The BEST Way to Help Your Kid With Friendship Conflicts
By Emily Mall —
Sep 15, 2024
It’s a new season and a new school year, which often means new friends and...new problems! As our Pivotal kids get older, they are navigating new feelings as they consider their friendships and social interactions. Thanks to hormones and changing interests, they will have more conflicts in their relationships. It’s super normal.
As parents and caregivers, this is tough, and might feel like it’s harder on us than them! As we watch their shoulders slump, we get upset, too. We push for details to find out what happened, we remember and get triggered by our own tough friendship experiences, we offer hugs and snacks, and then we rack our brains and jump to what we can do about the situation to help our kid feel better.
How DO we help our kids navigate their friendships?
Lourdes Hill College clinical psychologist Kristina Morgan says, “Your child will fall, and they will feel overwhelmed. That’s okay. Believe it or not, you want that. They need the bumps to learn. You want them to find the gaps in their social and emotional competence so that you can support them while they fill those gaps.”
What does support mean, though? Giving them advice? Taking things into our own hands? Calling the parents, talking to a teacher, or contacting all who are involved?
Here’s what is important to remember: this is exactly how our kids learn positive social interaction during this Pivotal time: by having and experiencing these difficult situations and by watching and learning how we respond and react to them.
Gah. No pressure, right?
What can we do to make sure we’re helping and demonstrating healthy responses?
Talk to them about how everybody is different and operates from their own reality. Naturally, that can cause conflict! Of course! Remind them that even though every one is different, everyone experiences conflict at some point in their life. We talk about being different (and owning it!) a lot on The Great Job! Podcast, as we want our kids to feel confident in their own sense of self and identity.
Our Pivotal kid’s brains aren’t fully developed yet in the area of thinking and acting rationally. Teaching them to recognize the difference between thinking and responding versus feeling and reacting can help them! Gently remind them they’ll need a lot of practice in this area, but that you will be there to help!
Don’t rescue, support! When we react and jump in to “help,” this reinforces to them that the situation is WAY worse then than they thought it was, and that they aren’t capable of handling the problem themselves! You can “help” by listening first. Ask them if they want advice, help, etc. Coach your kid in what to say, how to respond, what they have (or don’t have) permission to do. Let them know you are on their team, ready to support, and that they can do this!
This is NOT a version a “tough love.” Tough love leaves kids alone and on their own do deal with situations they don’t have the tools for yet! By supporting your kid, you listen, check in often, and ask and offer advice, giving them language and tools to help them learn, understand, and navigate the situation.
*As a teenager, I knew without a doubt that my parents were on my team. It was a powerful, confident feeling! I used it to my advantage a lot: whenever something came up at school, I’d say “Let's call my parents” which I found often caused adults to consider the true size of the situation and whether it needed to be escalated or not.
Manage your own feelings and boundaries. This is not your relationship problem nor is it your friendship; it’s your kids. You might be triggered by your own past friendship experiences. You might struggle with your own upset feelings watching your kid struggle with theirs. You might struggle with feelings of guilt if you don’t do anything and worry that you aren’t a good parent. You might have your own unrealized expectations of your kid’s popularity and amount of friends you think they should have. These are things you need to sit with and explore on your own before reacting. Talk to a friend or professional, journal, research, sleep on it, or give it a few days before you decide to jump in and respond. Model responding instead of reacting to your kid. You can even tell them what you are doing: “You know, I’m sorry this is tough for you and really upset about your situation. Ugh. This happened to me when I was a kid, and I wish it didn’t happen to you, too! I feel so mad that I want to jump up and call their parent right now! But you know what? That’s just my reaction right now. If you want, I can help you brainstorm some things to do or ways to respond. I’m always here to help or support you.”
Teach your kid friendship skills: communicating clearly, making new friends, forgiving, supporting and encouraging friends, standing up for yourself, conflict resolution, protecting others, resisting pressure, and setting and maintaining boundaries. These aren’t things kids “should just know” or will eventually pick up on their own. They learn from others, and hopefully from you! Often, if they don’t learn from you, they’ll learn from their peers who have no skills themselves, thus perpetuating the unhealthy friendship behaviors.
This Week: Talk to your kid about their friendships. Ask them what they like or don’t like about their friends. Ask them what they would do in certain situations (What would you do if your friends don’t want to hang out with you anymore? If you don’t want to be friends with them anymore? What do you think is a healthy or ideal way to respond or react?). Everyday this week—in car rides, at dinner or breakfast, before bed, etc.—pick a friendship skill from the numbered list above and talk to them about it. Check in and see what they know, what they could learn, and how you can support them!
You’re killing it!
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