may be the examples we set in our own friendships. It is from us, I believe, that our children are likely to learn best.”

how to Make friends

Tips from Dr Nick Long for parents wishing to help their children make friends:

Provide opportunities for kids to play with their peers.
Play with your child in a peer-like way.
Let children work out problems on their own, intervening only when necessary.
As children mature, continue to supervise their play with friends from a distance.
Look for the best in your child’s friends.
Encourage a positive attitude at all times.