When You’re Not Crazy About Your Child’s Friends

As a parent, it’s bound to happen. Your child will bring home their newest friend so you can meet him or her and you’re at a loss for words. You see immediately that this is not a great friend choice for your own child. So what do you do?

Much will depend on the age of the child. Regardless of age, I never suggest telling your child that you don’t like their friend. I’ve never seen any good come from this strategy.

If your child is in elementary school, you still have quite a bit of control around play dates and whose house your child plays at.

I remember when my own daughter was five years old. She had a friend come over to play. I drove the child home. When we got there at the agreed upon time, the front door was locked. We knocked. No answer. We rang the bell. No answer. The mom’s car was not in the driveway. We heard the baby crying. At this point I was seriously considering calling the police. I was a bit scared for what might be going on. It was probably three to four minutes of knocking, ringing and contemplating my next move when a car sped around the corner and a teenager jumped out. The teenager was babysitting and had gone out for just a quick moment. The teen was the older brother of the five year old.

Of course I would NEVER allow my daughter to play there, EVER. I did not have to say anything to my own five year old other than her friend was welcome at our house but my daughter could not go there. The friendship actually quickly faded.

As your children grow older and enter their pre-teen and teen years, telling them you don’t like someone will only make them cling more to the friendship. Forbidding a friendship puts your child into a situation of probably lying to you. I know parents never want to think their own children will lie to them, but it happens when we create rules such as “you can never hang out with that person.”

Over the years, I’ve engaged my kids in conversation. I want to make sure my kids see what I’m seeing and if they don’t see it, I want to know what they are seeing. For example, my daughter had a friend who always stood her up or cancelled on her. We talked about it. I really wondered why my daughter continued to try and nurture the friendship and why she even wanted this girl as a friend. Through conversation I understood that the girl was very trustworthy and was a wonderful shoulder to cry on when needed.

Both of my kids have been friends with kids who had very troubled lives. They’ve both known kids who have been in various treatment centers. I never forbade friendships. Instead we’d talk about the situation, talk about how they were offering friendship to this troubled person and talk about ways to avoid the troubled behaviors.

It’s guaranteed we will not always like our children’s friends or agree with their choices of friends. How we handle our own relationships with our children is what will make the difference in how those friendships progress.

Audrey :)
http://mytupperware.com/audreyoka